Guards at the Door

This Is (Still) the Problem We All Live With

Conservative cartoonist Glenn McCoy has published an editorial cartoon depicting the recently confirmed Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. In this cartoon McCoy has shamelessly hijacked the layout of Norman Rockwell's 1964 painting, The Problem We All Live With but replaced six year old Ruby Bridges on her way to a recently desegregated school with Betsy DeVos.

The problem (that we still live with) is that Betsy Devos is not the disenfranchised being empowered. She is the powerful (rich and powerful) who now directs the franchise. Betsy DeVos is not the weak needing protection. McCoy has hijacked the story of people of color to portray conservatives as the oppressed and mistreated. It is foolish to suggest this when conservatives currently control the executive branch and the legislative branch, and are poised to control the judicial branch as well. This is disingenuous. This is still the problem that we all live with.

Paul Klee: Forward and Backward to the Center

This is a short essay that I wrote for my ART 101 (Art History ) class at the Des Moines Area Community College

***

That the Swiss painter Paul Klee (1879 – 1940) isn’t more widely known and immediately recognized is somewhat shocking considering his vast output of creative work: by the time of his death he had created over 10,000 works in various mediums including: oil paint, water-color, pen and ink drawings, lithographic prints, chalk, and etc. (Baker 169) That Klee remains somewhat obscure is also puzzling when one considers his many and varied links to other popular artists within a variety of modern artistic movements of the early 20^th century and his anticipation of styles taken up by artists in the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries. His work should be known, and loved, and treasured, not only because of his mastery of a diverse range of styles and techniques, but also because of his restless investigation into the human condition and his preservation of a childlike spirit in spite of human depravity and social crises.

Paul Klee was influenced by the artists before him and by those working around him, yet he never became inextricably linked to any particular style or artistic movement. He developed his own artistic language, borrowing and reinterpreting the styles and methods of many others, but always using them to his own design. The influence of artistic movements such as cubism, fauvism, expressionism, futurism, dada, and surrealism is easily seen in Klee’s vast output of work. He is frequently compared with Picasso, Chagall, and Mondrian, among others, but the comparison is always slight because Klee never duplicated anyone else’s stylings. Even the painting of Wassily Kandinsky, with whom he taught at the Bauhaus art school in Germany, and with whom he founded Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) group of artists, was similar but only in some small way; the differences were notable. (Ponente 16)

And if the influences on Klee’s work were many and varied, so too are the artists that his work has influenced in the years since his death and whose styles he anticipated. One can project the shimmering rectangles of color painted by Mark Rothko from Klee’s The Closet (1940, Colored paste on cardboard), and the thick-lined graffiti style figures of Keith Haring from Klee’s Project (1938, Colored paste on burlap). It can be said that, while there was little in Klee that resembled the “action paintings” of artists like Jackson Pollock, Klee’s theories and explorations set the stage for abstract expressionism. (Ponente 109 -110)

Klee’s work is often described as having a “charming innocence and freshness of outlook,” (Waldberg 52), as a “personal, fairy-tale world of fantasy and invention” (Baker 168).  But to say that his art is “childlike” is to ignore the deep maturity of his work, even in his early years. It is true that there is much whimsy and wonder in the work of Paul Klee, but there is also meditation on the fullness of the human condition, and that includes experiences of pain, and depression, and misery. In addition to his childlike playfulness his work demonstrates a “tendency to pessimism and satire” (Grohmann 11). His work is at times playful and sardonic, romantic and bizarre.

In an essay written in 1920 (while he was serving in the German army during World War I), Klee wrote, “Art does not reproduce the visible, but makes visible” (quoted in Ponente 56). His painting was more than just a replication of shapes and forms and colors from nature on canvas; it was an attempt to see into the deeper realities of the universe.

Omphalo-Centric Lecture (Paste color on silk and burlap)-created in 1939-the year before his death–is a visual description of this artistic quest; looking inward, looking deeper, looking into the mystery at the center of the universe, what lies before and what lies beyond. It is, quite literally, navel-gazing.

