Wednesday, December 19, 2012

F.C.B. Cadell's Nearly Faceless Faces


F.C.B. (Francis Campbell Boileau) Cadell (1883-1937) was a member of the Scottish Colourists, an informal group active in the early decades of the 20th Century. I wrote abut him here, and his Wikipedia entry is here.

In August when I was browsing Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery, I got to see some of his paintings in person for the first time. Although it's actually pretty obvious even when inspecting reproductions, for some reason it struck me at Kelvingrove that many of Cadell's paintings feature sketchy treatments of facial features. He might have done this so that faces would not grab viewers' attention from the entire painting. Or perhaps he had another reason; I don't know what was on his mind.

Below are images of some Cadell paintings found on the Internet with close-up photos of facial detail I took at Kelvingrove.

Gallery


Reflections (Girl in Blue) - c.1912


Reflections - c.1915


A Lady in Black - c.1925


The Orange Blind - c.1925

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