Perfectly Natural

2001 Alford Park Drive Kenosha, WI 53140-1994 www.carthage.edu/artgallery

Perfectly Natural

Charles Munch, Randall Berndt, Carol Pylant, Ann Worthing and Matthew Hagemann

September 12–October 13, 2007

“ Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature, Master of all or mistress of all, aplomb in the midst of irrational things… “ Walt Whitman

CHARLES MUNCH Two Worlds Oil on canvas 32” x 48” (left)

MATTHEW HAGEMANN Day’s Beginning Oil on canvas 17” x 41” (top-middle)

CAROL PYLANT Interlude Oil on linen 48” x 40” (top-right)

ANN WORTHING Squirrelly Oil on board 18” x 36” (bottom-middle)

RANDALL BERNDT Lynx’s Moon Acrylic on panel 11” x 14” (bottom-right)

Five Views of Nature

by Fred Camper

“Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to

the universe?” Despite the “retrospective” nature of our age, “why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition,” Ralph Waldo Emerson famously asked at the opening of his 1836 essay Nature.

The five artists in this show, consciously or not, each follow Emerson’s suggestion, defining their relationship to nature in unique ways. Three fit in to the Romantic outlook of Emerson that also informed the Hudson River School landscapes that began appearing in his own time, in which human consciousness and nature were seen as interpenetrating, as evocations of each other, while the other two rather pointedly stake out different terrain.

Dream #3 Oil on canvas 13” x 35”

Matthew Hagemann M

atthew Hagemann is perhaps the purest Romantic

Starting from photos he takes of landscapes in the flat

of the five. He has studied architectural illustration

Midwest, Hagemann unstraightens some of the lines.

and worked as an architectural draftsman, and first

Day’s Beginning shows a lake bathed in the pink of

began selling prints of his black and white, rectilinearly pre-

dawn, the curvy shoreline seemingly cradling the water,

cise renditions of famous Chicago buildings in frame shops

the curves of land and trees echoing in streaks on the

and at outdoor art fairs when his architect employer died in

lake’s surface. His curves often collect in little nubs,

1990. Even though these drawings are not overly personal,

never sharp but more acute than the slopes, adding a

he chose buildings whose “character” he liked. About seven

peculiarly individual dynamism. This is a landscape of

years ago, he switched from architectural illustration to

imagination, of dreams, in which human subjectivity and

nature painting: “I think there’s much more life and spirit in

nature have become fused. The tree that rises against

nature,” Hagemann says. For much of his life, this Chicago-

the sky in Dream #3 has curves that are matched by

an has been taking drives into the country, enjoying himself

the surrounding landscape and the clouds behind,

in “God’s cathedral”—using a term that the painters Church

lines dancing harmoniously with each other rather than

and Bierstadt would feel at home with. With their quirky

seeming to collide, varied swoops and slopes creating a

bends and curves and dynamic, almost musical rhythms,

kind of mental swirl that gives a view of nature as being

his paintings are perhaps closest to those of Thomas Hart

alive, not as an entity separate from humans but as

Benton, and Hagemann knows Benton’s work—but says he

something part of our inner lives.

prefers Dali and Hopper.

Memories Oil on canvas 13” x 35”

Lynx’s Moon Acrylic on panel 11” x 14”

Randall Berndt Berndt grew up on a family farm 50 miles north of

David Friedrich about “seeing your picture first” with your

Madison, and his childhood spent in nature—“a kind of

“spiritual” rather than “bodily” eye, he places himself

a Huckleberry Finn lifestyle, wandering hither and yon,

firmly in the Romantic tradition. Writing in the Wisconsin

fishing, building little forts”—remains a key inspiration.

Academy Review, Richard Long suggests that Berndt’s

“Nature is my great teacher. My memories are not

painting is kin to “conjuring,” and with the inwardness

so much of people but of landscape, of patterns on

of his light and his mysterious groupings of objects

trees, rocks and water.” But he lived in a world that’s

he does seem to be suggesting magical invocations of

“completely vanished” today, the close-knit community of

another world, each of his objects infused with an iconic

he Hudson River School painters rarely showed

his youth now “oddly fragmented” between factory farms,

suggestiveness. At the same time, his recent works

nature as totally wild. Whether offering a balance

a new Amish community, and the huge new homes of

have a clear theme: civilization and nature, including the

between the wild and the settled landscape, as in

exurbanites. From knowing nothing about art as a youth,

most basic instinctual nature within us, are different and

Thomas Cole’s The Oxbow (1836), or showing the

he was painting “abstract Rothkoesqe clouds” in graduate

possibly incompatible realms, a theme suggested even

intrusion of a railroad, or simply including tiny figures

school and then biomorphic forms, until, partly inspired

in the title of Instinct and Shelter. A nude man sits on a

in wilderness scenes, these contrasted the products of

by Wisconsin painters such as Munch, John Wilde, and

log whose cut face is flat but whose huge ridges suggest

human civilization with wilderness, showing them as quite

Tom Uttech, he switched to his present figurative style.