The mysterious figure in Klee’s painting stares out at us, as if inviting us to join the artist in this quest to find the center of all things. She (the figure is vaguely feminine in its curves) cups in her hand a glowing navel, radiating with a sort of divine light – a light from which all knowledge spreads.

For Klee, who suffered in the last years of his life from scleroderma (an autoimmune tissue disorder that causes a thickening and hardening of the skin and of blood vessels and internal organs) the Omphalo (Greek for “navel”) was a symbol of life and death. He dealt continually with images of life as well as images of fear and death in his last years-not just his own personal fears and his own imminent death, but those of the world around him as well.

The Mask of Fear (oil on burlap, 1932) is a painting that describes the mental anguish of the artist and of the world. The oval shaped, somewhat African styled mask has large, round eyes with widely dilated pupils-as if starring, transfixed in horror, at something unseen-over a quirky, thin handlebar mustache. Painted on the eve of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, it’s not difficult to guess what horror that might be. The satirical death mask is supported on two sets of human legs-suggesting that this fear of death is corporate, rather than individual. “The Mask of Fear, then, is a mask of anguish covering the face of Europe, whose myth was again collapsing” (Ponente 97).

In 1933 Klee and his wife fled from Germany, back to his native Switzerland, to escape persecution from the Nazi party. Klee, along with many other modern artists in Germany, was labeled a “degenerate” artists by the Nazis, and accused of being a “Jew” and a “foreigner.” (Grohmann 31) But, he said, “It seems to me unworthy to answer back to such crude taunts. Even if it were true that I am a Jew or that I come from Galicia, this would not change by one iota the value of my personality or my achievement” (Letter dated April 6^th, 1933-quoted in Grohman 31).

Despite the horrors of war, the death of close friends, and the pain of his illness, Klee did not consider death to be the end. The epithet on his tombstone (which he composed himself) reads:

I cannot be grasped in the here and now
For I live just as well with the dead
as with the unborn
Somewhat closer to the heart of creation than usual
But far from close enough

And his work continued to demonstrate a combination of mature reflections on pain and sadness, as well as the mystery of wonder and joy in the world. Klee returned again and again to the Opmphalo as a sort of reoccurring image of life and wonder in his work.  In 1932, he painted The Fruit (oil on jute), another example of his quest to find the mystic center. In that work, a spiraling cord–an umbilical cord–leads us forward and backward, curving through space and time, to find the intense white light at the center of a dark piece of fruit– the seed, the embryo from which all will grow.

In 1936, he painted the cheerful landscape Southern Gardens (Oil on paper). Klee painted few works that year because of the debilitating pain of his illness, yet despite his sickness, this work is filled with a joyous light and warmth. It depicts a serene Mediterranean landscape–a garden. And, again, in the center of this garden is the Omphalo. The Garden becomes then, not just any garden, but the mythic and mystic Garden of Eden where men and women walked with God in the cool of the day (Genesis 3:8)-close to the heart of creation.

It is this combination of pessimism and satire with charming innocence and whimsy, of the realities of pain with the joy of existence that draws me into the artwork of Paul Klee and makes me wish that more people were familiar with his work.  “I don’t want to render man as he is” said Klee in one of his lectures, “but as he might be” (January 26, 1924, quoted in Poente 14).  Through the artistic work of Paul Klee it is possible to discover the fullness of the human experience and to search for the greater mysteries-to become more than we are.

Baker, Samm Sinclair, and Natalie Baker. Introduction to Art: A Guide to the Understanding and

Enjoyment of Great Masterpieces. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated. 1971.

Grohmann, Will. Paul Klee: Masters of Art. Trans. Norbert Guterman. New York:

 Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated. 1985.

Ponente, Nello. Klee: Biographical and Critical Study. Trans. James Emmons. Skira.  1960.

