Still Life
Books and a Glass of Water
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Series
- Still Life
A stack of paperbacks and hardbacks leans slightly on an ochre tabletop, the topmost a scarlet-covered volume that anchors the pile. Beside it a plain glass, half filled with water, refracts the blue cloth pooled beneath the books and throws a soft caustic of light onto the surface.
The subject is deliberately spare, an exercise in weight, edge and transparency. Warm yellow and cool blue are set against a deep brown ground, and the painter concentrates on the way daylight models the cut pages and slips through the water and glass.
