Temple on a Grassy Heath
Artist
George Copeland Ault
(American, 1891 - 1948)
Date1940
MediumOpaque watercolor on watercolor paper
DimensionsSheet: 13 5/8 × 19 3/4 inches (34.61 × 50.17 cm)
Credit LineGift of Donald Lokuta
Object number2014.38.3
SignedSigned and dated in gouache, lower left “G. C. Ault ‘40”
MarkingsUpper left in pencil: 13 5/8 x 19 5/8
On View
Not on viewCollections
DescriptionThis gouache on watercolor paper depicts a linear, beige temple with a Gothic-arched doorway, two blackened windows, four visible pilasters with carved capitals, and a turret with two smaller black windows. The building has a pronounced podium, frieze, and pediment, all undecorated. There is a column topped with a sphere in front of the building, and next to this column is a tree of the same height. Another tree stands behind the temple. The temple sits on a dirt mound within a grassy space which recedes to a mountainous background beneath an expansive, cloud filled sky.Gallery LabelGeorge Copeland Ault’s obsession with geometry is evident in the hard lines and simplified shapes that compose Temple on a Grassy Heath. Carefully controlled opaque watercolor orders his representation of this otherworldly imagined landscape. An impenetrable classical temple stands on a dirt mound, alone in a sea of grass painted blade by blade. Working from fantasy, Ault struck a surreal tone in both the subject and the style of his landscape. Precise geometric order and an eerie tone also characterize Ault’s oil on canvas landscapes, for which he is best known.
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