The Portland Museum of Art

The Portland Museum of Art

Portland, Maine

Date of Visit: April 24, 2013

            A visit to the Portland Museum of Art was very enlightening, more so than I expected as a critic or avid fan of fine art I am not. I have enjoyed wandering through art galleries every now and then like the Smithsonian Museum of Fine Art in Washington, D.C. or the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City and a few other famous places and not so famous places, but I must say that I found todays visit to be one that left a huge impression on me.

 

            As instructed by my professor, I looked at the art depicting the Maine coastal region and life on the water. I found a couple of paintings by N. C. Wyeth particularly pleasing to me. The first being “Lobstering Off Black Spruce Ledge” painted in 1941. The color leapt off the canvas and represented a lot of realistic characteristics. The clouds looked like they were being swept along by the wind while the single man in the boat worked to empty the lobster trap into the boat while the boat leaned from the weight of the man and trap. The rocky shore in the background with the tall spruce trees depicts the typical shoreline of the Maine coast.

            The second N. C. Wyeth work that impressed me was “Dark Harbor Fisherman” completed in 1943. It shows a man dipping fish out of a boat that is filled with Herring into the basket of a waiting fisherman. Others are waiting their turn to get the bait used mostly for lobster bait. The seagulls are flocking, waiting to steal an easy meal if the opportunity presents itself. I liked the detail he used with the oars making small waves in the water from the boat of a waiting fisherman. The detail is fantastic and the colors are very realistic especially the color of the gulls.

            I made my way to the fourth floor which currently features the “Blueberry Rakers” photo exhibit. This vast array of photos by David Brooks Stess is amazing. All done in black and white, they show a recent history of the mostly migrant workers in and around Maine Blueberry fields. It shows the life of the workers while they toil in the barrens from raking to burning. It shows life around the living quarters for the workers. This short step in time (1989 – 2011) leaves you wondering of the condition of the worker in the 70’s or the 60’s or even further back. I notice the vehicles in the photos, the date of the photo being 2009 but the vehicle in the photo is from the late 1970’s.

            I also enjoyed looking at some of the other artists like George Bellows and Neil Welliver and of course Winslow Homer. As I wandered into other parts of the museum there are the famous names of Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. I must say that one painting made the visit most intriguing. It is a painting by Harry Wilson Watrous called "The Drop Sinister - What Shall We Do With it?" done in 1913.

            To me this is the most powerful work in the museum. I googled it and found very little information about it other than it was a controversial piece when it was exhibited 100 years ago. It shows a family with an African American man, his white wife with brown hair, and a white child with very blond hair. As I stood there looking at the painting and reading the very brief description, I pondered the details within and the title of the work. A picture of Abraham Lincoln on the wall, the Bible on the table, the title of the paper “The Christian”, the verse inscribed on the wall “And God said let us make man in our image after our likeness”, the sad looks on all their faces, the wife with a single gold band, but the husband without one, and the husband who is reading with his glasses laying on the table and he is looking off into the distance not at the paper.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/46135171@N04/7305168268/lightbox/

            I contemplated the piece a few minutes then walked away. A few minutes later I found myself standing in front of it once again. It left me wondering about how much has changed in the subject area in the last 100 years. It was illegal for mixed couples to marry in many states until 1967, only 46 years ago. The Civil Rights Act was in 1964. Yet the more I studied the painting the more glaring the issues become. The government still classifies anyone of mixed race to be African American, why? Is there a need to classify anyone? The amount and type of questions this painting provokes is what makes this painting my personal favorite in the museum.