John Wells- "Microcosm" (1957) oil paint on hard board
Analysis on John Wells "Microcosm".
John Wells, born july 27, 1907 was a high influential artist in my opinion. All of his work inspires me and i have chosen to analyse three main pieces which inspire my work into my layers project. John Wells lived in Sussex until 1925, where he left to go and study medicine at the University College Hospital, London and studied there until 1930. He interest into art only began when he started to attend night classes at St Martins School of Art, where his noticeable talent was shown in the "Daily Express" dedicated to young artists. I believe this is when Wells first really began to show his true interest and his talent in art. Wells studied with Stanford Forbes and was introduced to Ben and Winifred Nicholson, and Christopher Wood. He then put his interest in art to a side when he qualified as a doctor and began worked in different hospitals for the Scilly Isles from 1936 to 1945. Wells then worked in the war as a doctor but still made occasional visits to St Ives where he met Naum Gabo, who highly influenced Wells throughout all of his worked. Once the war had finished, Wells chose to restart his career as a full time artist. Newlyn, postwar was the centre of artistic activity to which Wells thrived upon, he opened such clubs as the Crypt Group (1946), Penwith Society if Arts (1949) and shared many exhibitions with Winifred Nicholson. Wells career began to thrive, when his work was shown throughout many different exhibitions in Britain and when he was awarded the Art Critics Prize by the International Association of Art Critics. In 1960 Well's was given a one person exhibition of his work, the Waddington Galleries, which created a popular buzz around his work. However when Wells created a second exhibition in 1960, his work was given little interest. Wells then went back to Newlyn where he stayed for 30 years, arousing little interest in his work until the revival of St Ives artists where seven pieces of his work were exhibited for the Tate Modern Gallery. I find that Wells work clearly links to my topic of layers, as he layers different brush strokes, marks and materials on top of each other to create a overall layered affect. Well's use oil paint a lot throughout his work although that may not be the visible material you see, he still uses it thoroughly throughout his artwork. I wouldn't say that Well's use materials such a clothing or solid piece of texture in which he would stick onto his work. Instead he uses things such as paint, crayons or lithograph paper to build on top of each other, therefore creating textured pieces of work. Well's work was highly influenced by Naum Gabo, a Russian sculptor who create powerful yet delicate pieces. You can see that Well's uses Gabo's influence in his sculptor like paintings he creates, that almost look 3D.
The piece I have chosen to analyse is "Microcosm". The piece is created by oil paint onto hardboard, at first glance you can clearly see the prominent wave of a dark red. Underneath that is an array of darker colours all built up on top of each other creating a "layered" effect. Below that there is faded coloured rectangles in the darker colours used throughout the rest of the painting. The best way to describe the rectangles would to say that it was painted on lightly, then a sponge was placed on top and dabbed off some of the colour. Finally there is "scratch like" markings all over the piece which change from cross hatching to just scratches going downwards which I believe really creates the overall look of the piece in my opinion. Well's manages to create texture with only using one material which I really admire and like. The form of Well's work is definitely 2-D, although I haven't seen it through my own eyes in real life, I can see through my computer screen that Well's has created a 2-D piece of work. It's scale is 253 x 406mm, which could contribute to the fact of it being 2-D. Well's creates many different lines in this piece of work, some less visible than others because of being smudge out and blended with other colours. I would say that the most visible line would be the smudged wave of red in the middle of the piece, not only because it's in the middle, which is where you first look' but because of the prominent colours of red that Well's has chosen to use. Tone is used throughout the whole whole of this piece, there is the strong abrupt tone of the red in the middle and how it doesn't blend into the colours in the background or the colours surrounding it lower on the piece. Then theres the shades of light blue and grey which create a soft tone, a lot calmer from the red centred piece of work which almost creates the emotion of anger. From looking at the colours I would just say that there is four primary colours, white, black, red and blue. Then secondary colours would consist of colours smudge together on the piece to create more blues, greys, browns and some light purple. By looking at the oil paint colour chart I have been able to develop my understanding of the colours in this piece. Well's uses mark making techniques constantly throughout this piece, theres in not one part of it left blank or textureless. He varies the mark making from making scratches in the piece, to using smooth lines of paint. Well's use the bold colour of red to attract your eye to the centre of the page. You then start to slowly look at the colours behind the red, then to look up and down and side to side. I would say that Well's arranged the painting to be looked at how I have describe above, however that is just my opinion and my own perspective on how I look at his work. I think that you are drawn to the centre of the piece then led to different part of the piece. I dont think that rule of thirds is used in this piece because you are attract straight to the centre of this piece. After researching this piece deeply, I couldn't find any meanings or any relevant information of why John Well's created this particular piece. Therefore I decided to re-read over my own information I create on John Well's to try to explain the meaning behind this piece. I think this piece is like many of his others, just pure expression of his emotion at the time. This was created many years after Well's exhibitions with Wilfred Nicholson, the prime of his artwork being shown to the world. It could be the meaning behind him using the red colours, his anger of people not looking at his work anymore? Or the blue could represent the calm feeling his work actually being looked at and appreciated, therefore making him feel complete with his artwork? From all of my other studies, using charcoal, graphite and using different textures, I feel that I can include my interest of John Well's work and make it flow into my own work easily. I believe I can learn from John Well's by starting to use oil paint in different colours and looking how they blend together in my own work. I can develop this into using oil paint in my own work completely. I really admire John Well's work, he inspires me which I think will benefit my work greatly. This is one of the many pieces of work of John Well's work that excites me.
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