My sojourn has kept me away from these pages a little, but something a bit parallel has come up.
Outside of Johnson City is a sculpture of a bull, beckoning the wayfarer to a park that time did not allow us to visit. It is something of an opposite to the West Yellowstone bison in that the bull is a reinterpretation of the internal structure of such a beast, rather in the spirit of the horses that we have discussed. There is a lot of motorcycle glam in this work, which means that attention has been paid to chromed surfaces – but not so much in a spirit of depiction. Facture, fit and finish in this piece is at an industrial level.
In this case it’s a question of integrating pieces parts into a convincing representation, finding the bull in the Hog.
Extra stuff showed up and didn’t want to go away. Suggestions?
Think I fixed it, Jay. Sent original to Steve, June.
finding the bull in the Hog
[A Hog is a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.]
Jay,
This is a great sculpture for these times of economic disarray.
Can’t quite tell if there’s a functioning engine in there…
This sculpture seems more concerned with representing the surface than Deborah Butterfield’s horses, which I think are more about internals and gesture (for images of Butterfield’s work, see links from a previous post).
Steve:
The sculpture employs a lot of negative space if seen more from the side. Butterfield’s horses are quite a cut above this. It just came to me that one of the Futurists painted great heaving horses as representative of the power of mechanization – a propensity that had and has been criticized.
I must say that House’s bison is very well realized. The head – to pick a detail – is a terrific color.
Jay,
This is a great follow-up to the Yellowstone bison. Where is your Johnson City? This looks more like Texas than Tennessee.
House’s colors are a bit bolder and brighter than I happen to prefer, but she has a clear and consistent vision. There’s hidden symbolism, like the four red stripes referencing the four directions, and a mysterious something I haven’t seen yet (but she has told me of) that is only visible if you look up from underneath.
I don’t suggest we peer underneath this creature, at least not us ladies. And that’s no bull!
Heck, they sell plastic toy bulls that have what lurks beneath. My daughter -in-law got silly about it.
Johnson City is a wide spot in the road out west of Austin in the hill country.
Karl:
Thanks for fixing it. I don’t know if it was I, or some instability in the system – or both.
Yes, the Hog is a Harley. And the Futurist in question was Umberto Boccioni.
Johnson City is the homeplace of the former President Johnson, I believe. Now there’s a bull story.
Sorry, Jay, there’s something about these figures that keep me from being serious. But Boccioni does ring a bell.
It looks brutish.
Birgit:
Brutus is a name sometimes adopted for cartoon bulls.