Research In The Late Still Life Painting Of Avigdor Arikha

Avigdor Arikha, born in a Jewish family in Romania in 1929, had a unique style in the artistic trends in the middle and late period of 20 th century. Even though he drifted from place to place homeless and miserable in his boyhood, he still received good education. Before 36 years old, he had taken a certain position in Europe with his abstract painting. When he realized the limitation of abstract painting, he devoted himself in creating representational painting without any hesitation. In his opinion, the essence of painting is observation. Through impromptu painting from life, he can seize the instant transformation between existence and nothingness.In the middle and later periods of the 20 th century, with being unconventional as the standard, western art groups changed frequently, continuously break the limitation of painting. In fact, painting elements were gradually ignored by people, even being regarded as old fashioned and obsolete. Most artists avoided to have any connection with traditional painting consciously and sought innovation and change. Under such background, it was meaningful to conduct researches of renaissance painting. Avigdor Arikha was one of the members. The paper mainly researched on the still life painting created by Arikha in his middle and late creation life. With formal expression of still life painting as clues, it discusses the living environment, painting value and influences of Arikha on modern Chinese representational painting and hopes that people can have better understanding of Arikha’s creation methods and artistic philosophy and keep independent artistic spirit and choose correct artistic road in the bewildering modern art environment.The paper includes five chapters. First chapter is the introduction. The second chapter is the living and art background of artists are mainly introduced; the third chapter is very important. It conducts detailed explanation of Arikha’s still life painting through composition of a picture,color and brushwork, which is beneficial for a student focusing on practices. The fourth chapter is the most important. Through analysis of works in chapter three, the painting value behind works has been concluded, which provides reference for modern artists. In the last chapter, it summarizes influences of Arikha’s still life painting on Chinese modern representational paintingand inspirations for individual creation practices.