Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

The torso is slightly turned; Gabrielides's powerful left hand is closer to the viewer and arched over the spiraling end of the armchair. It is a formal, dignified pose commonly seen in the canon of Italian Mannerist portraits, such as Bronzinos depictions of nobility and clergy The Cypriot completely fills the pictorial space with a commanding presence. Gabrielides is assured and alert. His eyebrows slightly arched, he sits passively in control, regarding the viewer. The Cypriot's luminous face and hands, brilliant blue shirt and red tie form a radiant figure surrounded by darkness. Unnecessary background detail has been three forms of the hands and head of the sitter; their relationship to the torso remains ambiguous and mysterious. The Cypriot is crafted with the full range of expressive brushwork, glazing and scumbling of the European tradition. The cushioned chair is sumptuous and richly built up with deep glazes. The handling of the cool, translucent flesh is masterly, alternating undermodelling with subtle glazes. Whether intentional or not, the predominant browns in the painting underneath (Boy lounging ) act as a brown imprimatura, enhancing the old master character of The Cypriot. This imprimatura shows through in the shirt, the hair and Yet brushstrokes drift across the void of the background as well as the solid form of the figure, brushstrokes that relate most emphatically to the flat surface on which they are painted, reaffirming the picture plane, collapsing the space that should be afforded the tangible figure. We are left, finally, with the ambiguities of paint and image, and with the ambivalence of the boundaries between substance and spirit. This painting is a veritable record of the problems confronting a modernist painter who wished to refer both to classic Renaissance masters and also to more contemporary, interior tensions. Dobell has gone beyond representation, and eliminated; light spilling from the top left casts the sitter's face and hands in deep relief, suggesting a further light source from the figure itself. The cool, translucent flesh of the face and left hand is tinged with glowing sienna reflections which lend an other-worldly character to the portrait. Both the head and hands are finely and convincingly delineated and modelled. Yet they emerge from a body which, conversely, is largely insubstantial. Substance is both emphasised and impoverished; there is no real sense of form beneath the shirt; its volume seems deflated, setting up a tension between the parts of the background, adding both complexity and unity to the finish. Dobell has reinforced the effect of a brown ground with the subtle use of siennas and umbers distributed throughout the composition. The assured, hatched brushstrokes of Gabrielides's blue stubble, the most delicate of turpsy washes on the nose and forehead, and the smudges of blue in the hair (applied with the artist's finger) are testimony to Dobell's great touch and bravura. Swirling sgraffito in the crimson tie adds a controlled vigour to the brushwork. One's attention is drawn again to the convincing volume of the face and hands. has captured the essence of his friend and model Gabrielides. John Hook is Senior Conservator at the Queensland Art Gallery. Far left William Dobell Study for 'The Cypriot' 1934 Oil on plywood 39.3 x29.8cm Purchased 1950 National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne William Dobell Study for 'The Cypriot' 1934 Oil on board 76.2 X 76.8cm Sold in Sydney, October 1972, by Christies from Estate of Major Harold de Vahl Rubin William Dobell Study for the painting 'The Cypriot' 1937 Pen and brown ink, pencil on paper 26.6x26.4cm Gift of the Sir William Dobell Foundation 1976 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Left William Dobell Study for the painting ’The Cypriot' 1937 Gouache and oil on cardboard 24x24cm Purchased 1977 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra William Dobell Study for 'The Cypriot' C.1938 Oil on board 25.4x25.4cm Dr Joseph Brown, AO, obe TWO VIEWS OF DOBELL 163