Label Text:
Although Oxman’s print is a meticulously arranged still life in what appears to be an interior setting, the scattered aquatic scenes, the clear vase filled to the brim, and the ivy making its way across the triptych are all evocative of outdoor ponds and gardens. Postcards, rocks, and boxes are presented with such precision and contrast that the objects appear to levitate off the paper. The title, taken from a passage in T. S. Eliot’s 1922 poem "The Waste Land" in which the speaker longs to hear the sound of water over a rock, also subtly alludes to the diversity of forms in the print. Similar to Eliot’s complex and excursive poem, Oxman’s print is a mélange of the traditional and the modern, the soft and the sharply cut, the flat and the three-dimensional, the geometric and the impressionistic. Notice, for instance, the contrasts between the rug’s pattern, the renditions of Japanese prints, and Monet’s water lilies.
Daria Chernysheva, Class of 2016
Tags:
still lifes; interiors; gardens; flowers; nature; water Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+2013.108.1-3 |
