Broken Sky (cerulean clouds)

“Abstraction pushed the use of the perspectival grid beyond its primary function (to allow the rendering of objects in perspective without distortion) and inadvertently made “compositions” from the individual squares within the grid.” (Barbara Broughel)

Broughel’s “Broken Sky (cerulean clouds)” examines the history of abstraction in one of its possible birthplaces (circa 1700 Northern Europe) through the depiction, not only of a period-related subject – clouds and the sky – but of the process and materials of rendering (Broughel used pigments and wood that would have been used at that time). What is unconventional, or even radical for the period is the composition and the way it fractures the realism of the image through leaving the grid visible (thus it references the tool which allows for that realism). The display mechanism of the shelves furthers the focus not just on the imagery but on the object-ness of the broken grid.