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How It Is
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? Jack Knox

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How It Is 1968
  • Scottish Art
This painting was included in the artist?s solo show at the Serpentine Gallery in London in 1971. The exhibition featured a number of large white canvases covered with strange hieroglyphic symbols. The paintings were inspired by Paolo Ucello?s `Rout of San Romano?, which had surprised Knox with its active composition when seen at close quarters. Knox?s painting features a variety of images and signs, using repeated colours and shapes in order to replicate the sense of movement he had so admired in Ucello?s painting. This encourages the viewer?s eye to move across the canvas, spotting differences and similarities. Some of the mysterious shapes are silhouettes of objects that Knox picked up on the beach near his home in Carnoustie.

Glossary Open

Composition

The arrangement of different elements in a work of art.

Silhouette

Images showing an outline with no internal detail set against a contrasting background. It is specifically used for portraits of this type cut from paper.

Composition, Silhouette

Details

  • Acc. No. GMA 3010
  • Medium P.V.A., oil, pastel and black chalk on canvas
  • Size 152.00 x 152.00 cm
  • Credit Purchased 1987

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