Mid-Century Frank Lean Still Life in Oil

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Beautiful Still Life in Oil, signed by Frank Lean. This vivid and luminous oil painting depicts the classic still life … Read more Beautiful Still Life in Oil, signed by Frank Lean. This vivid and luminous oil painting depicts the classic still life of fruits on a deaply moody background of golds and amber browns.

This particular still life is a work of art depicting the inanimate subject matter of a bunch of lusciously green grapes, and a handful of carefully strewn vibrant ruby red cherries. These are mixed artfully with several typically commonplace objects in a glass vase and clay pot, which each are a great juxtaposition of the other. The transparency of the glass vase stands in a stark contrasting position against the solid opaqueness of the beautiful blue-copper of the clay pot.

With origins in the Middle Ages and Ancient Greco-Roman art, still-life painting emerged as a distinct genre and professional specialization in Western painting by the late 16th century, and has remained significant since then. One advantage of the still-life artform is that it allows an artist a lot of freedom to experiment with the arrangement of elements within a composition of a painting. And, this artist produced an insanely simple example of a traditional still life with the creation of this oil painting.

I adore this piece because it successfully grounds light and airy interiors, becoming a thought-provoking focal point. (And, it pairs insanely well with Hitchcock furniture pieces! Which I can never get enough of.) See less