Christopher Peter

Lush and flamboyant romanticism characterize Peter's portrait of Madame Bovary donning a beautiful golden ball gown in a state of ecstatic longing" before attending a grand function at an aristocratic chateau. Alas! Her expectations of finding love and romance are cruelly dashed, and she finds herself forced to return to her dreary husband and mundane life.

However all this is by the by. Christopher's main body of work addresses memory and it is drenched in inexpungable nostalgia and yearning for things that have vanished and gone forever - be they people, homes, gardens, trees or possessions. His hankering for the far more gracious style of life that obtained in the past emerges clearly from his collage "Preparations for a country ball". The image ushers us into an old-fashioned bedroom of 1950's vintage. It is modest, rather than luxurious, but home is where the heart is, and the furnishings are rendered with tender reverence. A window opens up the space, and provides a panoramic view of the lush and verdant landscape of the Eastern Cape which was the seat of the family farm which regretfully has now passed into other hands like so many of the things Peter loved and admired. On a cupboard hangs a stylish lilac and white ball gown with a pale silky bodice and a bouffant skirt. On the bed a luxurious fur awaits its owner who can only be Peter's mother. Another part of the outfit is seen in a painting of a pair of gloves lying on a counterpane like gemstones presented in a jeweller's velvet box.

"From Memory. The dining room and studio garden at the Irma Stern Museum" reveals that what is remembered is not necessarily spectacular, but it is always something Christopher cherishes. For decades he was the director of the Irma Stern Museum and long exposure to the view into Irma's dining room through the garden window enshrined itself in his heart and compelled him to paint it with deep affection and total recall of even the most minuscule of details.

 

and fresh, it obviously has a history and the goose girl is dressed in the quaint early 19th century costume of such rustic maidens. She advances along the rivulet with her flock and the blue waters and bright light playing over the snowy plumage of the geese imbue the image with the innocent charm of an illustration in an old fashioned children's book. The framing landscape presents a watery pool with reeds that compliments the goose girl vignette. There is a jump in space. The one landscape does not flow into the other, and this disrupts the image and dynamizes the placid composition.