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addition to many drawings with fish of various types between 1949
and 1954.
In these
still-lifes with fish, Skov quite characteristically presents the viewer
with the telling details of the motif in order to make it come alive in its
individuality. Sometimes, for example, the important clue designating a
particular fish species is the characteristic shape and locations of the
fins, the color and size of the scales of the skin, or the position and
size of the eyes. Similarly with the household items that appear in these
still-lifes. It is for instance easy enough to identify the individual
glasses used in the Skov household from the paintings: the small cone of
the Danish Aquavit glasses are typical for the lunch and dinner table, the
wine glass with its short stem with a bulb, and the cylindrical, fluted
water glass.
There really is
nothing extraordinary in a visual sense to be expected from any of these
motifs, certainly nothing particularly pretty or charming. To the contrary
actually, they are merely the normal household table fare, and the only
remarkable aspect of these paintings is the rigorous cubist treatment of
the subject. In this work, as in the roof-top cityscapes that he painted
during the same time frame, Skov already demonstrated his confidence in
resolving the visualized objects and space with complete consistency in
accordance within the paradigm of the Cubist aesthetics. It was this
uncompromising consistency of the Cubist expression, and the extent to
which he was able and willing to apply it, that set Skov apart entirely
from the previous Danish Cubists.
Although
Skov in some of his other paintings from the same period used the
Analytic-cubist technique, whereby space is created by placing planes
behind one-another as a set of cards dealt on a table, this is less the
case in this series of still-lifes with fish. It seems that the planes used
to create the spatial effect in these paintings are fitted together at
their edges and represents integrated parts of the motif, following more the
Synthetic-cubist prescription. The viewer will therefore readily be able to
identify the individual planes as part of specific planar objects or
elements of the motif, the fish, for example, or a window, door, wall,
curtain, table top, table cloth, wrapping paper or newspaper.
Interestingly, this does not make them less useful in the context of space
rendition, but it does preserve the illusion of their existence being
justified as a part of the motif rather than resulting from a pictorial
aesthetic need.
Whichever
reason for the employment of fractional planes in the painting is primary
may perhaps be immaterial for anyone but the artist; however, it is clear
from many of Skov’s other paintings in this period, such as the still-lifes
with music instruments, that he was completely conversant also with the
application of the plane-behind-a-plane rendition of spatial relationships.
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