wildness; before him is a precisely honed miniature

T

house he has apparently made, while the hanging deer in

different entities. This point is also made in different ways

by Randall Berndt and Charles Munch, two Wisconsin

Berndt is the first to point out that he’s not a photorealist,

the warm light of the rougher tent suggests something a

artists who are also friends.

and in citing as a key inspiration a quote from Caspar

bit wilder, and the dark background trees are wilder still.

What Nature has to Teach Us: Lumberjack’s Lesson Acrylic on panel 14” x 12”

Road Kill Oil on canvas 32” x 32”

Charles Munch over this little kingdom.” His realistic landscape paintings

in the background. The monuments are largely rectilinear

of the 70s led to a crisis in the early 80s. “I was trying to

and Euclidean, but betwixt and amongst them, a group of

understand a lot of dichotomies I felt in my life, between

deer is crossing from right to left. The deer seem oblivious

emotion and intellect, representation and abstractions,

to the monuments’ presence, and the contrast is almost

the human world and the natural world, artists and

humorous. In Salvation, a couple seems to be carrying a

everyone else. I didn’t feel I could express my feelings

stretcher out of a forest, and on it lays a deer—perhaps

about landscape to my satisfaction with realism.” Early

wounded, perhaps dead. There’s a contrast within the

Renaissance painting, and the power of its intense colors—

couple too: the woman, in a torn dress, stands on the forest

in contrast to Raphael, where “the color has started to

floor, while the man, a bit more civilized looking, walks on

hildhood experiences of nature remain key for

be subsumed in the representational efforts”—was also

meadow. The forest behind the woman seems dense and

Munch as well. Growing up in the old St. Louis

important, as were also the children’s book illustrations and

wild, while a plane flies at the upper left. Munch’s schematic

suburb of Webster Groves, he remembers the

comic books of his childhood; he had been impressed by

style, with broad areas of solid color that have a faint

wild unoccupied areas in the middle of blocks, “kind

the variety of color shades possible on a comic book cover,

picturebook, even coloring book, quality, contributes to the

of neglected backyards,” where he and his friends

as opposed to the inside.

speculative, even philosophical nature of his enterprise.

C

Less than convincing representations of how civilization

played. Even more important were childhood summers spent in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. “It wasn’t organized

In Munch’s paintings, the clash between the wild and the

and nature really look, they present symbolic interactions

rectilinearly,” Munch noticed early, unlike Webster Groves’s

civilized is every bit as strong as it is in Berndt’s. Two Worlds

between different layers of wild and tamed, encouraging the

grid. “I had the freedom to spend whole days wandering

shows a group of cemetery monuments in a clearing, trees

viewer to her or his own thoughts on the subjects.

Salvation Oil on Canvas 35 1/8” x 45 7/8”

Sempre Oil and Acrylic on panel 48” x 39”

L

Carol Pylant

ike Munch, Carol Pylant has made the transition from

softness of nature, seem to break with traditional Romantic

in the background is most impressive. The view through

relatively realistic landscapes to a more symbolic

painting—it seems as if there is more than a single unified

the arches, too, recalls the distant views toward infinity of

style in the last decade, and with a similar gain in

consciousness at work here, and the painting is as much

Caspar David Friedrich, though Pylant says he’s not much

speculative questioning. Her recent paintings with animals

about disconnections as about unities. The clashing worlds

of an influence. There’s some of the “distillation of light in

in landscapes have a strangely surrealist aura, tiled

of Berndt’s and Munch’s paintings, by contrast, are unified

space” from her “longest-running influence,” Vermeer. Her

floors adding a suggestion of great depth. In Interlude,

by a consistent painterly style throughout.

spaces, indeed, seem suffused with a mystical light, the ubiquitousness of which is heightened by the framing floors

a peacock copied from a photo she took struts across a

and archways -- which also somewhat break with that light.

checkerboard floor. Early Renaissance archways behind

Pylant, too, had formative early encounters with nature.

