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Samuel (Shmuel) Tepler - Oil on Canvas - Interior: Still Life on a Blue Table
שמואל טפלר - שמן על בד - דומם: כורסא, שולחן, קנקן ומנורה
This oil-on-canvas painting, by Samuel Tepler (1918-1998), depicts an interior scene with what one may call "everyday objects". Nevertheless, at first glance, some of these objects looked familiar while others were a little bit puzzling and required a more concentrated observation - Tepler, like all great artists, always makes us look afresh at the familiar :-)
An easy object to identify is the big armchair
which stands on the right front of the room. We see the armchair's seat, the
back, one of its legs and a pair of cozy curved armrests. Well, is it indeed a
pair? The big blue patch above the armchair hides part of the right armrest, draws our
attention and leads us to the left side of the picture, where it meets another
big deep blue patch. Some staring and suddenly we see - it is the complete top
of a table, viewed from above. We can see part of the table's left front leg and
a relatively wide white stripe going along its circumference.
By now we already feel the domestic arrangement: an armchair and a table, so we
let our eyes examine the things which are standing on the big deep blue
table top. A small green cube attracts our sight near the upper left corner of
the table top - I imagine it to be part of a set of wooden colored cubes that
small children play with. On the corner itself there is another object which
looks like some kind of a spherical fruit, although I must admit that at first
glance I imagined it to be the head of the small child who played with the cube
and now leans his chin against the table and watches.
When I move on to the right, along the table top, I see an almost transparent
and quite delicate wine glass and next to it is a tall elongated bottle, whose
tip lies outside the frame. Near its base there is a pale patch, maybe a spot of
light that shines through the glass of the bottle.
Exactly in the center of the table (and of the painting) we see a jug of water
which serves as an improvised flower vase - look at the colorful brush strokes
at its top which form the flowers' buds and the phosphoric orange stain of a
fallen flower head on the right - it is so beautiful.
The flowers jug is standing on a kind of a colored table cloth, with a green and
white horizontal stripe pattern. Note that the jug is seen from its side and the
cloth from above. At this point I could start realizing the reason for the
beautiful feeling I got when watching this painting - Tepler combines two
realistic perspectives to view this interior room layout: from the side (the way
we see the armchair on the right and the jar on the table) and from above (the
right half of the table top and striped cloth beneath the jug) into one,
simultaneous fairylike view.
Our journey takes us now to the upper right corner of the big blue patch which
represents the table top and masks part of the right armrest of the armchair.
Having understood the way Tepler is building the composition, we feel the
continuation of the table top from the left to the right. But what do we see
there on the upper right corner? Well, "What you see is what you get" as my
mother used to say much before this WYSIWYG acronym was adopted by the computing
industry. We see a beautiful lamp with a pale green glass bulb, an elegant metal
decorative neck and one of its three s-shaped curved legs. This lamp serves as
the source of light to everything else in this picture. "They all get their
(still) life from it" she said.
Samuel Tepler signature in English on the upper left corner
Samuel Tepler Biography - ביוגרפיה של הצייר שמואל טפלר
לציור "דומם על שולחן כחול" של שמואל טפלר שמוצג כאן לפניכם יש אופי לירי מהורהר וטהור שמעיד על סוג של שלווה פנימית מנותקת מן העולם שבחוץ - לא סתם קרא לו האמן ציור "פנים" Interior. ובכלל, תמיד הרגשתי שטפלר אינו מספר סיפור בציור אלא משתמש בחפצים המצויירים כעילה לצייר כלומר להניח צבעים על הבד, למרוח אותם, ללוש בהם צורות וליצור מהם קומפוזיציות.
טפלר הוא משורר שבוחר את נושא הציור לפי מידת התאמתו לשפת השירה הציורית שלו. הנושא שנבחר משמש כמצע שעל גבו יביע טפלר את רגשותיו ותחושותיו הפנימיים וכמו שאומר זאת מריו לאפורה: הביטוי של טפלר הוא ביטוי מוחלט של "נפש האמן" תוך כדי שמירה על נקודת מוצא הניתנת לזיהוי ומעוגנת במציאות - זוהי המיוחדות של האבסטרקט של טפלר.
אז במה הוא בחר כאן?
כורסא לצד שולחן ועל השולחן
חפצים: בקבוק, כוס זכוכית שקופה, קנקן עם פרחים המונח על מפה מפוספסת ומנורה עתיקה
ומסוגננת המאירה בעדינות מצד ימין. אנחנו מזהים את החפצים וסופגים את התחושה - רוגע
מוגן שמקיף את הניצן הכתום שנפל.
Size of painting (without frame): 1'
3.4" x
11.4" - 39 cm x 29 cm - 15.4 in x 11.4 in
Type of frame: Wood
Painting technique: Oil on Canvas
Origin: Israel
Date: 1975
Signature: "Tepler" signed in English by the artist near the upper left
corner
of the painting
Price: $2900
References:
Monografia Di Samuel Tepler by Mario Lepore
Biography of Samuel Tepler - Shmuel Tepler - A
distinctive Jewish Painter
Samuel (Shmuel) Tepler - Oil on Canvas - Harbor View
© Dan Levy - Art Pane Home of Original Paintings and Sculptures
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