The Easel

8th December 2020

Interiors: hello from the living room

Interiors are a genre with enduring appeal. Images of a simple room with sparse adornments offer “the chaste harmony of geometry “. More often, we get entangled in a painting’s “psychology”. When everything is as it should be, do we infer a sense of security. When things seem a little odd, is it normal messiness or evidence of a crime? And, especially when darkness falls, “looking out or looking in … is charged with voyeurism.” More images are here.

Peter Saul: “Crime and Punishment” at the New Museum, New York, NY

Saul’s early works anticipated later trends in the art world. His crisp graphics are technically impressive. Yet he remains at the art world periphery, a consequence of his acrid focus on violence and mayhem. “The unrelenting nature of Saul’s vision … is, over the long haul, dulling. His [anti-authoritarian] commentaries … retain their vigour [but] the rest is one man’s unrelenting misanthropy—pre-digested, prettified, and taxidermied to perfection.”