John Meyer
Provenance : PROVENANCE Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg. John Meyer’s reputation as South Africa’s most renowned and significant realist painter is unimpeachable. He has exhibited all over the world, and is regarded as a modern-day ‘court painter’, commissioned to paint many official subjects and occasion works in the upper echelons of global society. His immaculately composed painted narratives, either in the vignette and cinematic form he has favoured more recently, or in the grand historical narratives he has also depicted in many well-known canvases, can sometimes belie the skill and talent with which all his work is imbued. This intense landscape bears all the hallmarks of the painterly photorealism for which his work is celebrated. However, this work also offers an opportunity to examine, from a more aesthetic perspective, unencumbered by narrative considerations which surface in the historical subjects and in his portraiture, exactly how he goes about his craft. A justifiable reputation as a master craftsman is here exemplified by texture, colour and brushstroke in a beautiful example of a meditative and technically accomplished work. In paintings of this kind, Meyer’s debt, or at least reference to, Classical genre painters is evident. There is a subtle handling of light in this composition, as well as a naturalist tactility, that turns away from his usual tendency to narrativisation. The work on auction is therefore of interest in its singular focus on its material and naturalist subject. James Sey
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