Thursday, April 20, 2017

Despair in the Artwork of Philip Guston

Prior to 1970, Philip Guston had been a renowned Abstract Expressionist. However, he grew increasingly upset with the movement, claiming that it was just an escape from people’s ability to express their emotions.[1] In an act of rebellion, he began to paint with a more cartoonish and representational style from 1967 onwards. This change brought him great derision among his critics, who considered his new style to be a waste of his talents. Upon Guston’s death, this changed as people began to make note of his use of a personal iconography and a disturbing colour scheme. His list of icons included many strange and seemingly unrelated sights such as lima bean heads, broken easels, and trashcan lids. These symbols were often painted in garish reds, gunmetal greys, and dark blacks. The combination of these two aspects of his style would come together to instill the audiences with a sense of dread and unease. Looking at Guston’s works from this period, these emotions were reflective of the way he viewed himself and the world around him. His new style expressed these pained views of the world, locked away during his time in Abstract Expressionism, using frightening colours and repeated images.

City Limits, Philip Guston, 1969, Oil on Canvas, Museum of Modern Art, 363.1991

While not the first work of Guston’s new style, it contains a major symbol that Guston used in his works: the Klansman. The ones pictured in City Limits clearly represent an evil which fits in well with the reddish hellscape in the background. They are not just symbollic of the evils of racism, however. The Klansman seem to be symbollic of a more rampant and common evil, as evidenced by the fact that they are able to wear these hoods in plain sight. This, combined with the desolation of the city they are driving through, seems to suggest the idea of evil permeating the world with passive acceptance. The unsettling colours used also suggest Guston’s despair at seeing this attitude in the world.

The Studio, Philip Guston, 1969, Oil on Canvas, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Unkown Object Number

Similarly to the previous work, the Klansman is again present, this one painting in the titular studio. The studio also contains another one of Guston’s symbols: the easel. Given his habit of using painting easels and supplies to represent his feelings toward himself and his work, this piece seems to suggest that the evil present in the figures in City Limits is one which is present within himself as well. The fact that the Klansman is painting a Klansman further reinforces the feeling that Guston is referencing the evil he sees in himself since the “painted” Klansman is drawn in Guston’s unique style. Once again, the disturbing colours and these icons suggest that Guston is despairing the fact that he sees the world’s evil in himself.

Painting, Smoking, Eating, Philip Guston, 1973, Oil on Canvas, The Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam, A 38964

As with The Studio, Guston is drawing attention to the flaws he sees within himself. However, he deomstrates this self reflection using two newer symbols: the lima bean head and the sideways shoe. The grotesque lima bean head seemed to replace the evil Klansman in Guston’s protrayal of individuals here and in future works. Many take this lima bean head to be Guston himself. If this is true, the fact that he is in bed and eating seem to suggest he is chastising his pecieved laziness. This is further compounded by the large, disorganized pile of overturned shoes, whose likeness to a garbage pile mirror his view of himself as a ruined and worthless artist laying among the refuse. Guston’s typically disturbing colour scheme strengthens the negative feelings the work evokes.

Deluge II, Philip Guston, 1975, Oil on Canvas, Museum of Modern Art, 722.2005

Using most of the same symbols as Painting, Smoking, Eating, Guston critiques his works in the same fashion he did himself. As the title suggests, there is a flood of symbols from Guston’s previous works in total disarray. In the foreground is a disembodied hand painting an unknown picture, possibly the scene before it. The presence of his symbols in the scene imply that the hand belongs to Guston himself. The colours on display are still Guston’s usual unsettling colour scheme is on display in this work as well to give it the despair-ridden feeling of his other works. The title and colours as well as the scene’s resemblence to a garbage heap suggest that Guston viewed his own artwork as something ugly and messy, rather than the beautiful expression of emotion he hoped for.

The Pit, Philip Guston, 1976, Oil on Canvas, National Gallery of Australia, NGA 1981.3051

The sideways shoes and lima bean head of both Painting, Eating, Smoking and Deluge II are seen again in this work. Alongside them, though, appears a new symbol: the crowd of limbs. Unlike previous uses of the shoe symbol, the shoes combine with limbs to suggest a chaotic mixing of the feet that wear them. The many colours of limbs present point to it being a symbol of many people, not just one group. The scene itself of people trapped under a fire filled landscape resembles a stylization of hell. This, combined with the lima bean’s despondant stare and the burning colours, also speak towards Guston’s view of society and the hellish place he percieved it to be.

The Street, Philip Guston, 1977, Oil on Canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1983.457
As in The Pit, the crowd of legs with overturned shoes makes it return. However, they are also joined by a new symbol: trashcan lids. As before, the crowds of limbs are meant to be representative of people in chaos. However, this time there are two crowds facing off against each other, suggesting unruly conflict. The rightmost crowd has taken up the trashcan lids in defense, but in doing so has revealed a decaying mess. On top of that, the whole work is done in Guston’s usual unnerving colour palette. The aggressive crowds of limbs, the trashcan lids, and the unsettling colours together are meant to suggest a scene of neverending conflict in the world that greatly saddened Guston.




[1] Philip Guston Retrospective, Michael Auping

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