A Convergence
of Convergences:
A Contest.
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For more information
about this contest,
click here.
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Contest Winner No. 16.
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A Rousseau/Hirshfield Convergence.
By Adam Webb
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Henri Rousseau, Mauvaise Surprise (1901)
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Morris Hirshfield, The Artist and His Model (1945)
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Please let there be no narrative to explain Henri Rousseau's perfectly insane Mauvaise Surprise, the forest scene of a blasé nude, a ferocious bear, and a hidden gunman. Nothing could do justice to such a bizarre image.
It's a painting made all the more strange by its reflection in Morris Hirshfield's The Artist and His Model. The women are undeniably similar. Both have stripped off their last piece of clothing (check the tree behind the nude in the Rousseau) and their faces are empty of any expression. Hirshfield paints himself into the bear's place in his painting (both appear in profile), where, instead of claws, he holds up three long brushes.
For me, though, the convergence doesn't end at the composition; I can't find a hint of sexuality in either of these paintings. I don't know why I expect a bear attack to be sexualized, but both images, especially side by side, seem that much stranger for their chastity.
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Weschler Responds.
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Ah, Mr. Webb, did you ever meet Mr. Clem from back in Entry No. 5? I mean, because you guys have sorta the same problem, or else I do with you, because you are the ones who keep showing me the damn pictures ...
But anyway, yes, there is a certain je n'ose pas kinship between these two images. But chaste? I'm not so sure, at least not with that really odd Hirschfield. I mean, what do you make of that bewhiskered pussycat in the picture-within-the-picture, toying lewdly like that with the prone butterfly (same color as the model's hair); and the artist's paddle palette; his rampant brushes; that really peculiar belt knot sashed over to his side; and the ornate long stick she is grasping? Granted, pace Freud, sometimes a cigar is only a cigar, but other times, something's not being a pipe doesn't necessarily mean it isn't a peep.
Now, as for the Rousseau, bizarre, yes; perfectly insane, yes; without any possible narrative ... Well, maybe no narrative, but hardly without antecedent. Does it render the image any less deliciously whacked out to see it as Rousseau's take on the old St. George and the Dragon motif, as in, well, Raphael:
or Van der Weyden:
or, almost as wiggy as Rousseau, the divine Paolo Uccello:
not just once, but twice ...
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OTHER WINNERS.
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1. Evolving, Evolved by Charlie Hopper
2. Primal Forces, Basic Colors by Andy Hunter
3. The End of the Beginning by Holly Dunsworth
Intermezzo by Lawrence Weschler
4. This Is Not an Ad by Jimmy Chen
5. Catskills Vagina by Dan Clem
6. The Antipodes by Chris Zic
7. Self-Made Constriction by Sam Gaskin
8. We Are the Son by Danny Erker
9. Painfully Unaware by Dan Park
10. Gutshot by Jason Torchinsky
Weschler's Second Interlude
11. Love and War by Kim Wood
12. Inside and Out There by Lena Webb
13. The March by Emily Marvosh
14. Feminine Divine Triptych by Margit Christenson
15. Time's Deliberate Convergence by Steve Denyszyn
16. A Rousseau/Hirshfield Convergence by Adam Webb
Beirut/Warsaw by Lawrence Weschler
17. Clothesline Raising Over Carlisle, Indiana by Charlie Hopper
Carnival of Convergences
Weschler's Fourth Interlude
Aftersquib to the Foregoing
18. Pelvises All the Way Down by John Peter Rickgauer
19. Ovary Night? by Maya Muñoz
20. Christ in Space by Jonathan Shipley
A Pair of Convergences Off of Tina Barney
Another Carnival of Convergences
21. Moral Confusion: Iraq, Munich, and Vietnam by Donald Rumsfeld
22. Seeing the Tree for the Forest by Walter Murch
An Addendum to the Foregoing, and a Visitor Challenge
23, 24, and 25. Far Out by Michael Benson, Brian Christian, and Walter Murch
26. Jewish Bunk Beds by Monica S. Bland
Those Damn Swedish Trees, Take 3: Convergence of the Blogs
27. Degenerate Boogie-Woogie by Lisa Lee
Carnival of Convergences No. 3
28. Sand and Moon by Alison Cornyn
Actaeon: An Ovidian Impromptu by Lawrence Weschler
29 and 30. Hoods and Veils by Vero Testa and Lauren Redniss
The Onion/Bickle Convergence by Lawrence Weschler
31. The Lone Figure Against the Armored Swarm by Michele Siegel
32. Muscle and Flow by Benjamin R. Cohen
An Addendum to the Foregoing: Cities, Brains, Orchestras by Lawrence Weschler
Saint and Princess by Lawrence Weschler
Beauty Queen and Baghdad Hummer by Lawrence Weschler
Carnival of Convergences No. 4
Laughing, Clapping, Constantly Forgetting: A Trill of Readerly Associations by Lawrence Weschler
33. Lithographica by R.A. Villanueva
34. Papal Fire (Papa Lux) by Nick Feia
Addendum to "Laughing, Clapping ..." and, More Specifically, to the Stalinist-Applause Anecdote by Lawrence Weschler
35. Disseminations: Internet, Dandelions, Flight Paths by Sarah Daegling
36. Black and White and in Color by Walter Murch
Carnival of Convergences No. 5
Lee Friedlander's Visionary Trees: An Addendum to the Last Chapters of Everything That Rises by Lawrence Weschler
37. Shipwrecked Desperation by Charles Mudede via Matt Haber
38. Life Forms by Ariel Winter
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