Lot Essay
RELATED WORK:
The Double, circa 1950, pencil on paper, 11 x 15 1/8in., Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Elton Yasuna
In her monograph on the artist, Nancy Grimes elaborates on the symbolic themes and messages found within The Double, one of Jared French's masterworks. She also suggests that this painting of circa 1950 was executed after a turning point in French's career when "from 1940 on (he) trades an objective vision for a subjective one, turning away from the physical world in order to delve deeply into the nature of psyche and self." (Jared French's Myths, San Francisco, California, 99,3 p. XIII) She continues:
The Double, an egg tempera painting, uses a resurrection scenario to masterfully restate French's preoccupation with heroic physicality. Now, however, the beautiful, gracefully proportioned body becomes not just a reflection of spiritual harmony but a symbol for the psyche, or self, in general. In this painting, four figures--a matron and three young men--stake out positions across a barren field or strand whose bleakness is intensified by smokestacks rising in the distance. The narrative is ambiguous. The central figure, a handsome, pallid youth, completely naked, is either about to rise from or sink into a shallow grave. He is watched by his double, a rather fussily dressed figure in turtleneck and hat, who kneels with his thighs pressed tightly together and one palm upturned, as though urging his twin to rise. Sitting on a fence at a slightly higher level, a young black man, half-dressed, relaxed and uninhibited, sits with hands cupped between open thighs. Behind this group, to the left, lurks a funereal specter, a woman in a dark Victorian dress and a phallically feathered hat. This ominous figure, compositionally linked to the pillars of industry on the horizon, stands ready to place a blood-red leather wreath on the grave, but, smaller and placed at a distance from the others, she seems to belong to the past...Certainly the painting alludes to the conflict between Victorian values, in retreat yet still influential, and a younger, more open generation. But the three young men also represent varying states of spiritual and sexual freedom, with the unclothed youth, monumental and erect, representing the naked or unrepressed self arrested midway in its upward passage from the unconscious to consciousness. (Jared French's Myths, p. XIII)
The Double, circa 1950, pencil on paper, 11 x 15 1/8in., Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Elton Yasuna
In her monograph on the artist, Nancy Grimes elaborates on the symbolic themes and messages found within The Double, one of Jared French's masterworks. She also suggests that this painting of circa 1950 was executed after a turning point in French's career when "from 1940 on (he) trades an objective vision for a subjective one, turning away from the physical world in order to delve deeply into the nature of psyche and self." (Jared French's Myths, San Francisco, California, 99,3 p. XIII) She continues:
The Double, an egg tempera painting, uses a resurrection scenario to masterfully restate French's preoccupation with heroic physicality. Now, however, the beautiful, gracefully proportioned body becomes not just a reflection of spiritual harmony but a symbol for the psyche, or self, in general. In this painting, four figures--a matron and three young men--stake out positions across a barren field or strand whose bleakness is intensified by smokestacks rising in the distance. The narrative is ambiguous. The central figure, a handsome, pallid youth, completely naked, is either about to rise from or sink into a shallow grave. He is watched by his double, a rather fussily dressed figure in turtleneck and hat, who kneels with his thighs pressed tightly together and one palm upturned, as though urging his twin to rise. Sitting on a fence at a slightly higher level, a young black man, half-dressed, relaxed and uninhibited, sits with hands cupped between open thighs. Behind this group, to the left, lurks a funereal specter, a woman in a dark Victorian dress and a phallically feathered hat. This ominous figure, compositionally linked to the pillars of industry on the horizon, stands ready to place a blood-red leather wreath on the grave, but, smaller and placed at a distance from the others, she seems to belong to the past...Certainly the painting alludes to the conflict between Victorian values, in retreat yet still influential, and a younger, more open generation. But the three young men also represent varying states of spiritual and sexual freedom, with the unclothed youth, monumental and erect, representing the naked or unrepressed self arrested midway in its upward passage from the unconscious to consciousness. (Jared French's Myths, p. XIII)