Art Lovers
Searching images of the "Ashcan School" of painting for anything resonant, I noticed an oil painting created around 1920 by American artist Edith Dimock Glackens titled "Female Nude" (1876-1955), which appeared near the top of the results. I liked it, and wanting more by the artist, had a hard time finding more paintings by the artist, evidently because she shares her last name with that of her husband William Glackens, one of the foremost artists of the Ashcan School. His oeuvre was the more prodigious of the two. Her's gets lost in the shuffle.
It was to Edith Dimock Glackens's disadvantage – professionally – to be married to the famous American Post-Impressionist painter William Glackens. She was a talented artist in her own right. A painting by Edith Dimock was exhibited at the New York Armory Show of 1913, a milestone event that introduced modern art to Americans. It was no coincidence that her work was - as was that of her husband William Glackens - typical of the Ashcan School, known for drawing on the simple people of New York's streets and stoops for inspiration. She loved to paint respectable children and their chaperones strolling at leisure the sidewalks of the teeming metropolis.
At the time, the subject of immigrants raised eyebrows among the respectable patrons of art. The Ashcan School may have favored the bustling, immigrant life as subject, however, the artists of the Ashcan School were not, themselves, immigrants. Thus, the contradiction. One would think the Ashcan School would resonate with a painter of the bottom rung of the social ladder -such as myself. That it never did - not even after beginning my “bum” paintings - is because the Ashcan School equivocates about contrasts, the compositional, and the social. To Ashcan School artists the ghetto is picturesque, not a social problem.
“Look at the lowly people,” the Ashcan School artist seems to say, “Aren't they colorful?” I'm not defending immigrants against exploitation. I am offended by the smug circle of Ashcan School artists. The smart-set clique of artist-acquaintances is overheated, stuffy, suffocating. It goes beyond The Eight. The marriage of Edith Dimock and William Glackens is another symptom of the problem. What seems to be a perfect match is - in reality - an infantilizing accommodation of mutual support, in which the stronger partner William Glackens is obliged to give tender support even to the weaker partner Edith's artistic development.
How touching! The family atelier. The family that paints together, stays together. It would make a great drama in itself. Neither is this outburst of spleen an indictment of William Glackens. He frankly can't help himself. It's his instinct to “help.” Both William, Edith, and for that matter the entire Ashcan School - including its patrons - are all entangled in the selfserving, socio-economic group think which is the tendency of affluent, middle class society. And if political, it's identity politics, literally, the identity politics of last names. Creativity is political. Who knew.
The artist Edith Glackens is overshadowed by the artist William Glackens. By design, last names shall come first, in order of importance. I would not wed an artist for that reason alone. Name change absorbs her identity, the essence of originality in art. Alternately, if she became famous, I would bridle and strain at the ties of convention. Worse, it's co-opting talent. As the husband (William Glackens, for example) nurtures the wife's talent, her paintings come to look more and more like his. Not unexpectedly, his artwork begins to exhibit traits of her artwork. Both Glackens paint children, to give one, objective, proof.
Art may be great for marriage, but it's the death of art. And whatever else a woman artist does, she must not affix the husband's last name. It wasn't for lack of opportunities that I remain single. At a certain turning point in my life, I looked around at married couples, and noticed a trend which had a discouraging effect on me. What I noticed, more and more often, was that as couples get older, they tend to look more and more alike. To be exact: they become androgynous twins. I could not imagine myself fitting into that mold. It would require more compromises than I am willing to make.
I can think of a very good example of raising the lumpen proletariat lifestyle to the level of art, indeed to a high pitch of hilarity, in art. Who remembers the Saturday Night Live skit, "That's Pat"? Search the video archives if you weren't around to remember. The SNL “Pat” series of episodes was ahead of its time. I still find some “Pat” skits are too excruciating to watch (and I'm not easily offended). "Cringe," it's called. We could laugh, then. Today, it's not considered funny. It worked as comedy (then) because the audience had been conditioned to biting social satire by "All in the Family."
Let's revue; As a short synopsis, the SNL sketch "Pat" debuted on December 1, 1990, during Season 16, Episode 7, and was hosted by John Goodman. The character “Pat,” portrayed by Julia Sweeney, “enthusiastically plays an androgynous person whose gender remains deliberately ambiguous throughout the sketches, prompting the other characters to squirm and struggle to determine whether Pat is male or female.” (AI search summary quotes)
Today, we would say gender doesn't matter. Back then, the character “Pat” became iconic for its sustained ambiguity and satirical take on gender norms, “though it has since drawn criticism for potentially reinforcing transphobic stereotypes,” and, “Julia Sweeney has defended the sketch, stating that the humor was intended to mock the characters’ inability to cope with ambiguity, rather than target transgender or nonbinary individuals.” (AI quotes)
Kidding aside, around the time we were guffawing at "Pat," I made up my mind I didn't want to look like that, because then was when elderly married couples started looking (to me) like pairs of “Pats.” I noticed they cut their hair the same. They looked (to me) like they used the same bottle of hair color, or the same beautician -same appointment. Their clothes matched, down to the socks, the only apparent difference between them being a couple inches in height. Both were invariably fat - or both were thin - so that you might mistake one for the other if they got separated. How, then, to explain the illusion? Is it real, or a figment of the imagination?
I have found the Tarot to be a proven guide for conceptualizing ideas as archetypes. Think of it as another tool of Jungian psychoanalysis. Accordingly, in this context, the "Temperance" card of the Tarot card deck can be seen as a mediating icon for the merging-of-the-married phenomenon. It says, “The Temperance card is a metaphor of balance, moderation, and harmony, offering advice to follow the middle path. The card's imagery is that of an angel, cups, and water as its main elements, with the angelic figure adroitly pouring one into the other, and back again.” (AI quotes)
The pouring of liquid from one cup into another symbolizes the virtue of temperance (one of the cardinal virtues), the dilution of wine with water. The “Temperance” card thus represents the delicate balancing act of harmonizing the various aspects of our lives. Note particularly, that the angel in the card can symbolize both male and female identities. The “Temperance” card symbolizes the union of opposites, with one foot of the angel in water (representing the sub-conscious) and the other foot on dry land, representing the world of consciousness. It is in the metaphor of alchemy, the transforming of what is, into what is not. The card's image includes a meandering road leading to a mountain range, representing the lifelong journey.