Looking at the St Paul's Painting, What do you see?
Russet reds, golden yellow against the night sky. Texture permeates the piece. The ground a rich display of oranges, yellows and burnt umber, like a molten path of lava moving ominously. Oblivious to the ‘danger’, a couple walk, focused on their destination. Are they heading out or heading home? We just don’t know. The river itself is a molten stream, as it ripples along reflecting the street lights. The sky is dark but full of colour, speckled with fine wisps of white. Here and there are dark splodges of heavy colour. Unforgiving darkness in a colourful heaven.
St Paul’s is Central to the image, the brilliant white of the page shines through, the rest of the structure hinted at, as it becomes lost in the night’s shroud.
Other lights hint at buildings, rapid inky splodges suggest walls and edges. You want to turn up the focus so you can make out the details…
But you can’t
Solid patches of pillar box red and peacock blue hint at mysterious structures, it’s impossible to tell what. Other knowledge may fill in the gaps.
The dominant feature is the texture and St Paul’s, the brilliant light of St Paul’s set against the kaleidoscopic, fluid, dancing sky.
