A Few Of LDS Artist Jon McNaughton's Latest Paintings

[huckelberry]

I was looking at the Goya and thought Jon could learn something about black there. Jon's blacks are weak and unpleasant while Goya can do gorgeous dramatic black. Well maybe such things are outside of Jon's intentions.

But I realized I have long , without much thought considered the light glare in Goya's work to be imagination, artistic license. But I see I have been lazy in looking. The light is carefully understood to come from the weird box in the center of the picture. What is that? imagination? Perhaps it is an early gaslight and the picture is under the glare of then early modern lighting. The glare of an oncoming future.

It’s odd looking, but it’s actually supposed to be a lantern. The Wiki page on this painting includes an interesting bit about that element of the scene:

The painting is structurally and thematically tied to traditions of martyrdom in Christian art, as exemplified in the dramatic use of chiaroscuro, and the appeal to life juxtaposed with the inevitability of imminent execution. However, Goya's painting departs from this tradition. Works that depicted violence, such as those by Jusepe de Ribera, feature an artful technique and harmonious composition which anticipate the "crown of martyrdom" for the victim. The man with raised arms at the focal point of the composition has often been compared to a crucified Christ, and a similar pose is sometimes seen in depictions of Christ's nocturnal Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. Goya's figure displays stigmata-like marks on his right hand, while the lantern at the center of the canvas references a traditional attribute of the Roman soldiers who arrested Christ in the garden. Not only is he posed as if in crucifixion, he wears yellow and white: the heraldic colors of the papacy.

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's 1722 St. Bartholomew is a traditional scene of martyrdom, with the saint beseeching God. Goya drew inspiration from the iconography of such violent scenes.

The lantern as a source of illumination in art was widely used by Baroque artists, and perfected by Caravaggio. Traditionally a dramatic light source and the resultant chiaroscuro were used as metaphors for the presence of God. Illumination by torch or candlelight took on religious connotations; but in The Third of May the lantern manifests no such miracle. Rather, it affords light only so that the firing squad may complete its grim work, and provides a stark illumination so that the viewer may bear witness to wanton violence. The traditional role of light in art as a conduit for the spiritual has been subverted.

Canpakes,
Thanks for the additional observations. Well the box is definitely a lantern but I found myself thinking it is both unusually bright and strange shaped. My thought of early gas lantern may well be completely wrong. I do not know usual lantern shapes for that time and place. Artistic intention could well portray the lantern light much brighter than it would have been in reality. I was thinking of Carravagio painting and not thinking of one with a lantern pictured. In fact I had imagined the light being perhaps a window and artistic conception. Lantern light would not have the bright purity favored in those paintings, figures in dense darkness bathed in bright light. Those were invention not reproduction. (and I suppose lanterns could have been guides)

Still comparing the Goya to older works certainly underscores the new starkness in the Goya.

[Alphus and Omegus]

In the first one, why is Trump stomping on Christopher Gadsden's snake?

This is almost certainly a reference to Genesis 3:15 which is God cursing the serpent for tempting Eve.

In KJV it reads: "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."

Typically, this is used in Christian theology as an out-of-context prophecy of Jesus, but I suppose it could be repurposed as reference to a regular human who is supposed a servant of God, which McNaughton clearly perceives Trump to be.

I am glad that he's out there in such a public way. He is the perfect example of just how demented reactionary Christianity has become. I show people his work all the time as a literal illustration of what the Republican base thinks like.