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| Detail from original | Detail from final |
By André Duvall
My Father’s Art columns up to this point have featured small groupings of paintings with some unifying theme. Today’s post describes the evolution of a single painting that Dad modified many times over the course of several years, and it was one of the paintings that were among my childhood experiences of home.
Originally titling it “River Journey,” Dad determined from art exhibit entrance receipts and other ephemera that he must have started the painting in the mid or late 1980s. It is a third example of Dad’s open frame paintings. The second was Island Woman, featured on September 25 in the column “Two Paintings and a Bonus,” and the first, Mujer Tropical, will be featured in an upcoming post on its own.
He saved two 35 mm slides of the painting in its first completed state, which are embossed with “Nov. 1988.” By this date, he had considered it finished, having spent much work and time to get it to this point. He had nearly made himself sick, with his use of paint thinner in a room which should have been better ventilated and had gotten much paint on his arms. At this point, he said, “that’s it.”
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| Oil on Masonite (rough side); 49" x 26". Circa 1980’s, with changes continuing until 2006. These three photos were taken on Nov. 11, 1990 |
We see an old, wooden tramp steamer in the 1800s at a wide point on a large river in South America. One barely sees a line of trees in the distance. Tramp steamers went from one location to the next delivering cargo, without a set schedule. Although cargo transport was their primary function, they had room for some passengers, who would pay to travel and view new places. The passenger on this steamer is a “progressive” woman, as Dad puts it, as suggested by her wearing short sleeves and traveling solitary.
She’s reading The Divine Comedy of Dante. This came about because Dad couldn’t decide how to place her hands, and my mom, who felt the woman had a pensive expression, suggested her hands be folded on a book. Raised in Honduras, Mom remembers an older relative’s home in Puerto Cortes, a widow known as “Finita.” Finita had moved out, allowing my mom’s immediate family to live there for a while. The home had many armoires and cabinets. One piece of furniture contained all kinds of books, some in other languages, behind locked glass doors. At long last, they managed to unlock the door, and Mom discovered a wide book in Spanish of The Divine Comedy, with fantastic illustrations by Gustave Doré. Mom was curious. She read the whole thing and was fascinated by the illustrations.
The life ring buoy states “Quo Vadis” (Whither goest thou?), with question marks not appearing initially.
Dad mailed slides to an organization called Arkansas Art Joint Educational Consortium (according to the original letter he saved). Several entrants were picked to be displayed in an exhibit, but this painting was rejected (Dad had entered Mujer Tropical in a previous year, and it was selected for display). Here is a photo of the rejection slip.
To my surprise, the location of the exhibit was in the lobby of the university dormitory in which I would live during my first year as an undergraduate at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, many years later.
Dad also entered it in the Arkansas Arts Center Annual Arts Exhibition, among others. Each time it was rejected he made changes or additions. He thought of things to add to the open sky, as it began to look “pretty plain” to him. He wanted to make these modifications regardless of whether the painting would ever be displayed, but he chuckles that all of these changes allowed him to continue entering it in exhibitions, because they required that entries had to be finished within the last two years.
Below is a list of additions and edits, in approximate order of appearance over the years. Many of these were made during the time I was living at home, so I remember many of these edits.
At some point, he changed the title to “Passage to Paradise.” Dad told me that many people seem to be trying to move toward their idea of where they wish they would like to be in life. Paradise means different things to different people. This woman was travelling seeking a sense of satisfaction. A sense of unease is present. The volcano is about to erupt. Her expression – pensive in the original painting, but now with some unease – is ambiguous. We don’t know what she is thinking or feeling. Paradise doesn’t always turn out to be paradise. This is one leg in her journey. We don’t know whether she ever finds paradise.
Dad discovered another 35 mm slide that reveals a stage in between the original and later versions shown above. At an intermediary stage, he added a veil, which he later made smaller and added a second veil of a different type.
Below is a list of additions and edits, in approximate order of appearance over the years. Many of these were made during the time I was living at home, so I remember many of these edits.
- Cliffs.
- White caps and waves. The water becomes an ocean rather than a river, and the ship is near the beach.
- The tropical trees come much later.
- Smoke from an unseen smokestack, and wind causes it to swirl on down. Dad wanted to show that it was an old coal-burning ship, having debated for a long time whether he wanted the color of black smoke in the painting.
- The shape of the back of the lady’s hat changes, inspired by the hat Glenn Close was wearing in the movie The Natural. That resulted in the front of the hat not coming down far enough. To balance this, he tried to adjust the front, but he couldn’t get it to his satisfaction, so he added a plume instead.
- Eventually, he started playing with the face, mostly several subtle modifications in the face color, shape, tilt, hair color, and expression. At different times during the above changes, he added and modified two types of veils for a sense of mystery, and also added a monocle. My mom was not a fan of the monocle and veils at first, preferring the simpler, original version, but over time came to like it.
- Butterflies, an insect on the woman’s arm, and birds.
- The volcano.
At some point, he changed the title to “Passage to Paradise.” Dad told me that many people seem to be trying to move toward their idea of where they wish they would like to be in life. Paradise means different things to different people. This woman was travelling seeking a sense of satisfaction. A sense of unease is present. The volcano is about to erupt. Her expression – pensive in the original painting, but now with some unease – is ambiguous. We don’t know what she is thinking or feeling. Paradise doesn’t always turn out to be paradise. This is one leg in her journey. We don’t know whether she ever finds paradise.
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| This photo & the next one reflect different conditions of camera exposure |
Dad discovered another 35 mm slide that reveals a stage in between the original and later versions shown above. At an intermediary stage, he added a veil, which he later made smaller and added a second veil of a different type.
The final modification came in 2006. Our cousin Lindy died that February, the victim of a ruthless act of violent crime, just short of her 21st birthday. She and I were born less than two months apart in the same year. Dad added a tear in grief and in memory of Lindy. The lady is mourning something too, or thinking of something sad. Dad figured he needed to stop adding to the painting at some point, and he decided this would be the last change.
In summary, Dad says he sort of used this painting as a way to learn how to paint and improve his skills (he worked on shadows a lot in the original version, for instance). Today, it hangs prominently in the small dining room of my parents’ home, directly behind Dad’s favorite reading spot, in a chair brought from Honduras from the same home in which my mom read the Doré-illustrated version of The Divine Comedy.
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| Copyright © 2020 by André Duvall & Billy Charles Duvall |
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