Anna Vorster: Abstract landscape - SOLD
Anna Vorster (1928 - 1990)
Abstract landscape - 1971
Oil on canvas
46 x 61,5 cm
Signed and dated bottom right
Sold - 2011
Anna Vorster’s distinct style is best described in a review by Diane Gordon: The most powerful element in Anna Vorster’s paintings is the strength and character captured on canvas. It is there in each component – colour, subject and especially line. An Anna Vorster painting is thoroughly devised, and cannot be subjected to revision. The statement is never half-hearted. It does not deal with the trivial or the inconsequential, each work captures the soul of the period, the person or the landscape .
The distinguishing characteristic of Vorster’s abstracted style is the dominant presence of her rhythmic lines, as evident in ‘Abstract landscape’. Although the subject is simplified to its bare essence, the work echoes a traditional landscape by using different planes of colour to represent a fore, middle and background, bringing perspective to an otherwise flat surface.
Describing Vorster’s approach, Esmé Berman comments: At all times it has been her drawing which has sustained the quality of her artistic effort; her use of colour has seldom shown the authority inherent in her rhythmical line. She has also been torn between the image and the symbol and has hesitated to resolve her stance between representation and abstraction .
The artist’s palette, consisting of a somewhat crude mixture of cadmium yellow and vermillion, achieves a playful shimmer complimenting twists of heritage green. These anxious green lines resemble lonely patches of greenery; roots intertwined with rock formations, clinging desperately to the mountain side. The bare surrounding landscape, stripped of detail, lies outstretched, baking lazily in the rays of a setting sun. The afterglow accentuates the contours, their lines carrying the eye rhythmically around abstract constructions, showcasing Vorster’s ability to expose that which the viewer now perceives – the soul of this desolate plane.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Esmé Berman, Art & Artists of South Africa , Halfway House, 1983, p 480