Landscape with a Man Running 2007
man, What of the Night? from Djuna Barnes��� 1936 novel,
Nightwood. The creative absurdity of this novel���s narrative
partly informs these paintings. They are also very much of
the 21st century: highly evolved psychological narratives, descendants of Claude Lorrain much as Lucien Freud���s portraits
are descendants of Copley and Gainsborough.
With acrylic on plywood, Jacobi in this series works from a
black ground. They consistently mesh the sublime, a sort of
latent fear, an ominous beauty, with the romantic, recalling
the 18th and 19th centuries. The darkness makes the art
dreamlike, as seen in Girl and Boat. In this painting, heavy
brushstrokes create an inchoate darkness out of which a
HYLAND