Waldberg, Patrick. Surrealism. Trans. Stuart Gilbert. Skira. 1962.

Poison

The Amazing Juggler Performs, but Does He Enjoy It?

I am currently enrolled as a student at the Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC).  This semester I am taking an art appreciation class. The following was written as an assignment for that class. We were required to visit the Des Moines Art Center (either in person, or by way of the internet), to view the works on display and to write about one of them.

***

I don’t know if “The Amazing Juggler” (oil on canvas, 64 3/4” x 39 5/8”) by the Japanese born, American artist Yasuo Kuniyoshi, was specifically intended by the artist to be understood as a self-portrait, but the painting can certainly be read as such. Painted in 1952, a year before his death, it is a haunting and melancholic dream of his life and career as an artist in America.

Featuring a cast of circus performers-two acrobats and the eponymous juggler-in an uncertain and ambiguously defined space, “The Amazing Juggler” continues Kuniyoshi’s lifelong use of circus and carnival themes. One of the acrobats tumbles through the background, moving horizontally through the upper third. Is this clown tumbling into or out of the frame? In the lower right, another female performer rests in the curved trunk of an elephant. But it is the juggler who holds central position in the painting. He is deftly juggling four balls while riding a bicycle. Above them all are the poles and cables of the circus tent–or are they the steel frames of modern city skyscrapers? Everything is motion; the acrobat is cavorting, the elephant rider is rocked, the juggler cycles towards the viewer. Even the foreground and background are in motion, merging in uncertain space. The red performance floor pushes backward, vertically, into what is either the sky or the circus tent.

Most of the work is defined by the shapes of the performers–but the space they perform in is defined and broken by lines. The horizon is uneven. What may be read as the floor also becomes the vertical line of the circus tent post. The sky above is divided the painting’s strongest lines–dark and rigid–but even so, they give no clear definition of the space.

Kuniyoshi has painted this picture with rough strokes and dry scumbled paint. In many places, pencil lines show through the paint. The effect is to create soft focus haze that emphasizes the dream-like qualities of the painting. Even the garish colors–bright red, pink, magenta, turquoise, and orange–are softened. What could easily become a nightmare is subtly subdued.

The Juggler occupies the same space as the vertical dividing line with a performer on either side. But Kuniyoshi has kept this from becoming a static arrangement by arranging the two other performers on a diagonal line. The Juggler himself seems instable, almost ready to fall off the bicycle, but is held balanced against that strong vertical line. The balance is precarious, however; the chaotic motion of the performers comes dangerously close to a crash. Perhaps that is the thrill of their performance.

In contrast to the other two performers in this painting, the Juggler is wearing a mask. And his mask, in contrast to the rest of the painting, filled with bright, brash color, is sober in black and white and with its long nose resembles the medico della peste (“plague doctor”) masks of Venetian carnivals, a memento mori symbol of death. The mask displays a rictus that may be a smile–but only ambiguously so. Is it pleasure? Is it pain? Is it something of both?

Born in Japan in 1889, Yasuo Kuniyoshi came to America, alone, in 1906. He lived in the United States of America the rest of his life, but was prohibited by law from ever becoming an American citizen. Even after living in this country for decades, and having become a respected member of the artistic community, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Kuniyoshi’s status went from “resident alien” to “enemy alien” (Wang 3).

Kuniyoshi, like many other immigrants at the time, was placed under house arrest and interrogated by

the FBI. His camera was confiscated (a hardship since he worked as a photographer as well as a painter). Yet, unlike many other Japanese Americans at the time, Kuniyoshi avoided the internment camps. He was spared this indignity because he had a few, well connected friends who vouched for him, and because he willingly (if not pleasurably) contributed to the production of war-time propaganda (Wang 5 – 6). A photograph in Time magazine shows him working on a hateful painting of a characterized Japanese General Hideki Tojo. (Time, 20 April, 1942.)

