Human Figures in Landscapes - Article Example

Human Figures in Landscapes Dr. Shakeel [Pick the The history of landscape painting is as old as the history of painting itself. And even before that, when people first started drawing in caves and through other primitive modes of art, they drew human figures, trying to recreate the creation of God as they saw themselves and the people around them. With the passage of time, both these genres of landscape and portraiture kept flourishing all over the world and a lot of artists worked on these genres in bravura of techniques and styles. Then people started amalgamating these two different genres to create a new magic in which the canvas started taking the shape of a microcosm of life and so the artists started putting human figures active and alive within the beautiful landscapes around them. This mélange of portraiture and landscape that sensitive glimpses from life put into the lap of nature and that is the subject that strongly attracts me. In this paper I am going to discuss three different artists’ attempts of putting human figures in an impressive landscape. This paper aims at discussing the three works at length and at comparing and contrasting those works. The three paintings that I chose for analysis and comparison are painted by different artists in different times. The thing that is common in all of them is that all the three paintings are based on impressive landscape and they host human figures, beautifully embedded in the landscape. The first painting that I chose is Sun Dance Scene, Blood Reserve by Gerald Tailfeathers. It was completed in 1956. It is a good landscape with good play of light and human figures are artistically planted in it. The second painting is Pacific by Alex Colvile that was painted in 1979. It is a beautiful work of art that shows backside of a human figure, a bit of still life and impressive landscape. The third painting in this category is The Triumph of Mischief that was painted by Kent Monkman in 2007. This is the most interesting of all. It has a good solid landscape base and it seems almost like a pure landscape if we cut off the lower part because it is so complete and like a whole in itself. At the bottom, there are human figures that are equally well painted and compliment the landscape with equal beauty and ease. These three paintings are placed on the timeline between 1950s to almost the present time. The immediate years post-war witnessed a heightened level of cultural nationalism during which aboriginal cultures gained considerable weightage (Foss, Paikowsky & Whitelaw, 2010, 357). The selected paintings also show a chronological growth from the 1950s to the present time in painting a theme like this. The paintings extend from 1956 to 2007 and that is a time in which a lot of things changed and many new techniques and schools emerged. But in my paper I do not want to link these paintings to any such type of restrictions along the lines of schools of arts or any specific technique. I am going to compare them with each other only on the basis of the theme that I selected for the paper and that is Human figures in landscapes. So I will just compare them according to how well the theme is presented in all three of them. The first painting that I chose is is Sun Dance Scene, Blood Reserve by Gerald Tailfeathers. Tailfeathers was a Native Canadian artist and so he was close at heart with the Native aboriginal culture and their traditions. Being one of the very few Native Canadians who painted, he fulfilled his duty to the great colorful lost culture by painting their traditions. It is painted on paper using water colors and water color is a wise medium for this painting because it gives the painting a tinge of easy simplicity and vividness. The painting shows a scene from the Native culture of Blood Reserve. The Native aboriginal nation of Kainai or Blood tribe in southern Alberta has its own sacred tradition of Sun Dance. This tradition of Sun Dance was near extinction so taking it as a subject was a very wise choice on the part of Tailfeathers. This painting is an important one in this regard as it shows a glimpse of the Native aboriginal culture. So the human figures in this painting are actually a celebration of the culture that Tailfeathers felt very close to. This feature of the painting gives it a unique flavor that is absent in both of the other paintings. So the human figures here in this painting represent a whole legacy and tradition. The landscape of this painting is a very simple one. There is not much of the Romantic scenery around, disclosing marvels of nature. Rather, the landscape is simple and it is painted with the same honesty and simplicity. This simplicity of landscape also compliments the human figures that are presented in the painting. The painting is a depiction of the aboriginal Native culture. So the simplicity of the style adds to the simplicity of this theme and both blend together in an excellent manner. So the painting is an exquisite, yet simple celebration of a culture and its people. This simplicity of style can also give the painting a superficial bland look if it is compared with other paintings. But the important thing to be kept in mind is the theme of the painting which is very simple and even kind of primitive. So this raw effect of the painting and landscape is nothing but an honest depiction of the simplicity of aboriginal culture. The landscape is painted with a good use of light that is conveyed in honest straightforward and simple