delightful melancholy

above, two pieces by contemporary artist Geoffrey Johnson

above, two pieces by victorian era (late 1800's) artist John Atkinson Grimshaw


i had been looking at some of Grimshaw's work earlier, and when i later ran across Geoffrey Johnson's work while sifting through the stuff of various artists, i was struck by how directly Johnson's work reminded me of Grimshaw's. there is a certain similar quality in the air, or the atmosphere, of the paintings. and while Johnson's work is of a lighter, cooler color than Grimshaw's, they both have a kind of sootiness, a wetness; a blurring and smudging of tones. they look like dreams.

the most intriguing bit for me, however, is the figures in each artist's paintings. both have depicted their figures as little more than black silhouettes, merging and diverging in varying degrees. they are dark and beautiful and haunting, exuding a mysterious poetic melancholy. Grimshaw's soot-filled, rainy air perfectly complements the blurry, foggy dampness of Johnson's world. i can imagine the figures moving among the various paintings, meeting, conversing, departing, belonging neither to one artist or the other, but both.

i am of the firm opinion that the work of these two artists should be shown side by side together in their own exhibition. someone should make that happen. i'll go see it if they do.