Wine Glasses 1969

Patrick Caulfield made this painting, Wine Glasses, using flat areas of colour contained by bold outlines. The painting feels like a diagram or a flattened out still life, but what I like is how it keeps a bit of the handmade in there too. The yellow background has a slight unevenness, like it was brushed on, or rolled, and this keeps the image from being too slick. The lines wobble a little too, and the wine itself is a lovely, translucent red-brown. It feels like the colour of wine, more than it looks like the colour of wine, and that makes a difference. I keep thinking about how the colours and lines overlap, and how these shapes create new relationships. This kind of simplification reminds me a little of Alex Katz, but Caulfield is doing his own thing. Ultimately, it's a painting that knows it's a painting, and that's what makes it so appealing.