strokes. Without much of the usage of complicated techniques, the painting is painted in water color on paper. The landscape is desolately plain and all we see in most of it is the grass, some far off ridges of mountains that are almost negligible and sky. The colors of sky and grass are interesting. We can clearly see the effect of light on grass in the colors and it gives the grass a little more than normal significance. Normally in landscapes, the landscape includes mountains, trees and flowers etc and so the grass that carpets the paintings’ bottom lies in ignorance but here the prominence of grass is noteworthy because we do not see much of landscape otherwise. The tent that is pitched in the grass gives the painting a very local and Native color because it clearly stands as an emblem of Native culture. So the Sun dance of blood reserve being a very sacrosanct event is portrayed with great honesty through the landscape. The human figures are also interestingly displayed in the painting. They also strongly represent the culture from which they belong. Riding horses and carrying poles they absolutely are the Sun dancers and they are put very artistically in the landscape. Their faces are not very clear and they are shown from a distance but their costumes and the way they are represented starkly shows what purpose they had to fulfill in the painting. They are just the sons of that soil, carrying a legacy that is hundreds of years old and so their individual personalities do not matter because they are joined in one purpose. The second painting that I chose is Alex Coleville’s Pacific. It is painted on hardboard in acrylic medium and was painted in 1979. This painting shows a single lone human figure amidst an impressive landscape. The painting is very Modern in technique and in the portrayal of theme and it is also markedly different from both other paintings that are discussed in the paper. This painting shows as the name Pacific indicates a scene from the ocean. It seems like the human figure is standing near the ocean and is gazing at the ocean from a cabin. Some still life is also there and it affects the mood of the painting and adds more to it. Over all it seems like all of the things that join together to form this painting do not compliment each other well in one single painting, but this is the talent and genius of Coleville, because he believes in joining very different objects and themes together to create a balance and harmony. He says: "What often happens is that I suddenly see that I can combine one idea with another, and both ideas then take on significance that they would not have had on their own. It’s a curious business of using rational processes and irrational ones – and they’re going in a double harness." (Howes, n.d.) The painting’s landscape is impressive. The waves are painted in thick brush strokes and colors of the ocean are mild that are giving the landscape a very mild and soothing touch. The overall effect of the landscape in the painting is very calm and soothing that is very important in contrast with the human figure and the still life of the cabin. The nature presented here in the landscape is very “Wordsworthian” and it balances the negativity of the human figure. It also plays an important function in the painting and that is the function of escape. It represents escape from the shackles of the world. The human figure is very beautifully painted in this painting. Interestingly, he is not only shown from his backside to the viewer but also his head is excluded from the painting. This seems like a very different, yet wonderful idea. The exclusion of head lends more agency to the body and so the body becomes the focus of the painting. It looks almost like a photographic fault, just like some photographer has accidently cut the head out while shooting the photo. The absence of head can also lead to some important thematic conclusions too. The absence of head and presence of a gun in the painting imply a deeper meaning that the artist might have thought of while painting. It is the absence of “head” that makes us use guns. Human figure in this painting makes this painting very different from both the other paintings. The human figure in Coleville’s painting is more closely captured and painted in more detail and closure than the other two paintings. Coleville’s human figure stands alone in this painting and so attracts more attention while in both other paintings there are more than one human figure and they are painted from a distance. This single human figure and the detail of the cabin lend Coleville’s painting a more realistic type of individualism. Unlike Tailfeathers’ men, this one stands for himself and not as a part of a mob or crowd. This also gives Coleville’s painting a more reflective and deeper taste. As Coleville said about his paintings: “Because an artist must conceive as well as perceive if he is to present the full implications of his subject, I work in an indirect way. By painting largely `out of my head’ and by using an arduous technique, I aim to produce paintings which are constructions on a flat surface, each with an individual identity.” (Dow 1972) While Gerald Tailfeathers painted the legacy of an ancient nation and the colors of its culture, Coleville shows the dilemma of a modern nation or a country that is held together very unnaturally and uncomfortably. He honestly shows the disturbance and the shattered society through important bold objects in his paintings. In this painting he shows a gun resting on