If understood as a self-portrait, “The Amazing Juggler” shows us a Yasuo Kuniyoshi, who is a precariously balanced performer, skillfully performing his tricks-but aware that stability is precarious. His place in society is held only through dexterous manipulation, keeping all the props aloft and in motion, a balancing act that threatens to veer off course and come crashing down. He hides behind a mask that seems to say “I am smiling, see how much fun we’re having,” but that smile is dubious and there a foreboding of death. It is the American dream-almost a nightmare. The Amazing Juggler performs, but does he enjoy it?

Wang, Shi Pu. Becoming American? The Art and Identity Crisis of Yasuo Kuniyoshi. University of Hawai’i Press. 2011.

Principalities

An Illustration for one of my Anomalies: Principalities

Stained Glass Window

This window can be seen in the Basilica of Saint Mary in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Stained Glasss Window by Jeff Carter on 500px

Biblical Limericks: God Loves Artists Best (or at least first...)

Of course we know that our God imparts
his spirit to fill up human hearts,
but the first to be filled
was a man who was skilled
in creating great works of fine art.

Exodus 31: 1 - 6

Melete, Mneme, and Aoide

Melete, Mneme, and Aoide were the original three Muses.  Their number later multiplied to nine.

The Eyes of the Madonna and Child

I photographed a reproduction of Carlo Crivelli's painting Madonna and Child using a DIY macro attachment and a multi-faceted filter.

My wife just says it's creepy...

Northwest Coast Totem Pole

This example of a Northwest Coast Native American totem pole is on display at the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois.

Buddha Was so Metal!

photos taken at the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago.

Icon

I spent a couple of hours the other day carving the image into a woodblock (and gave myself a nasty little blister in the process). Then I printed the image (several copies of it) onto these great pieces of old, heavy, water-stained pieces of paper that I found in the back of a storage closet.

Jesus in Liberty Jail

I saw this bust of Jesus in the lobby of the Mormon Liberty Jail Museum in Liberty, Missouri.

Jesus Sculpture by Jeff Carter on 500px

4,2,1, 5 and 54 Red

Here are a couple of collages I made a few years back. Going through some old stuff I very nearly threw them away.  But I rescued them from the trash pile and here they are.  Not that they're anything super substantial.  I just like them.

made with: old books, magazine clippings, tissue paper, newspaper, and acrylic paint,

Theodicy by Choice - an Exquisite Corpse

The Exquisite Corpse is an art game - the players each contribute to the whole work without being able to see what the other have done.

The combined title for this piece is Feed Interrupted - Theodicy by Choice - or Fear life - Burn in Hell.  A rather dark and gloomy work - but curiously united in theme, even though none of the contributors could see the other parts.

My portion of this work is the Theodicy by Choice section.

Oil and Water Come Together Beautifully

Oil and water may not mix, but they can come together beautifully under the right conditions.

To take this pictures I filled a clear baking pan about half full with water, added a bit of canola oil and a drop of dish soap.  I propped the ban up on a couple of overturned small bowls and slid a sheet of color samples under the baking pan.

White on White

I was thinking of the Suprematism paintings of Kazimir Malevich - paintings based on geometric shapes and a limited color palette - particularly his painting White on White (from which I have stolen the title.)

White on White by Jeff Carter

Still Life with Religious Objects

Abstracted Christmas Lights

This effect was achieved by shooting Christmas lights through a drinking glass.


This picture, like many of my others, are available for purchase - either as a digital download ($2.99) or as a professional quality print.  And there are a lot of options for the prints - different materials, sizes, and frames.  At reasonable prices.  They can be shipped worldwide - though I think it may be too late for it to arrive by Christmas (unless you're celebrating the Orthodox Christmas dates , January 7th...) Still. I'd like to think that they'd make nice gifts.

And my portion of the proceeds of these sales is given to the Salvation Army of Newton, Iowa.  You get nice artwork, and the Salvation Army gets more money to continue its work in Jasper County.


Abstract Bokeh by Jeff Carter