Crossed Forms by Paul Feiler
 |
|
© the Artist’s Estate. All Rights Reserved 2019/ Bridgeman Images
Most of Feiler's work until about 1960 was in the conventional landscape format and the series from which this work comes, although abstract, referenced the sights and sensations of the Cornish coast. In his post-1960 work, landscape features - rocks, hillsides, cliffs and crashing waves - are still recognisable but become even more abstract and move towards the geometric forms which characterise his later work; furthermore he took to using the square rather than landscape format. Feiler's own note on 'Crossed Forms' in the Tate St Ives exhibition was as follows:
"I found I was moving towards a very simple way of not committing myself to either a vertical or horizontal format. Here I was attempting to determine a shape within the (landscape) format and developed a frame around the painting itself ... in order to stabilize it; but my discussions with William Scott made me think about painting beyond the confines of the canvas and the importance of peripheral looking."
In 2005 'Crossed Forms' was loaned to Tate St Ives for the exhibition 'Paul Feiler - The Near and the Far: Paintings 1953 - 2004'.