Still Life With Vessels And Fruit ,
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Notes : On invitation via personal email correspondence, Pippa and John Skotnes offered some insights into their father’s still life paintings. Pippa Skotnes reflects on his practice and passions:‘Cecil loved to make still lifes and would often produce them between other bodies of work as a kind of contemplation both of life and of painting. Originally, as a very young painter he was influenced by the still lifes of Cézanne, but later dwelled more on the last suppers of Duccio and Giotto where the tables were titled to reveal to the viewer the simple fruits and objects of the Passover Feast. He was also very moved by the frescoes of Pompeii and the quiet object collections of Giorgio Morandi. The meal, or feast, was very important to Cecil – he and Thelma frequently had friends over for dinner or lunch, and during his life in Johannesburg the family spent every Sunday at Vittorino and Paolina Meneghelli’s household where artists and poets and other friends gathered for long lunches. In these paintings, somehow, the very rich extent of his influences came together, and he demonstrated these with a sense of the fullness of what paint and brush could represent. There would always be a still-life hanging in the kitchen or in the living room, or arranged as a collection of objects on a table.’On seeing an image of this painting, John Skotnes exclaimed:‘Beautiful work!! … He liked the juxtaposition of things. The metaphysical nature of inanimate objects … is hinted at in his still life paintings.’
Emma Bedford
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