NAKED JULY: "Masked Nude No. 1" by Roger Walkup

Image posted with the permission of the artist. More of Roger Walkup's prints can be found at his website and for sale online here.

I could have done a post on Roger Walkup's whole series of female nudes (which can be viewed on his website's gallery.) But the mysteriousness of this piece especially spoke to me.

The torch is lit, blue flames licking base, red climbing the walls. Red reflected in her face, the mask. Eyes recede, mouth opens, large, round teeth revealed. She has unfastened the halter top of her dark dress. Light from the fire illuminates her fair skin. Her breasts hang free, open and inviting. 

The idea of the woman undressing, revealing her nakedness to someone, yet keeping her entire head covered is compelling and can lead in different directions, some exciting, some dangerous, some sad.

Anonymity in a sexual encounter is certainly titillating. In a mask, we can be seen how we want to be seen in, at least for a short while. This is why one common role play among couples is to pretend to be strangers picking each other up; not only are we aroused, but the ego is satisfied.

Sometimes the mask more truly describes the subjective, psychological state of a person. Here, perhaps the it expresses an immediate and primordial, sexual experience.

There is also potential tragedy in this masked image. The quiet sadness of the true self being hidden, isolated and unknown. When my mind drifts in that direction, this image reminds me of the Shel Silverstein poem Masks. 

All of Walkup's woodcuts have those sort of raw, primitive qualities of German Expressionism. Facial expressions are loaded with meaning - an intense glare or aroused smile. In his female nudes, women appear comfortable and confident in their own skins. The feminine form is emphasized by fleshy, weighty breasts, bellies, butts, and thighs. Accurate proportions are exchanged for emotional impact. When Walkup uses color, it is just as harsh and demanding of the viewer's attention as the dramatic linework and play between light and dark.

As a bonus, I feel a personal connection to this work because, like me, Walkup hand prints small editions using a wooden spoon. Like me, he regards each individual print as its own unique work of art. On his website he writes:

I love the smell of wood and the sculptural nature of carving a woodblock. I also love the fact that, although each image within an edition is quite similar, each image is unique since I can never apply ink to the block in exactly the same way or transfer the ink from the block to the paper in the exact same way. 

It is always comforting to find fellow primitives in this high tech age.

Die Brücke Woodcuts on Display at the National Gallery of Art

Head of Dr. Bauer, Kirchner

While I was in DC this past weekend checking out the Kiyochika exhibition, I also took a stroll inside the National Gallery of Art to check out Modern German Prints and Drawings from the Kainen Collection (on display through June 29.)

I was specifically hoping to find woodcuts by members of Die Brücke, and I was not disappointed. All my favorites were represented: Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Erich Heckel, Otto Mueller, and of course the unmatched Ernst Kirchner. It was the first time I've had a chance to see more than a mere reproduction in an art history book of Kirchner's Five Women In the Street.

I was struck by the large size of many of the portraits, figures, and some landscapes hanging on the walls. All of Kirchner's portraits were larger than life-sized. This, combined by the crude and expressive style, made me feel not only captivated, but shrunk and quieted by their charismatic presence. Kirchner's vividly-colored woodcut Head of Dr. Bauer - with its beady, blue eyes - was particularly monstrous.

Five Women In the Street, Kirchner

This exhibition isn't a particularly complete look at German Expressionism; it definitely left me wanting more, as I I felt it didn't present enough of the most powerful work to really get across the drama and passion behind the movement. But this sampling does at least include work representing all the major players.

It is interesting in that the exhibition includes these heavy hitters alongside other, lesser-known artists who were not part of that movement, but who were working at the same time and speaking the same language. At first I felt a little confused by the array of works, but after a while it seemed to make sense in that it took Die Brücke out of its own narrow focus and put it in the appropriate larger cultural context.

"Driving Snow" by Erich Heckel

Here's a little gem from Erich Heckel I just discovered. 

Sharp planks of light and shadow cut across the sky and into the tumbling landscape like bolts of lightning. Flat, silhouettes of trees seem more like over-sized dried leaves and naked branches stabbed into the snow-covered hill. I feel I am standing in a high place with nothing below to catch me if I fall. And losing my balance is likely as this whole place is rolling along at a ferocious pace. 

I really need to feature more Die Brücke artists on this blog. So many exhilarating woodcuts came out of German Expressionism.