Father and son essay - A PDF

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1st essay of comp II about George Condo's "Father and Son" painting...

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1 George Condo’s Father and Son: The Reason Behind the Title The painting shows what appears to be some kind of distorted clown with many unusual features. One of the most noticeable of these is his face. On one side of his face, he is grinning happily with a calm, almost familiar-looking brown eye. On the other side, he seems to be shouting angrily; his cold, distant light blue eye is wide and full of fierce rage. His old age is shown through a mess of gray hairs on his head. Some other interesting features on the clown’s portly body include a green nose and ears, a colorful polka-dot clown suit, an oversized yellow ruff around his neck, and a big pink three-fingered glove that resembles the shape of an animal’s paw. Behind him, there is some sort of black stool that he is leaning against. Perhaps the most interesting detail in the painting is a woman’s hands embracing the clown on both sides, holding a lit cigarette in each hand. Just above one of her hands, there is a small smiling face poking out from behind the clown. Overall, the painting is eclectic and unsettling. The title of the work, Father and Son, seems unexpected at first. However, after looking at the painting more carefully, it is not that difficult to understand where the title’s origin lies. The aspects of both the father and the son are displayed in this one ominous figure. The gray hair, corpulent body type, angry side of the face, and most importantly the woman’s hands with the cigarettes all symbolize adulthood, the father. The mysterious hands enveloping the clown could belong to one woman (the mother) or many women, possibly representing that the father had multiple affairs with many other women. Regardless, the way the hands are clutching his sides look as though they are trying to hold him back from something. However, the hands are all we see of a possible mother as the rest of her body is hidden behind the clown. This could perhaps be suggesting that the mother was in the background during the son’s life, only able to hold on. The more childish aspects of the painting that symbolize the son are the clown costume,

2 the happy side of the face, and even the smaller happy face poking out behind the clown. These images are normally associated with childhood. Having the small face poking out behind the clown indicates that, just like his mother, the son was also stuck in the background, hidden behind his father. Nonetheless, this figure could also just simply be how the artist views his father from the son’s point of view. By dressing his father in a silly costume, like a clown, the artist is basically mocking his father. The split face could represent the father’s two personalities. After considering the above, the title Father and Son seems appropriate for the piece. Sometimes, the titles of paintings can seem misleading or unfitting for the work at first glance. For the painting titled Father and Son, it is easy to picture a simple painting of a man with his child – not a weird clown figure. However, analyzing a painting and taking every detail into account helps to reveal the true meaning behind the painting – what the artist wants the audience to understand. Artists name paintings the way they do because that is how they see their work, and that is how they want their audience to see their work. Most artists use their work as a way to express themselves, their lives, and their experiences. Some want to challenge the public and grab their attention. For example, if an artist painted a picture of a tree and named it Tree, the audience would not think anything of it. Conversely, if that same painting of a tree was named Love, it causes the audience to stop and think. The titles of paintings are imperative to understanding the artist’s intent and true meaning of the work.

Works Cited Condo, George. Father and Son. 2008, oil on linen....