Josef Herman, 'Women in the Fields'
Women in the Fields
Josef Herman (1911-2000)
Oil on canvas
Newport Museum and Art Gallery
I first became aware of Josef Herman while studying fine art
at the University of Dundee in 2006. At the time, I was experimenting with ink,
drawing industrial buildings when a lecturer suggested looking at Herman’s
graphic works. Herman’s confident line, either in charcoal or ink displayed an
immediacy to record while simultaneously expressing the artist’s internalised encounter
with his subject. The works Herman made while living in the mining community at
Yystradgynlais were of particular interest.
I first encountered Women in the Fields after a
re-hang of the permanent collection at Newport Museum and Art Gallery. The work
made an immediate impression, and it sounds strange, but one way I believe the
effectiveness of a work of art can be measured is its potential to persist while
your back is turned to it. Women in the Fields persisted through the
exaggerated monumental female figures arched over, bearing the weight and bowed
horizon of the desolate agricultural landscape, but somehow resisting it. The women
also possess a similar gravitas of an exaggerated figure by Picasso. The
landscape has the raw earthiness of an early Van Gogh. A painting by
Jean-Francois Millet in the collection of the National Museum of Wales, Winter,
The Faggot Gatherers also springs to mind.
However, the twilight-orange light emanating from Women
in the Fields is what makes its presence felt most. The combination of masterful
paint handling, glaze and monumentality of the figures in contrast to the soft
and considered light is what ties the work together. The artist who came foremost
to my mind when looking at this work was Mark Rothko and in particular his
painting in Detroit Instiitute of Arts, Orange, Brown, 1963. Both Rothko and Herman highlight that regardless
if a work is figurative or abstract, colour possesses the power to communicate
directly, even while your back is turned.
James Milne
Further information
See also Detroit Instiitute of Arts, Orange, Brown, 1963.
See https://www.dia.org/art/collection/object/orange-brown-59912
See National Museum of Wales, Winter, The Faggot Gatherers
See https://museum.wales/art/online/?action=show_item&item=1325
See https://museum.wales/art/online/?action=show_item&item=1325
See also Detroit Instiitute of Arts, Orange, Brown, 1963.
See https://www.dia.org/art/collection/object/orange-brown-59912
Video, 'Josef Herman, Sketches of Wales'. To access, click on link below.
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