a table with a measuring ruler. So it seems like guns are the measuring scales through which we gauge our power, our life and our experiences. This gives his painting a very realistic and Modern touch. He not only realizes what the problem is of his country and countrymen but also feels free and honest to paint it. According to Tuzi (1988) "The idea that Canada is a fragmented, regionalized country, holding itself precariously together on the edge of existential negation, achieves complete legitimation in Colville’s work". So Pacific is a rare combination of totally natural, peaceful landscape and of the problems related to human life that are shown through the human figure and through the still life around him (Howes, n.d.). The incompletion of human figure is very suggestive about the theme of the painting and about the artists’ thoughts about the shattered human beings, living in a shattered Modern society. The third painting that I chose is Triumph of Mischief by Kent Monkman. It was painted in 2007. It is painted on canvas in acrylic medium. Monkman is a Canadian first nationalist of Cree and Irish origins and so his paintings often take up the subject of Canadian feuds that were back in the old times. He takes special care of adding the missing aboriginal perspectives and narratives in his paintings to include the silenced history and to keep it alive. This painting shows a interaction of the cowboys and Indians in a set of beautifully painted landscape. The landscape in this painting is painted in great detail with a lot of care and perfection. From the top view, the painting looks almost like a pure sensitive landscape. The landscape of the painting is quite Romantic and we find a lot of sensitive Romantic strokes in the landscape with those beautiful mountains and the sky that canopies the painting. So the painting as a landscape is a real success and it shows all the elements of a good landscape very clearly. The human figures and the animals that are often juxtaposed too, are very important part of this painting. This painting like many of Monkman’s other paintings celebrates the aboriginal culture. In this painting the aboriginal culture and traditions are shown in direct collision with the colonial ones and so this painting becomes the battleground for both of them in literal sense. This can also be related to the prevailing conditions of those times, when it was common for the colonials to take steps to eradicate the aboriginal culture to the maximum extent possible (Foss, Paikowsky & Whitelaw, 2010, 350). The celebration of aboriginal cultures through human figures is evident here in the form of “Miss Chief”. That shows the homosexual side of the Native aboriginal cultures that was a norm and was not awkward and was rather celebrated and boasted off. But in contrast with the colonials that seems like a drag queen or a funny spectacle. The contrasts and oppositions lend the human figures a lot of significance because they stand as epitome of legacies and traditions. “Monkman describes this painting as "The Moral Landscape", He borrows scene constructions from Boschs "The Garden of Earthly Delights" and Botticellis Primavera, but depicting the mishmash of collision between Native and Euro-centric spiritual traditions. Glenbow curator, Ben Portis writes: "Miss Chief strolls calmly through a swarm of iconography gone amok. Animal spirits from Western and Aboriginal myths collide. Half-man/half-beasts chase totem-conjuring shamans. A white bison ambles in the background. Horse-thieves vie for Pegasus. Pablo Picasso attempts to steal away with a sacred African mask. The final orgy has yet to get underway."” (Monkman, 2010) So, all of these paintings, though painted indifferent times between 1950s to the present time, are different and similar in many ways. The main theme and subject of the paintings is the same because in all of them, human figures are painted on beautiful landscapes. It is the treatment of the subject and theme that makes these paintings different and it lets them gain their own individual flavors and specialties. The landscapes in all of these paintings are different and are painted in different technique. From simple thick brush strokes of ocean to light, elevating the status of grass to great mountains setting up the scene for a mighty battle, all of these paintings carry their own beauty. Similarly the presentation of human figures in these landscapes is also very different and plays different roles in each of these paintings. The human figures present legacies, long lost traditions, history and also the individual dilemma that reflects the dilemma of the society in a microcosm. In a nutshell, planting carefully conceived and painted human figures in landscapes gives the landscapes a whole new outlook and increases its significance if painted with careful technique and harmony. References Dow, H. (1972) The Art of Alex Colville. Toronto: McGraw-Hill. Foss, B., Paikowsky, S., & Whitelaw, A. (2010). The visual arts in Canada: The twentieth century. Don Mills, Ont: Oxford University Press. Howes, D. (n.d.). Alex Colville, Doing Justice to Reality « Canadian Icon. Retrieved from http://canadianicon.org/table-of-contents/alex-colville-doing-justice-to-reality/ Monkman, K. (2010). Kent Monkman | Simone Keiran. Retrieved June 21, 2014, from http://simonekeiran.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/historical-revisions/ Tuzi, M. (1988). “Affirmation or Negation: The Art of Kurelek and Colville”, Bridges (March): 5-10 Read More