Study for Seraphim: Love
Dorothea Rockburne
1982 · Watercolor on vellum · Modern and Contemporary Art
The precisely folded forms shaped out of slick vellum reflect Rockburne’s longstanding interest in Reimannian geometry, harmonic intervals, and topographical theory, which she first encountered while a student at Black Mountain College in the early 1950s. Rockburne wrote, "paper has two sides, it has a front and a back, and it has depth," a physical presence she enhanced through overlapping forms and gestural brushstrokes of paint. Yet this work is also ethereal and transcendent, as it is part of a series inspired by the fifteenth-century Italian artist Fra Angelico. The origami-like folds evoke the abstract wings and robes of his painted angels while emphasizing the incorporeal and otherworldly status of the seraphim, as complex and multifaceted as love.
- Artist
- Dorothea Rockburne
- Date
- 1982
- Medium
- Watercolor on vellum
- Department
- Modern and Contemporary Art
- Credit line
- Purchase, Louis and Bessie Adler Foundation Inc. Gift, 1983
