Bruce Docker: Sleeping Swan

This image incredibly resembles a coat of arms. All of the attributes are there: an animal of noble connotation in the center and a map-like illustration on the sides, one portraying the land and the other the sea. The yellow and the red islands may symbolize the shipping industry, the merchant and the military fleet. The yellow and the orange stripes may signify farming or roads, that in turn may stand for communication, diplomacy and prosperity. The only thing that is missing is an inscription in Latin. I suppose that the artist's signature can pose a logical substitute (I think I have already shown once how the signature can be extra-meaningful in the need of a textual reference). I suspect that the artist intended for this piece to convey an iconic message: there is something very solemn and dignified about the bird, while the other parts are very schematic, as to not to divert the viewer from the main idea that is supposed to be put across by the swan.

I could play around and try guessing which country or what kind of institution such a coat of arms would suit best. Perhaps research will reveal that some emblems indeed include a swan -- but I don't want to make this extraneous information the point of this review. I feel much more compelled to understand how the artist's style coheres so effortlessly, with the winged addendum, into a representation that differs conceptually -- which means quite significantly -- from the traditional notion of what is a "painting." After some more browsing, it occurred to me that I simply have not payed enough attention to that emblematic, highly stylized facet of Bruce's art; the trees and the clouds exhibit it in particular, and they could be introduced into the above piece without notably changing it.

In more formal terms, it is the shifting towards the abstract that predisposes towards emblematizing. For instance, it is not accidental that early Soviet posters depicted the human figure by using only a few geometrical figures -- borrowing from Malevich, these artists utilized abstraction for pragmatic, propagandistic and ultimately emblematic purposes, incidentally elevating their posters to works of art (a feat ascribed before to Toulouse-Lautrec). Here, the only difference is that Bruce stays within the limits of his own artwork. He reshuffles some of his trademark elements, such as the intricately formed shadows, and puts them in a new context by adding a new feature in the form of the swan. In other words, the artist crossed over to a completely different genre, while remaining loyal to his personal style.

Bruce Docker: Blue Field, Green Sky

I have always found something soothing in deep perspectives such as this one. The eye may travel languorously from the closest tree to the farthest, without tiring; on the contrary, the process may even produce a re-energizing effect. The space is divided by color, the blue assigned to the foreground, and the lighter greens and yellows (save upon the trees) to the background -- further (following the lines) emphasizing the difference between the close and the more distant areas. Perhaps such a painting may serve as a substitute for a nature walk, at least from a compositional&spatial point of view. The colors, though playing an important role in defining the realistic compositional space, are much more surreal than "natural." Perhaps the only realistic color here is the white of the cloud, which hovers above the scene, in an engulfing motion. It may seem as a foreign body in this piece, conflicting thematically with the rest of the palette; still, it provides a needed relief from the rather intense, typical to the artist's style saturated hues.

The fence in the foreground is a recurring motif. It is interesting to notice how dilapidated it always appears, and even more so how its parts seem to form hieroglyphs, repeating the oriental theme I described in the previous post. But it may have a different symbolic purpose: together with the hill and the blue stripe near the bottom of the piece (which resembles a ditch filled with water), it forms a series of obstacles preventing unwanted visitors entering... the blue castle near the right upper corner! But this scenario may have its faults, as the yellow plains behind the hill seem to put in question the effectiveness of such a defensive complex. Still, the idea of defense pertains to this distinctive arrangement: perhaps, along with the line of trees, this is a farmer's way of protecting his crops from invaders, in the form of people, as well as natural disasters.

The shapes of the trees and of the cloud, though recognizable, are on the verge of transforming into completely abstract geometrical forms. This could be the result of a light effect of extreme sunny haziness, the same one that renders the sky green, -- it may be distorting the shape of said objects too. But the contours around the crowns and the cloud undermine this hypothesis. There is an obvious intent of making these forms contained and distinct, regardless of surroundings. Therefore, the abstraction, as well as the contours, demonstrate an intentional stylistic bias. The lines in particular are post-impressionistic, van Goghian, to be even more specific. Nearly every landscape van Gogh painted after seeing the impressionists in Paris boasts such lines. I find the allusion quite gratifying: besides the tribute, it adds historical depth to this daily painting.