May 2003
Work...in the Artists' Eyes
by Jonn Salovaara
Does earlier American art mean something like Currier and Ives’ nostalgic prints to you? Do you avoid the American scene until the late 20th century when Americans come into their own as art leaders rather than followers?
The Terra Museum’s current exhibit, including works by Homer, Hassam, Sargent, and Whistler, reminds us that there was great American painting even when the Americans were schooled in England and France. Moreover, the exhibit offers an intriguing focal point for the period from 1840-1940 as the 70 or so paintings almost all incorporate a depiction of people at work.
Curator Elizabeth Kennedy noticed this repeated subject matter in reviewing the Terra’s holdings and she learned that this was one of Daniel J. Terra’s interests in collecting. As she developed the exhibit, she expanded her original notion of work, initially focused on farmers and cowboys, to include circus and theatrical performance, the "invisible work" of women in the period, and many other kinds of work.
In most of the pieces depicting workers, the traditions of painting overpower the humdrum of labor. Kennedy explains this as the special effect of painting and drawing as opposed to photography. Painting and drawing, at least in this period, automatically elevate everyday ordinariness. For instance, a scene depicted in a photograph might have a documentary feel, whereas, in a painting or drawing, it becomes composed, romanticized, even in some cases, mythologized. Hence, none of the exhibit pieces truly depicts the occasional boredom, frustration, and exhaustion of work. Even when a painter chooses to focus on an exhausted worker, the hallmarks of the medium — the composition or the colors -- have a heightening effect. The worker isn’t merely tired; she’s nobly tired.
Within this heightening, though, there is still a range of possible effects. The exhibit offers a brief but very instructive comparison of cowboy images. One from 1897, by Charles M. Russell is anecdotal, depicting almost a Blazing Saddles view of cowboy life — the bronco is kicking around the cook’s fire. Frederic Remington’s 1904 image of "Trailing Texas Cattle" is much more romantic, as if the longhorn steers were being led to something much finer than ultimate slaughter. Finally, Maynard Dixon’s "The Cow Country" of 1938 elevates the cowboy to icon. Dixon’s composition, where no cows are present, seems almost a prototype of a Marlboro ad, without the cigarette or trademark.
The painting’s not really about the work of the cowboy. It’s about the cowboy as image, a sort of Greek god with a portable, four-legged throne, his horse. He moves through the abstract American landscape; his purpose is unidentified, but there’s little indication it’s the work of herding cattle. It’s an odd fact of American capitalism that the lowly worker is abstractly deified while the "boss" person pulling the strings — in this case, perhaps a cattle baron — remains much less visible, much less an icon.
The woodcuts of Clare Leighton have the effect of turning labor into pure design. Leighton lived in lumber camps to study her subject. But even though she shows the lumberjacks doing their work, she stylizes the scenes in such a way that they become powerful graphic art, a very different thing from either reality or documentary photography.
In addition to women like Leighton who were artists depicting work, there were the women workers of the period themselves. Besides laundry women, the exhibit includes paintings and prints of nursemaids, knitters, lace-makers, prostitutes, and circus and burlesque performers.
For me, since I frequently take public transit to the Loop, the most resonant pictures of work are in the prints of Benton Spruance. Even here, in these scenes of crowded urban rush hours, the damp, smelly, alienating aspects of the city are omitted. Instead, there is some wonderful design-play with the split-level nature of the American city — the subway below, the elevated above.
As this show illustrates, artists play a role in how we conceive of work. Given that our understanding of the workplace is in flux, it would be good to see the theme of this show extended to the present day, including a consideration of how ad art is shaping our notions of work in the information age.
Jonn Salovaara is a freelance writer and landscape gardener. He teaches writing and literature at Columbia College Chicago.
The People Work:
American Perspectives, 1840-1940
Closes May 25, 2003
Terra Museum of American Art, 646 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago; 312-664-3939; www.terramuseum.org.
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