Herman de Vries offers no representation of landscape or of nature, of light, of air or of perspective. His aim is quite simply to present nature as itself. The intelligence that lies behind his work is subtle, ingenious, reflective and steeped in knowledge of both eastern and western philosophies. De Vries?s early training as a botanist broadens his frame of reference still further.
De Vries?s art springs from a profound awareness of the present disjunction between people and their natural environment, his conviction that a proper contemplation and experience of nature is essential to living in any meaningful sense, and an intuitive certainty that the careful persuasion and prompts embodied in his work will nudge us in the right direction.
Like nature itself (or as de Vries would probably say, because it is nature itself), his work bears limitless viewing. His smaller scale works often involve sampling and collecting: an array of leaves taken from one willow branch; earth rubbings in widely varying colours; cherry leaves fixed where they fell on a piece of paper beneath their tree ?. Often, a purposeful symbolism or association is involved: an exhibition of earth samples taken from Chernobyl, handwritten lists of vanished Scottish forests and bundles of branches representing the trees felled.
In this beautiful book, the distinguished writer on art Mel Gooding contributes a critical overview of de vries?s work, setting it in an art historical context and appraising it as an important reflection of the cultural consciousness of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Format:
144 p., 285 x 260 mm, 268 illus., 218 col., hardback
fond special / librărie / colecţie particulară / anticariat /
