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Course: The Seeing America Project > Unit 7
Lesson 5: 1945-1980- Charles Sebree, The Mystic
- Norman Lewis, Untitled
- A Harlem street scene by Jacob Lawrence, Ambulance Call
- Vertis Hayes, Juke Joint
- Sari Dienes, Star Circle
- Rothko, No. 210/No. 211 (Orange)
- Rafael Tufiño, La Plena
- Rafael Tufiño, Goyita
- Hedda Sterne, Number 3—1957
- Jess, If All the World Were Paper and All the Water Sink
- Fashion and alienation in 1960s New York, Marisol's The Party
- Gee's bend, quilting over generations
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Jess, If All the World Were Paper and All the Water Sink
IJess's 1962 painting, "If All the World Were Paper and All the Water Sink," contrasts the innocence of children with the destructive power of atomic energy. The artist, once part of the Manhattan Project, uses symbols like the omega and a mushroom cloud to express his fear of nuclear destruction.
Want to join the conversation?
- Clearly, nuclear power has had a wide range impact upon many people but what were the effects on the United States government/Great Britain government.
Also did the nuclear war cause a collapse on the government of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?(1 vote)
Video transcript
(jazz piano music) - [Beth] We're in the photo
studio at the de Young Museum, part of the Fine Arts
Museums of San Francisco, and we're looking at a painting from 1962 by an artist named Jess called, If All the World Were Paper
and All the Water Sink. - [Emma] What really strikes
you when you're looking at this is this kaleidoscopic array of
imagery vying for attention. - [Beth] This is a painting
that rewards close looking. - [Emma] There's this
incredible tension and contrast between this circle of
children in the sunlit glen engaged in a circle dance of some kind, which, for the artist, was
representative of sun worship or an engagement with the universe, a primordial state of wonder
and curiosity and innocence; but then, above, you have
this menacing mushroom cloud. It's encircled by this blue omega symbol, this is the last letter of the Greek alphabet and often connotes the end. So, you have the
destructive force and power of atomic energy contrasted
with joy and youth and promise of the children below. - [Beth] The mushroom cloud
could only be one thing, and that is the nuclear
bomb that was dropped, first on Hiroshima, and then,
soon after, on Nagasaki. We know that the artist worked
for the Manhattan Project, the organization that developed the technology behind the nuclear bomb. - [Emma] He studied as a chemist at the California Institute of Technology, and then he was drafted into
the US Army Corps of Engineers and worked on plutonium
for the Manhattan Project; and after being discharged
from the Army in 1946, went to work for the Hanford
Atomic Energy Project. But he talks about having a dream that the world was going to
completely destruct by 1975. It was his dismay at the
threat of atomic weaponry that caused him to abandon his scientific career and dedicate himself to art. - [Beth] Also, a story that
the artist saw film footage of the aftereffects of
the bomb in Hiroshima and was distraught at what he saw and, soon after, gave up
this work as a chemist. - [Emma] It's at that moment that he dedicates himself to painting full-time. And he changes his name from Burgess Franklin
Collins to just Jess. - [Beth] The paint at the very
base of that mushroom cloud almost sticks out like spikes toward us. - [Emma] There's an
absolute violence in the way that he's applied paint to
some areas of the canvas, but it contrasts with this tapestry-like surface in other areas - [Beth] And we do have
this privileged view, where we see the circular
form of the Earth below, the large, male figure
who we see in profile and who seems to be observing all of this and dealing cards, perhaps tarot cards. I get the sense that the artist is commenting on how we're taking chances with the Earth itself, with human life. - [Emma] And there's a enigmatic quality to this shadowy figure. We're not certain who he is. Is this a self portrait? Is the artist referring to his own role early on in his life in contributing to the development of atomic weaponry? - [Beth] On the right
side, we see a parrot, who seems to have his
mouth around the neck of an owl whose wings are outstretched. - [Emma] And the owl
bears a key in its talons and swoops down over
the group of children. Is this the key of wisdom? Is the owl bringing or
taking away this knowledge? - [Beth] Well, we know
that the owl is associated with the goddess Athena,
the goddess of wisdom. And so, perhaps, this idea
of unlocking Pandora's box, that idea of what knowledge can bring, and we don't always know what will follow from the knowledge that we seek. The parrot, because it parrots, it mimics the speech of human beings, is sometimes associated with folly. So, here we have folly, or the foibles of mankind overwhelming wisdom. The title of this painting
is a take on a nursery rhyme, If All the World Were Paper
and All the Water Sink. And the nursery rhyme goes, if all the world were paper
and all the sea were ink, if all the trees were bread and cheese, what should we have to drink? - [Emma] And it actually
comes from a 17th-century English book of nonsense verse,
which I think is really apt because, in Jess's paintings, we see these mysterious and open-ended
weavings of narratives that sometimes cohere and
sometimes seem to pull apart. And just as children can
weave sense from nonsense, in Jess's paintings, there
is this way in which we can understand a underlying message or idea, and there are many
possible interpretations we can bring to the works. - [Beth] You mention the way that children make sense from nonsense; but in a way, this
painting is about the way that nonsense comes from sense, the way that rational thinking has led to the nonsense, the
insanity of World War II. - [Emma] We have engineered the ability to destroy our species; and yet, at the same
time, we're born with this innate curiosity and
wonder that can sometimes lead us down these darker paths. (jazz piano music)