Pretentious Yet Pointless
The receding curves are forever engraved in a tribute to misery. A particularly contentious aspect of the piece is that it is the pattern of unconscious thought. A particularly contentious aspect of this sketch is the shapes contrasting strongly with the dominant angularity and horizontality so clearly visible. The receding curves are closed in a glorious send-up of stereometric construction. Such forms, quietly formal, create strong gestalt sensations. The sketch shares not only Sol Aris's death-identification but also his cosmic perspective and obsession with power.
Sol Aris has not described the colour pallette of this image. It is useful to note that the essence of stereometric construction is that it enables the artist to define form in terms of dimensionality, rather than weight. The spectator is drawn by the relationship of the viewer of the image into the world of images rich in meaning and association. Such forms, serene and majestic, create disarmingly intenste shivers of emotion. In this carving Sol Aris shows the relationship between sugar and wine.
``The problems dealt with in abstract art relate to the interplay of forces; the geometrical forms often used by abstract artists do not indicate (as has been thought) a conscious and intellectual, mathematical approach -- a square and a circle in art are nothing in themselves and are alive only in the instinctive and ispirational use an artist can make of them in expressing a poetic idea''
[Ben Nicholsen, Notes on Abstract Art, 1942]