To love a painting is to feel that this presence is… not an object but a voice.
~ Andre Malraux ~
Woman Eating
by
Duane Hanson
On this page, I usually feature paintings which I find beautiful and think you will enjoy as well; but this month, I thought I would share two works which are not beautiful but which nevertheless captured my attention, and drew me in, which I believe is what art should do.
When I first came across this piece at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, I spied her from across the gallery, and must confess I thought her an actual woman. “She is made of polyester resin, fiberglass, polychromed in oil with clothes, table, chair, and accessories.” I was fascinated by this woman, sitting in the middle of museum, surrounded by her things and seemingly lost in her own world.
The open gallery, with the sofas, which you can see in the background, led me to believe she was simply resting at the table and chairs. It was not until I came closer, that I finally saw that she was in fact roped in and Mr. Hanson’s creation.
From her, my eyes traveled to Still Life #12, by Tom Wesselmann, hung on the wall behind her. This still life actually has not one, but two cans of Café Bustelo incorporated into its tableau! Why? Why Cuban coffee and the most American of drinks, Coca-Cola? Ham, a favorite of Cubans and Americans, an apple and lemon – I could not quite figure out – and what about the camera? Was the artist a fellow Cuban-American trying to make a statement about food and culture?
I spent quite a bit of time staring at this painting, which like the Woman Eating, I really do not like; but am still captivated by and certainly left the museum with both images firmly implanted in my imagination. (By the way, I apparently do not have as much imagination as I need to fully appreciate pop art Still Life #12 is supposed to be a nude; and while Wesselmann lived in South Florida, he was from Minnesota and not Cuban at all.)
Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed.
~William Blake ~
