Haystacks for the gold
Posted: June 29, 2012 Filed under: Galleries, Museums, Private Collections | Tags: art, art blog, Claude Monet, contemporary art, grainstack, hay bales, haystacks, Impressionist, landscape, life, painting, pop art, Roy Lichtenstein, variations, Will Klemm 2 Comments
Claude Monet, Grainstack at Sunset near Giverny, 1891, Museum of Fine Art Boston
Today I made a collection of oh-so-delightful chubby haystacks.
In Monet’s vision, the haystack stands to the side, giving full deference to the atmosphere. And the sunset in turn, halos the hay in gold. We watch light’s magic, glorifying, coloring and blanching things. And though the colors sizzle, the haystack casts a prosperous cool shadow, holding down the foreground with calm aplomb. Prepared.
Roy Lichtenstein, Haystack, 1969, © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein
Haystack pops front and center in Lichtenstein’s study of pattern creating form. A braille stack redux. I want to reach out and touch the dots, to push them together so they don’t hurt my eyeballs, which constantly try to connect and reconnect them. I give up and decide to study their shape and configuration. Like a nervous-tic they continue to addle my eyes, needling my subconscious. Scatterbrained haystack please stand still, please.
Will Klemm, October, 8×8 inches, pastel on paper, courtesy Wally Workman Gallery, Austin, TX
Ahhh, now my favorite, Will Klemm’s hay bale. Here we return to an atmospheric piece like Monet’s. And though reposed in stillness, there’s a tremendous amount of emotion rolling around. I want to give this hay bale a big squish hug and tell it everything’s going to be all right. But maybe it’s not lonely. A buddha bale that has reached peace, stopped rolling. With compassion it listens to my tales of woe. The shadow stretches impossibly long from a bright light source at an extremely low angle. Is it physically possible? And then you realize he’s painting some hidden soul-field in your mind.
Or today your noggin (like mine) is the Lichtenstein.
igetitart 
on a hedonistic Friday morning, after a full pot of gourmet coffee, listening to fantastic mixes put together by our best DJ in town as a strolled into work fashionably late (boss is a cool person), drinking a chai latte ice cream milkshake, and looking forward to a nice bottle of french wine, I must say the Klemm haystacks that resemble a fancy corn polenta sitting on its side, a la Barley Swine hit me just the right way.
cheers
Your insulin spike will put you on your side like that hay bale, dear.