Dimensions: support: 229 x 305 mm frame: 334 x 406 x 40 mm
Copyright: NaN
Editor: This is "Abel the Shepherd" by George Richmond. It feels both peaceful and melancholic, like a dream under a watchful moon. What pulls you into this piece? Curator: It's the raw vulnerability, isn't it? Abel, exposed, yet cradled by nature. That crescent moon feels like a silent witness, perhaps foreshadowing the tragedy to come. Does the bat overhead give you a chill? Editor: A bit! I hadn't noticed it until now. It's almost Gothic. Curator: Richmond was steeped in Romanticism, wrestling with big themes. Look at how he contrasts light and shadow, innocence and encroaching darkness. What do you make of that? Editor: I guess it suggests that even in Eden, shadows lurk. I'll never look at a crescent moon the same way again! Curator: Nor will I! A bat-signal for the soul, perhaps?
Comments
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/richmond-abel-the-shepherd-n05858
Join the conversation
Join millions of artists and users on Artera today and experience the ultimate creative platform.
Richmond was the youngest of Blake’s followers known as the ‘Ancients’. He first met Blake in 1824. Later that year he became a student at the Royal Academy. This was his first exhibited picture, shown at the Academy in 1825. It shows Abel, the son of Adam and Eve, who was described in Genesis as ‘a keeper of sheep’. Richmond had asked Blake’s advice about using tempera. Blake copied out for him a passage from a modern edition of a fourteenth-century treatise on art by Cennino Cennini (reproduced on the panel to the left). Richmond’s choice of medium and support here reflects this advice. Gallery label, September 2004
CollectMore like this
