Madeline

Friday, March 21, 2014

AR101 MW 8:00-9:15
The Art of Control
Throughout the ages, artists, philosophers, writers, and many other creative minds

have struggled with the concept of control. Control over one’s life, which can be

attributed to multiple factors including fate, personal choices and actions, god or gods,

and many more, is one of the most notable and intriguing aspects of this notion and is

present in both The Banquet of the Starved by James Ensor and Stationary Figure by

Philip Guston. These artists both dealt with death and destruction during their lives, each

living through both WWI and WWII, and they both used their artwork to comment on the

problems being perpetuated by their societies. Each understood that the fate of their

communities rested in the hands of the people living there, and both were deeply

disturbed that their fellow men were so flippant regarding this great responsibility.

James Ensor was born on April 13, 1860 in Ostend, Belgium. He grew up in a

middle class family with a lot of freedom and free time, which he often spent reveling in

the beauty of the outdoors. His studio was set up in back of one of his parents’ souvenir

shops where they kept broken and out-of-date items. After three years of art lessons at the

Brussels academy, Ensor returned to Ostend and began his career as a painter of the

grotesque. He detested the carefree indifference of the wealthy, especially in the carnival

atmosphere surrounding his parents’ shops. One of his most significant influences was

Netherlandish artist Hieronymus Bosch, whose macabre scenarios served as both

inspiration and guidance for Ensor’s work, which was considered to encompass the

expressionist, surreal, and symbolic styles. Ensor’s motive to paint The Banquet of the

Starved, however, was far more gruesome. When World War One broke out in 1914,
most people living in Belgium fled seeking shelter and safety elsewhere, but Ensor

remained in his hometown of Ostend for the duration of the war. In 1915, this experience

prompted him to paint The Banquet of the Starved, which portrays well-dressed

individuals seated around a table with a sparse meal and paintings of dancing skeletons

hung overhead.

These images provide a cultural commentary on the wealthy people in Ensor’s

society as well as an insight into the people’s control over their own fate. They are seen

sitting idly around the table, waiting to be served, but there is no one coming with food. If

they simply got up and rose to action, they would be fed, but they refuse to do anything

and so they go hungry. The skeleton paintings on the wall behind them seem to represent

people at past banquets who have suffered similar fates. They are dancing and partying in

the portraits, but they are all dead because they refused to give up their high and mighty

attitudes in order to save themselves. I was first drawn to this piece because of its vibrant

colors and seemingly playful scene, but as I moved closer, I realized that it was a morbid

portrayal of a deadly feast. The figures’ faces scared and intrigued me so much that I

barely noticed the skeleton paintings in the background; however, these paintings within

the painting became my favorite aspect as soon as I noticed them. They really drove

home the point that this banquet would end in death for all who attempted to enjoy it.

Ensor’s work continued to represent his contempt for humanity and his harsh encounters

with the high and mighty until he died on November 19, 1949.

Philip Guston was born Phillip Goldstein on June 27, 1913 in Montreal, Canada.

He was raised by his Ukrainian-Jewish parents in Los Angeles, California where he and

his family lived in fear of the KKK. When Guston was ten, he found his father who had
hanged himself in the family’s shed. This scarring experience, however, did not hinder

Guston’s creative abilities. In 1927 and with the encouragement of his mother, he began

attending the Los Angeles Manual Arts High School where he studied with his

contemporary Jackson Pollock. Following high school, from which he was expelled,

Guston was awarded a one-year scholarship to the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, and

this was the last instance of his formal education. He felt that the structured institutions

were stifling his creativity, and he wanted to break away in order to better explore his

artistic abilities. When he was eighteen, Guston was commissioned by the John Reed

Club to paint an indoor mural of the Scottsboro Boys, which, upon completion, was

vandalized by local police officers. This greatly influenced Guston’s perception of

politics and society in a very negative way; his murals began to portray his antiracist and

antifascist ideals and continued to do so until the nineteen fifties. At this point, he began a

short period of abstract expressionism, while most of his works completed prior to this

point are considered to be representational art. This period ended in 1967 when he moved

to Woodstock, New York because of his increasing irritation with abstract art, and after

its end he returned to producing representational artwork. However, his new paintings

were cartoonish in style and were not very popular among art critics. In fact, they were

heavily criticized and condemned by most, causing Guston to retreat into the isolation of

his home in the Woodstock countryside. It was during this period in 1973 that Guston

painted Stationary Figure, which portrays a cartoonish figure smoking and lying in a pool

of blood. There is also a large light bulb that is not lit, a clock that reads approximately

1:25 am, and an open window that shows only blackness outside.
 These images communicate a political and social commentary on the control we

have over our own lives. When people choose to buy and smoke cigarettes, they are

choosing to destroy their own health as well as the health of the earth and the health of

those around them, and the fact that cigarettes are still legal shows that our government

and those in power see these problems as less important than most others. The figure in

the painting is also simply lying down and waiting to die; he could get up at any time and

fix his life, but he chooses not to. I was drawn to this picture because its cartoonish style

and scant colors reminded me of my own artwork. My first reaction emotionally upon

examining the piece was a melancholy feeling because the figure looks as if he has

completely given up. He is laying in what I assume is his own blood and smoking a

cigarette just waiting to die alone in the dead of night. It also resonated with me because I

struggle with depression and often feel completely alone, and there have been times that I

have wanted to just give up and wait for whatever is going to happen to happen. Guston

continued to use his artwork as a commentary on what he believed to be a wretched and

unjust society until he died on June 7, 1980.