Strauss & co - 16 October 2017, Cape Town

284 592 Jacob Hendrik Pierneef SOUTH AFRICAN 1886-1957 Highveld Landscape with Clouds signed casein on artist’s board 22 by 29,5cm R  –   PROVENANCE A wedding present to the current owner’s parents. Also innovative and experimental, is his use of an unusual medium, that of the casein, that Pierneef explored at this stage while he was awaiting art supplies ordered through the Schweikerdt company in Pretoria. Casein is a curd-based medium, akin to that of poster paint or gouache, the proteins in the curd acting as binding agent, in which grinded colour pigment is mixed. Fleeting in nature, the casein medium dries extremely quickly, compelling the artist to work rather fast and quite accurate, leaving no margin for errors that can be corrected, erased or painted over in any way. It constitutes a true test of an artist’s dexterity with the paint brush. The result is often an overall glowing quality that surrounds the complete work, unlike gouache or poster paint that tend to be rather dull. Stylistically, Highveld Landscape , illustrated on these pages, contrasts radically with Jonkershoek. This intimate casein contains all the classical elements of a typical Pierneef composition: Highveld thorn trees in the foreground; blue mountain range in Continued from page 282 the middle ground; and his characteristic, bulbous clouds in the background. Compared to Jonkershoek , this casein appears more painterly than pointillist in application, the brushstrokes applied in a horizontal movement, rather than in short, brusque vertical dabs. These aspects all add to the atmospheric feeling evoked in the landscape. The reflection of the orange and yellow rays of the setting sun off the clouds, in contrast to the dark browns and purples of the trees and mountains, adds to the calmness of the scene. Landscape painting in South Africa, according to Esmé Berman, falls neatly, albeit conveniently into two categories: traditional and contemporary, with the former signalling paintings in which the visual subject is more-or-less descriptively handled, and the latter, paintings in which the subject has undergone varying degrees of abstract transformation. Pierneef’s Highveld Landscape straddles both categories.