The Rock

There is the painting 'The Rock (1944-48)' in the Albert Robin Family Gallery of the Art Institute of Chicago. It was created by Peter Blume (1906-1992) and painted on canvas with oil pigments.

It is a surrealistic work. There is a red broken huge rock on a soil support in the center, and there are a red flower and bones of an animal, probably a cow next to the rock. Under the soil support, a Caucasian woman, who is the only female in this painting, seems to try to uphold the support, and a Caucasian man is shoveling soil. Also, another Caucasian and an African are piling up cubical stones, and an Asian is hammering stones in an attempt to make them cubical. A destroyed red triangular building locates on the right side. Under the building an old Caucasian is burning woods broken from the red building, and smoke is curling up. On the left side, many people are carrying and pulling up cubical stones in order to build a building.

Mostly, lines formed by edges were used in this painting. For example, the red color of the biggest triangle on the huge rock in the center meets the white color of smoke and the blue color of the sky, and naturally, a line is made although the painter Peter Blume did not paint an actual line. The line is formed by edges.

In point of line directions, there are three vertical lines. The oil support and the rock in the center are standing strictly vertically. In reality, the rock and the support may be smaller than the two buildings in the left and right background, but they are expressed the most loftily because they are in the center of foreground. Their huge heights make their shapes dignified. Of course, the two building also have vertical lines. They are relatively smaller than the rock and the support, but compared to people who are working in them, the buildings are very tall. Accordingly, their heights also have dignity.

All people in this painting are described with diagonal lines. There is no one who is not working, so all of the people's bodies are diagonal. For instance, the Asian arms in the center are drawn with diagonal lines in order to express his hammering. Moreover, smoke in the right side is depicted with diagonal lines so as to emphasize its movement.

Several curving lines are used in this painting, but they do not look soft. The bottom part of the huge rock in the center is curved generally. However, if the curving is observed close at hand, it can look rough, not soft. The wood next to the red flower on the support is also curved, but its illusionary texture is bumpy. Thus, it does not look smooth, either. The animal's bone ribs on the support are curved. However, I do not think that Blume intended to make them look soft. Usually, ribs are curved, so he just drew curving lines.

All people and smoke have both diagonal lines and curving lines. For example, the right arm of the Asian, hammering in the center, is diagonal, but his left arm and shoulder lines are curved. Consequently, his movement looks smooth. Also, the right arm of the Caucasian, shoveling under the support, is diagonal, but his left arm and shoulder lines are curved. Furthermore, smoke in the right side is portrayed with diagonal lines. However, its outline is composed of curving lines, so it seems to go up smoothly.

The geometric shape of the bottom part of the huge rock in the center is semicircular, and the shape of the top part consists of several sharp triangles. The triangles express vividly how the rock is destroyed, and their sharp shapes make a cold mood. The damaged red building in the right looks triangular, but it does not look stable because there is an empty circle in its top. Thus, its top part seems to collapse soon. In contrast, the triangular soil pile in the right center and the triangular shape of the legs of the African, carrying stones in the left foreground, look stable. The African is carrying heavy stones, so his legs are drew as a stable triangle. The shapes of the stones, carried by the African and the Caucasian in the left foreground, is perfectly rectangular, so they look well faced. All people's heads are almost exactly circular. In reality, normal people's heads are not exactly circular, so their heads' shapes are one of the factors that make this painting look like a cartoon.

The organic shapes of the woods attached to the red building in the right, the weeds beneath the soil support, and the trees of the forest in the center background are irregular, and they represent the absence of order.

In point of figure-ground relationship, there are two positive shapes that are perceived definitely in this painting. The red flower is the most positive shape because it has the lightest color in this painting. The huge rock in the center is also a positive shape. It has a light red color, too. Moreover, the inside of the rock is red, and the outside is green, so they are complementary colors. Peter Blume used the optical effect of a contrast of complementary colors to emphasize the rock.

A chiaroscuro is used in this painting, and highlight of it is the inside of the huge rock in the center. Sunlight is coming from the upper right side to the center, so the triangles of the huge rock have shadows to the left. The soil pile under the support in the center also tells that sunlight is coming from the right; Its right side is light, and its left side is dark.

In this painting, primary colors are used. The inside of the huge rock, flower next to it, and the broken building in the right are red; The land is yellow; The clothe of the Asian hammering in the center and the sky is blue. These primary colors effects this painting not realistic, but they make this painting fancy and cartooned.
This painting is composed of a triad harmony because mostly, red, yellow, and blue colors are applied to this painting.

In general, surface textures are associated with sculpture, architecture, and the craft. However, this painting has surface textures. The huge rock and the soil pile in the center are thicker than the other areas in order to express them bumpy, and everything else is flat.

Illusionary textures are also perceived in this painting. The painter painted the huge rock, the soil pile, the cubical stones and the land with dark and light colors so as to express their bumpy textures. In addition, all people's limbs and clothes represent illusionary textures.

An atmospheric perspective is employed to this painting. If a two-point linear perspective was used, it should have two vanishing points, but it does not have any vanishing point. Furthermore, if an isometric perspective was applied, the huge rock, the two buildings, and all of the people should portray with the same scale. However, the huge rock and the people in the foreground are depicted much more largely than the other ones in the background.