open out onto water and distant land, and in one archway a

Growing up in economically disadvantaged circumstances

bird flies. The viewer might not guess that she was reading

in the urban chaos of 1960s Detroit, she remembers the

Pylant’s free-floating symbolism parallels Munch’s

Dante’s Inferno at the time, but her comment that it’s not

contrast with summers on her grandmother’s Tennessee

ambiguities. There are two dogs in Blessed, one inside

clear if the peacock is trying to get in or out makes sense,

farm—and saw nature as an escape. She was impressed

the aches seemingly looking out and the other outside,

and one in general feels a heavy symbolic weight invested

in high school by the 17th-century Dutch paintings at the

beside the water, looking in. They suggest different human

in the two birds, the floor, and the contrasting nature

Detroit Institute of Arts, for “the way light was dealt with,

owners, and different positions in life. The knowledge

with its soft-edged hues, making the contrast between

the believability of space, the detail,” and their influence can

that one dog is hers and the other, recently deceased,

nature and culture even sharper visually than in Berndt or

be seen in some of her earlier work. In the recent paintings,

was her mother’s, and that the painting was inspired by

Munch. That the symbols are not specific, and the contrast

the contrast between the Renaissance style tiled floors

the unexpected death of a friend, provides only one set of

between the rigid geometry of the architecture and the

with their geometrical precision and the soft landscapes

possible interpretations.

Blessed Oil on linen 48” x 42”

Top Dog Oil on board 36” x 30”

A nn Worthing A

seductive colors of the other four, Worthing’s are mixed

Worthing says that one reason for avoiding highly

with their complements. One inspiration is the paintings

saturated colors is that she wants the paintings to change

of Giorgio Morandi, which she discovered in the late 80s;

with the changing light around them. They indeed have a

another could be winters in her hometown: “Everything

modesty, a lack of pride in themselves as paintings or in

turned brown, and it was really monotonous. The land is

the objects they contain, that suggests an artist even less

very flat, and I learned to pay attention to subtle changes.

assertive about her role than the others. But if respect for

I remember noticing different shades in the brown grass,

nature means anything, it should mean knowing that it is

and the way the grass took on colors from anything

not our property, nor is it even given to us to completely

that might be around.” Top Dog shows a pet she once

understand, and Worthing’s stance suggests a respect

owned, his back indeed arched and his stance direct

for her subjects as well as an openness to the changing

and confrontational, but he’s painted in a pale cream

environments they might be seen in. Nature is not a

that doesn’t stand out that much from the yellowish

creature of her inner consciousness, but something that

nn Worthing presents nature somewhat differently

background. The cat in Pussy III seems drawn into himself,

exists out there in the world, and changes in nature are

from the other four artists. Her childhood

the way cats often are; self sufficient, his eyes seem to be

not simply changes in our inner awareness, but also can

experiences of nature include time spent on

staring out, but it’s not clear if they really are, and his pose

reflect changes in that outer world.

family farms, and also time spent with the family’s pets,

is symmetrical, statuesque. His fur is paler than the green

including the “menagerie” her brothers kept while she

behind or the turquoise of the pool below, but it also feels

was growing up in Wharton, Texas. Unlike the bright,

as if each color can be seen in the other.

Pussy III Oil on wood panel 30” x 36”

Fred Camper

Special Homecoming Hours:

Fred Camper is an artist, and a writer and lecturer on art and film,

who lives in Chicago. His Web site is www.fredcamper.com.

Friday, October 5 • 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

Saturday, October 6 • 1–4 p.m.

Sunday, October 7 • 12:30–3 p.m.

Randall Berndt is represented by Grace Chosy Gallery in Madison,WI.

Regular Gallery Hours: Matthew Hagemann is represented by Portals,Ltd. Gallery in Chicago, IL.

and Monforts Fine Art in Racine, WI.

Charles Munch is represented by Tory Folliard in Milwaukee, WI. and

Grace Chosy Gallery in Madison,WI.

Carol Pylant is represented by Ann Nathan Gallery in Chicago, IL.,

Grace Chosy Gallery in Madison,WI. and Peltz Gallery in

Milwaukee, WI.

Ann Worthing is represented by Packer Schopf Gallery in Chicago,IL.

Tuesday–Friday • 10 a.m.–3p.m.

Thursday evening • 6-8 p.m.

Saturday • 1-4 p.m.

For more information, please contact Diane Levesque at (262) 551-5853 or send an email to dlevesque@carthage.edu. To learn more about the H. F. Johnson Gallery of Art please visit www.carthage.edu/dept/art/gallery.