Art History Hotties: Self Portrait with Rita

Art History Hotties
Thomas Hart Benton, Self Portrait with Rita, 1924

By RUOLING "LINDA" XU
The old lady finally shut her mouth. I'm thirty-three, and my old lady was worried about my marriage. "You have to find a person to take care of you," she said. I didn't believe so until I met Rita, my wife.


My wife and I were on our honeymoon at the beach. It was different from the Midwest. It was all about sunshine and hotties. When I say hotties, I mean Rita especially. She was in her sexy dress-like swimming suit that makes her beautiful legs longer and smoother. Rita was not feeling well because of the hot weather. She was holding her pink handkerchief to wipe her good-smelling sweat all the time. I guess she was pretty sick, even my groovy body with six beautiful abdominal muscles and the curly mustache she loved couldn't make her look happy. I looked at her with my dark brown eyes. She was shy to look at my beautiful face and turned away.
On the beach, there was this weird family. The mom in red was fixing her long red hair while the father and son were measuring her body with a tailor's cloth ruler. They were talking about something like "this dress is too loose," "modify the waist," "don't move," "taking picture" "ins gallery." I guess the mom is a galler (a made-up word similar to blogger) in the Instagram Gallery who hangs a picture of herself to gain fame. It is a new form of art which I don't understand. All I know is future generations will remember me for my magnificent paintings but maybe not their work.
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Westward: Hollywood

Hollywood
Thomas Hart Benton, Hollywood, 1937
Westward
BY REID GUEMMER

What better way to end our series on American expansion and iconic images of the country than to discuss Thomas Hart Benton's Hollywood. Missouri born, Benton shifted from the New York scene to portraying his roots and Midwestern life. Although Benton primarily focused on the everyday person, here he widens his scope to portray a vignette of behind-the-scenes Hollywood.

Benton's iconic style developed from his synchronist influence. He attempted to intertwine music by creating a fluid motion through his work, especially in the way he paints bodies. The signature style is achieved through the sculpting of muscles in a fashion that flows so naturally.

The rich colors and hectic scene show the scramble west. Beginning with manifest destiny, people adopted the idea that westward expansion was a right and one that they would take advantage of. The west represents the potential for new opportunities. Hollywood played a central part in representing the ideal American Dream, whether through celebrity lifestyle or what was presented by the media. The woman being the focus of the painting while there are other people working without much recognition parallel how, today, we focus only on a small group of people (celebrities) while most of the country goes unnoticed. Despite the chaos, the woman is still the focal point.
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Night Firing

Gary Whittaker
Thomas Hart Benton, Night Firing, 1943 
By GARY WHITTAKER

I, as hopefully all Missourians, have a great love of Benton. His depictions of the Midwest were some of the first artistic creations of the region since George Birmingham nearly a century before. While his regionalism may have had allowed many along the coasts to dismiss Benton, this is completely undeserved as his depictions represent the hardscrabble life that is often forgotten by the East Coast intelligentsia. The story of the Midwest is one that must be told, while it lacks the panache and dazzle of the coasts, it is the gritty work of farmers that keeps this nation running.


The etching presented here is very typical Benton's work. A single object, in this case the man, serves as the center post of an agrarian merry-go-round. All things swirl around the man emphasizing both his artistic and real world importance. The print is balanced rather well on both axis. On the horizontal the large tobacco shed is counter weighted by the small structure and the hay bale, averaging the eye back to the farmer. Black earth cements the work to the bottom half, while the darkening sky on the edges keeps the eye of the matters at hand.  
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Figure and Boats

Dante's Inferno
Thomas Hart Benton, Figure and Boats, 1920
I came into a place mute of all light,
Which bellows as the sea does in a tempest,
If by opposing winds 't is combated.

 The infernal hurricane that never rests
Hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine;
Whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them.
-Inferno, Dante, Canto VII

As a local painter from a town outside of Kansas City, Missouri, Thomas Hart Benton grew up in the 1880s. His father did not approve of his painting, so he sent him off to military school. Benton's mother, on the other hand, was artistically inclined. He ended up devoting the majority of his life to art, obviously not taking his father's side. His work caused much controversy. Many people praised him for creating pieces that were realistic to the time period. Others thought of him as a drunk hillbilly or even an "okie baroque."

Benton regularly paints scenes of small town mayhem, which could be a product of his parents' relationship, or his own dealings with his parents. His father wanted Benton to follow in his footsteps and become a politician. Benton's mother supported him 100 percent She was totally invested in his life, emotionally and economically, at least until the day he married at the age of 33. Benton studied art at the Chicago Art Institute, and eventually moved to New York. Even as he established himself as an artist, Benton was still considered a drunken hillbilly.

In this piece, everything pulls and flows to the center. The circular patterns of the waves moves the eye in circles, like a whirlpool. Ending up at the person in the left hand corner. As one looks further into the piece, there is a house, standing on what seems to be a cliff. In Canto VII, Dante talks about a tower. In comparing the two works, the tower and house match up. This composition correlates with Dante's Inferno a great deal. With the winding river and the canoe at the base of the cliff, along with the figure depicting one of the many shades that are described in the text. Figure and Boats adds to the mystery and eeriness of Dante's Inferno.

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