James Rosenquist

While working on some homework today I learn a little bit more about the post-modernist movement, though not enough to make me enjoy it in the least. I have always had a strong aversion to it and that hasn't changed, but I was surprised to find one painting in the bunch that I seemed to really enjoy. It is "Bedsprings" by James Rosenquist. I was flipping through his work, mostly unimpressed until this image caught my eye. There is just something about it I find so delicate and captivating. In his entire body of work I didn't find a single piece that captured me as much as this one. Perhaps it was the way he so precisely cropped her face, focusing solely on the eye, cheek, and nose. Unlike his other work this women is accurately and precisely rendered, and with some softness to boot. Compared to say the image of JFK in "President Elect"she is nearly a classical portrait.This woman has depth and life, and suggesting any sort of perspective or realism was quite rare for him.
Then suspending it by twine away from the stretching board. That, at first, gave me a sense of creepiness (a childish word, I'm aware). I felt like he was dissecting her - not literally, of course - but trying to break her apart, separating her from her various parts. Breaking her down by her flaws and perfections. But these warm and sensuous colors suggest something endearing, not calculating. The piece is both baffling and calming to me.

James Rosenquist, unlike most pop artists of the time, had a much more varied color palette and far more dramatic compositions. Most had neutral backgrounds with loosely rendered object or subjects, making them appear flat. But here Rosenquist eliminated the background and focus on one single aspect of beauty, rendering it to perfection. He won't make me like the modern or post-modernist movement, but he will make he appreciate him as an individual artist just a little bit more.