Usually, volume is decided by lightness or darkness of colors, so the huge rock is painted dark green color in order to make it looks solid and heavy. In contrast, white smoke looks light. However, the volumes of the cubical stones in the left foreground are expressed by a different way. They are high light yellow, but they look heavy. The Caucasian's tortured face and the African's leaning body tell that the stones are heavy.

In this painting, variety is emphasized over unity. There is no one who is doing the same acting with another person. Also, the huge rock in the center and the red building in the right are destroyed irregularly.

The balance of the rock and its support in the center is asymmetrical because relatively, the rock looks much heavier than its support. The reason that the rock looks heavier is that the size of the rock is pretty larger than its support. Because of their asymmetrical balance, the support seems to be broken soon, and the rock seems to drop down.

The area of emphasis in this painting is where the huge rock is because of the contrast of complementary colors, its rough surface and illusionary texture, the asymmetrical balance with its support, and the name of the work 'The Rock'.

Peter Blume was a surrealist. According to Patrick Waldberg, the book 'The Mainfeste du Surrealisme(1924)' gave the following two definitions of Surrealism. "Pure psychic automatism by which it is intended to express, either verbally or in writing, the true function of thought. Thought dictated in the absence of all control exerted by reason, and outside all aesthetic of moral preoccupations." "Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of association heretofore neglected, in the omnipotence of the dream, and in the disinterested play of thought. It leads to the permanent destruction of all other psychic mechanisms and to its substitution for them in the solution of the principal problems of life."

This work 'The Rock' is also one of Blume's surrealistic paintings, so he automatically drew it, and it can be interpreted in many different ways as observes' views. Shaun Casscells says, " The Rock is a reference to the destruction caused by the atomic bombs that were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II," and James N. Wood says " On the right, smoke billows around the charred timbers of a house, an image that might allude to the bombing of London homes during World War II."

These two men's interpretations are reasonable. However I interpreted this painting in my own thought. I think that the setting of this painting is the United States. A Coca Cola signboard in the right stands for the United States, and the Caucasians, the African, and the Asian in this painting also represent for the United States that is a multiracial nation. Blume completed this painting in 1948, so probable, he saw the destructive power and cruelty of the atomic bombs dropped in Japan. He might think that it could happen to the United State, so he imagined that the atomic bombs dropped in the United States instead of Japan, and Americans tried to restore a destroyed city. I believe that the huge rock in the center symbolize hope. Americans' hope, the rock and its support were broken by atomic bombs, so the woman under the soil support are trying to support it, most men are constructing a new support for the rock and a new building, and the Caucasian in the right is burning the wreck of the red building in order to forget memories of destruction. The people seem to intend to move their broken hope, the rock, to the new support. An interesting point is that the right sky is drawn darkly, and the left sky is expressed lightly because everything in the right is destroyed, and objects in the left are rebuilding now. The animal's bones next to the rock emphasize that the Americans' hope, the rock, was damaged, and the red flower implied that the hope is still alive.

According to Stephen Prokopoff and The Dictionary of Art , Peter Blume immigrated to the USA with his parents and settled in Brooklyn, New York, in 1911. He studied art form the age of 13 at evening classes, then at the Educational Alliance, the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design and the Art Students League. By 1926 he had a studio in New York. Blume's admiration for Renaissance technique largely inspired his working method: making drawings and compositional cartoons and then painstakingly transferring the images to canvas, a craftsmanlike approach that resulted in a surprisingly small body of work.

Blume's early work shows the influence of the Precisionists and was exhibited by Charles Daniel (one of the first to exhibit modernist American painting). In 1934, Blume won first prize at the Carnegie International Exhibition with the surreal South of Scranton (1930-31). A year in Italy on a Guggenheim grant (1932) inspired his only political painting, Eternal City (1934-7), in which Mussolini is characterized as a garish Jack-in-box.

The figurative and literary elements of Blume's work continued into his later career despite the ascendancy of Abstract Expressionism. His pervading themes deal with discontinuity caused by destruction, distance, time and chance, and with man's attempt to unite, repair and rebuild form the fragment that remain. Stones, rocks and girders recur as iconographic motifs, for instance in Tasso's Oak (1956). Recollection of the Flood (1969) shows victims of the floods in Florence (1966) seeking shelter in a hall where restores are already at work. This painting was followed by Blume's first sculpture, Bronzes about Venus (1970), whose deliberate references to antiquity and Mannerist are reiterated in the Painting From the Metamorphoses (1979). The latter depicts the legend of Deucslion and Pyrrha, who repopulated the world by throwing stones that turned into men, a further indication of Blume's preoccupation with the role of the artist in restoring the world through the ability to transform materials.

The work 'The rock' looks like a cartoon, so some people may say that it is funny. However, it was drawn by Peter Blume's unconscious thoughts, and it can be interpreted in many different ways. Therefore, it gives the audience many chances to think than other realistic paintings. That is why I eulogize this painting and like it.

Books
Prokopoff, Stephen. "Peter Blume: A Retrospective Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art", Chicago: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1997.

Wood, James. "The Art Institute of Chicago: Twentieth-Century Painting and Sculpture", New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1996.

Dictionary
"The Dictionary of Art", Edited by Jane Turner, New York: Grove, 1996