Henry Orlik b. 1947
With artist's stamp lower right
Framed H. 80 cm. x W. 94 cm., H 31½ in. x W. 37 in.
Further images
With exuberant colour, Orlik depicts a terrace, a veranda, of a villa edged with a white colonnade of columns and arches decorated with black iron railings and a painted striped section above the arches of jaunty red and gold squares. The roof is made of solid, rustic beams of wood painted inbetween in bright red. To the left a staircase sweeps down to a terraced garden demarcated by white curving walls; the ground is golden, suggesting the dryness caused by the sun and is punctuated with red flowers; a palm tree and a sea of green vegetation in the background leads to hills on the horizon; the the left, a curved bay is followed by the curve of a beach which surrounds an enticing blue sea. The intensity of the colours suggests the heat of the landscape.
In order to capture the exuberance of the scene, Orlik departs from his sparse, clean and smooth painting and instead employs a style reminiscent of the ebbulience of the Fauvists, indicating his versatility as an artist. This maybe
suggests that it is a real scene and not one conjured from his imagination. He employs the familiar language of the Fauve with their unabashed bright colours to depict the intensity of the sun and colours of the surroundings. These are punctuated by the black of the railings – which breaks up the blocks of intense, irrepressible colour, reminiscent of the style of Dufy.