The plaster head of Mercury, tools for drawing and drawing, books in leather bindings, a roll of paper – that’s all the details of the still life “Attributes of Art.” Each subject is very symbolic and endowed with inner meaning. Mercury is known as the patron of the arts, drawing accessories evoke thoughts about the high status of the drawing in a series of plastic arts, books introduce a person into the world of the elegant, they are the universal reference point of the spiritual development of the master and each person.
The bust of the mythological hero on the canvas is the center of the composition. His head – strong and stubborn – as if ordering other details of the picture to adjust to it, which is what makes a box for leadboards, crayons, a copper tool, rolls of paper sheets. The soft, elastic form of this roll is like a pliable man, easily yielding to someone else’s influence. Some dissonance looks heavy books with reddish bindings. The unyielding guards are standing vertically along the edges of the canvas, as if guarding this little world of things, without interfering in anything and separating themselves from others by the angularity of forms and the clarity of lines.
Echoes of color tell the marvelous vitality of the still life. In the snow-white of the bust, the viewer’s eyes distinguish between bluish and buffy hues. The corner of the paper throws a greenish shadow on the embossed leather of the folio, and on the unpolished board of the table you can see the reddish reflections of the book-cut. The artist as if wants to test his skills, depicting close or similar in texture and color objects. He skillfully depicts the smooth white of the marble next to the white paper, and the warm in tone, the rough skin of the book covers – against the background of the surface of the stained oak.
In the still life there is no palette of the artist, but Chandin not without reason paid so much attention to a set of tools for drawing. His words are known that artistic training is one of the most difficult and lengthy processes in which drawing is as important as the first steps of a child. “Attributes of art” – a kind of tribute to the artist’s hard work understanding the secrets of the picture.
Brushes Chardin belongs to another still life on the theme of the attributes of the arts, but if the previous canvas lists the ways in which the master works, then the artist defines the path of man to the world of art. The bust of Mercury, surrounded by sheets of paper and gargoyles, symbolizes the world of art, and the books that frame the composition are the only link between the world of art and human life, and at the same time the walls protecting this world from it.
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