Description:
pastoral scene with a haystack in the foreground; landscape; outdoor; agriculture
Label Text:
Vanessa Bell was a prominent British painter active in the Bloomsbury group, a literary and artistic circle in London that included her sister, the author Virginia Woolf. This work was painted at Asheham, the country house the two sisters rented in Sussex, England, in 1912. Bell studied for several years with John Singer Sargent at the Royal Academy Schools in London. However, she was most influenced by Post-Impressionist artists, whose works caused a sensation when they were exhibited in London in 1910 and 1912. The parallel brushstrokes in this painting, for example, are reminiscent of Cézanne's paintings, while the simplified forms and dark outlines echo works by both Gauguin and Matisse. Bell employed a similar style in the textiles, ceramics and furniture she created for the Omega Workshops, a design studio she helped to found in 1913. The monumental haystack, positioned at the center of the canvas where it obscures most of the 19th-century house, echoes Monet's series of haystacks, which Bell probably knew.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+1989.23 |
