The Belle Époque Today: The Art of Ben Levene, RA

My philosophy is that I like one foot in the unknown and one foot in reality. The familiarity of the real helps the viewer to access my pictures, but I always take liberties with the subject, depending on my own perceptions.

--Ben Levene, RA, 1938-2010

Celebrated painter Ben Levene of the Royal Academy made a name for himself not by following trends in the art world, but by following his instincts. As a child, Levene showed remarkable talent—so much so that the Art Master at his school sent the youngster to evening classes at the Hammersmith School of Art where he impressed his much older classmates with his remarkable innate talent.

The magnificence of Levene’s work lies in his ability to create iconic compositions that have a tremendous depth of field, yet are self-consciously aware of the natural flatness of the picture plane. The depth in much of Levene’s later work comes from his incorporation of gold and silver leaf as a base on the canvas. In much the way iconographers worked on images of holy people, Levene renders magnificent still lives, landscapes, townscapes, and figure compositions.

Ben Levene
The Royal Academy

Levene admitted that he turned to the great masters as a source of inspiration. He would draw upon Titian, Rembrandt, Degas and Goya as a reference point for color and composition, but would edit down his scenes to be powerfully spartan. His work is an interesting combination of abstraction and realism. Still lives shimmer with a natural light and a realistic depth, however, they startle the viewer because from the depth comes a jarring flatness. His landscapes glint with silver and gold skies with trees of natural coloring, which seem just slightly off-kilter in relation to the composition. Levene’s ability to play with the fabric of reality makes his work exciting.