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| George Morrison Untitled 1950 tempera on paper Minneapolis Institute of Art |
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| Blanche Lazzell Study for Abstraction 2 1950 tempera on board Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (Achenbach Foundation) |
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| Paul Cadmus Architect 1950 tempera on panel Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut |
Perfect Pitch
When Dean Martin sings, "Send Me
the Pillow that You Dream on," he is so far
from sounding sincere that it doesn't even
occur to you he might once have meant it,
not even the first time perusing the lyric sheet
over coffee and cannoli, nor while trying it out
in the presence of his latest squeeze
who did way more for him than dream,
and this releases us from all that hooey
about being "true." It's a reason to love him.
And do we? Encore! We adore insincerity
as long as it's piled on thick enough
not to question our cultivated jadedness
while sipping at the martini of its hyperbole.
Our real feelings don't come into it.
The songwriter's feelings never came into it.
Purely lovable are Dean's silly vocal fillips,
the light melodic curlicue he adds
like a twirl of clean-shaven mustache,
the heart-shaped moue,
the smiley-face-dotted i of his absolute distance
from the song's semantics, while he drips with them,
fingers them back into his shiny black hair.
We love to see him simulate a tipsy weave,
slipping on the fifties-width oil slick of suavity
his tinsel-thin heartstrings are soaking in
while he fondles the mike with a deft twist,
a swizzling motion for all the prop drinks
biographers insist were really apple juice –
not even a genuine drunk! –
his gesture flanked by flashy cufflinks
like gold quotation marks around his act:
every eye-roll, wink, triply rehearsed
doubletake and limp-kneed moan
when the pretty legs walk lavishly away.
Nothing in that creamy maraschino manner
pretends to so much as an inch of depth.
How refreshing in a land rich with charlatans
to find one so pure, so true to his métier
he sells nothing but his perfect sales pitch,
seduces us for nothing but a counter-quirk
of eyebrow, and the rapt half-smile
that can't quite summon the indifference
of a smirk.
– J. Allyn Rosser, from Foiled Again (Ivan R. Dee, 2007)
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| John Gutmann Untitled (Five Gymnasts) ca. 1950 tempera on paper Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (Achenbach Foundation) |
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| George Tooker Cabinet 1951 tempera on board Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut |
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| Andrew Wyeth April Wind 1952 tempera on gesso panel Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut |
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| Yayoi Kusama Column (Help) 1953 tempera on paper Brooklyn Museum |
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| Adrian Heath White Collage 1954 oil paint, enamel paint, and paper collage on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| Charles Sheeler On a Shaker Theme 1956 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
Equilibrium Update
Look there, a man caught smack in the middle of his life
and almost aware of it; not quite yet resigned
but past most of the old impatiences, having
developed a consciously casual walk, not quite
the swagger of yore, nor the dignified limp
to come; rather like a man carrying a long heavy plank,
glad of his hard-won, admittedly modest momentum;
calmly dreading several varieties of misstep
such as tipping the future a little too far forward or
letting the past plunk down heedless behind; or merely
looking down; or turning so quickly to look back as to
whack the one just now bending to pick up her own burden;
still staunchly bearing it onward in splinterless grip
across the rooftop lifescape – bicep, trapezius and thigh muscles in
play, also those of the spine, the upper lip,
he is at last in control, yes, in his element, in his heart
of hearts wondering how long he will bear it, where to and,
as ever, what for.
– J. Allyn Rosser, from Foiled Again (Ivan R. Dee, 2007)
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| Charles Sheeler Continuity 1957 tempera on plexiglas Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco |
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| Anonymous American painter Red against White 1957 tempera on plexiglas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Manuel Neri Figure 1957 tempera on paper Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University |
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| Morris Louis Impending 1959 acrylic on canvas Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut |
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| Mark Rothko Red on Maroon 1959 oil paint, acrylic paint, and glue tempera on canvas Tate Gallery |