RSA Scottish Art
The Flowering Night
 | Artist: Ellen Malcolm |
| Title: The Flowering Night | |
| Year: c. 1976 | |
| Medium: oil on canvas | |
| Dimensions: | |
| Suggested topic: | |
| Source: RSA Diploma Collection | |
| View full screen image of this work | |
| Open print version of this work | |
| Description: Ellen Malcolm specialised in painting landscapes, interiors, still life and garden subjects.The Flowering Night looks out from the artist's house across her garden. The composition is boxed in by the window frame, which keeps the viewer a little separate from the scene as well as softening the busy nature of the view. The composition is dominated by the large tree and the dark line of the flower beds leading down the lawn. The little footpath also leads towards this spot, although there is no focal point here. The viewer's eye returns back to the patio where the flowers are the main source of visual interest. A garden says a lot about the gardener who tends it. This garden is tidy and flourishing, and the onset of spring seems near. Daffodils and tulips are sprouting and leaves are beginning to fill the empty branches of the tree. If this garden was wild and overgrown, or severe and bare, what would it say about the painter and gardener? Can you imagine how it might change the painting?As well as being both lyrical and contemplative, the artist's use of dense and quite resonant colours makes this painting very evocative. These colours and the soft evening light remind us of the work of Bonnard. In addition to the visual effects achieved in this painting, the wording of the title adds to its atmosphere by evoking the garden scents of a spring evening. The mood here is tranquil and peaceful. But if flowers are the subject, why not paint a close-up of one of the flowers? How could this have changed the mood? | |
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