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Pink Bowl with Grapes, 1992, Craigie Aitchison
Regardless of the title of this painting, Craigie Aitchison makes it clear to us that these are not real grapes in a real bowl. The saturated colour, so dazzlingly bright, affirms that this is the artist’s world, where grapes hang suspended in perfect roundness against a clear scarlet background, and where a two-coloured butterfly hovers exquisite in the centre. This is so radiant a picture, so intense in its certainties, that it seems to have, as its real, hidden theme, the absoluteness of joy. There are no half-measures here: it is the all-or-nothing that joy reveals to us. There may be a dull brown lower layer, but it is held firmly in its place, at the bottom, sat upon by brightness. Only when overwhelmed by joy do we know, in our very bodies, that this is the truth of it.
