Mima Review- Winifred Nicholson, Window-sill Lugano 1923

This piece of art in the Mima gallery by Winifred Nicholson had caught my eye due to looking similar to a piece of work which I had previously painted, due to the window view in the background and objects in the foreground.

I am particularly fond of the use of capturing both still life and landscape, capturing both the ever changing element and that of everlasting and non moving objects unless manually moved.

Her mark making is almost primitive in the way that not a lot of detail is shown amongst the flowers, but there is enough difference in tone and colour to indicate to the audiences where there is less light and how each plants differ from one another.

I am also interested in the way her paints appear to have cracked in the background, which to me gives a mosaic like appearance and a mix of the mediums, whether it was deliberate or due to ware over time I believe that it adds a lot of atmosphere and experience to the painting, showing that it stood the test of time.

From my point the image shows that the flowers are more or less looking out to the window, which I think is unusual due to if it was just a normal flower painting, the most aesthetically pleasing part of a flower is the petals which would be more interesting if they faced toward the audience, but instead they are looking out. Giving me the impression that this is supposed to signify them as living and actually enjoying their life in peace by watching the world go by fast and ever changing, whilst they have to stay positioned and just watch.

To me, the flowers are also all different which I believe could be a comparisons for humans,and how we, instead of finding the similarities between each other only look for differences, such as race and gender, whereas the flowers don't care and in the end are enjoying the small stuff in life together which the vast majority of people can't comprehend because wars,money and politics over trivial matters seem ever more important, and that surviving and gaining materialistic objects is more important than 'living'.

The use of colours I find to be very interesting and appealing, the use of soft and mellow reds and yellows contrast well with the strong and dark clash of the blue, which is placed nicely in the middle and background more so towards the left, and also very strongly in a flower on the right, which makes the audience scan the canvas rather than focus solely on one spot. The placement of the blue flower also interests me as it looks like it is using the golden sector rule and being put in a 1:1.6 ratio from the rest of the page.