A Nearness to Tremendousness

My recent posts have been about the Baltimore Museum of Art’s exhibit “Amy Sherald: American Sublime.” I concluded yesterday’s account (HERE) with a rather impressive – well, at least a fitting – boating motif (playing off Dickinson’s “Wild Nights – Wild Nights!): “For now, let me navigate back to ‘Amy Sherald: American Sublime’ and drop anchor.  I'll set sail again tomorrow and see where the winds take me.  Well -- I know where they're going to take me. Up.”

Before soaring upward today, though, let me share two bits of nugatory information:  First, as a synonym for “impressive” (which I just used in the paragraph above), the OED included “amazeballs” as a choice. Hmm…I’m not sure I’d classify my boating motif as “amazeballs." but it was rather impressive, no?  Second, just yesterday – soon after I proclaimed in my post that Baltimore’s Cafe Gia has the world’s best cannoli – I learned that “cannoli” is plural for the singular “connolo” – not “cannolis” or “cannolies.” Who knew?

Okay, time to gather my thoughts like a bunch of balloons: My focus today is “Pilgrimage of the Chameleon,” a portrait which includes a bouquet of balloons – hence, my earlier mention of a skyward projection – and though I’ve been connecting Sherald’s paintings to various poems by Dickinson, let me start today with a selection in contrast.​

[NOTE:  In an alternate version, line 4 reads, "Don't tell!  They'd advertise -- you know!"]

​One of Dickinson’s most famous poems begins “I’m Nobody! Who are you? / Are you – Nobody – too?” – and, of course, Dickinson herself shunned publication of her work (“Publication is the auction of the mind,” she wrote), and she withdrew from society, becoming a recluse in her own town and in her own home. Conversely, most of Sherald’s subjects make direct eye contact with museum-goers as if to say, “I’m Somebody!  Who are you?”  

Do you find that they are looking at you – or are they looking forward, say, to their horizons (horizons seem an important and frequent theme with Sherald)?  Or are they looking ahead?  Are looking “forward” and looking “ahead” the same thing (a la the synonyms I mentioned above, “impressive” and “amazeballs”)?

Consider this – and yes, I’m being a bit chucklesome here – are these statements the same:  

“Azariah is looking ahead to his colonoscopy.”

“Azariah is looking forward to his colonoscopy.”

So back to those individuals and those gazes. With her portraits, Sherald stipulates that museums install them at eye level to enhance the connection between the viewer and the subject. Her intent is to ensure her subjects are "actively present," allowing them to be "gazed upon but also gaze back.”  In this way, Sherald facilitates a direct interaction with the viewer, aiming to create a moment focused on the individual's humanity. Additionally, Sherald’s portraits often feature subjects set against flat, monochromatic, or minimalist backgrounds; as a result, they are not defined by struggle or surroundings.
From the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (HERE): 

“In all her paintings, the figure’s facial expression—particularly the gaze—is critical to establishing a sense of agency for each subject. Sherald says in a Smithsonian Magazine interview, ‘My portraits are quiet, but they’re not passive. When you consider the African American historical narrative and its ties to the gaze, a glance could result in punishment by lynching. I wanted my sitters to look out and meet your gaze, instead of being gazed upon. Essentially, that’s the beginning of selfhood, a consideration of self which is not reactionary to your environment.’”

In “Pilgrimage of the Chameleon,” there is a handful of balloons. Are they a celebratory detail?  Something whimsical? An offering? 

“Pilgrimage” implies a journey.  “Chameleon” suggests an ability to change color. The balloons are multicolored. The individual is wearing a coat, as if on a journey. Has he been changing color in some experience of synesthesia (metaphorically speaking)?

What came to mind for me was Dickinson’s “As from the earth the light Balloon”:

Wow! What an ending!  This poem, in turn, called to mind Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem “Sympathy.”

In Dunbar’s work, the bird sings (and beats his wing) for he has been defrauded of his release – as the balloon in Dickinson’s poem.

Has the pilgrim in Sherald’s painting gathered balloons in hopes of ascension to greater heights?  Has he been defrauded of his song?

Although Dickinson never used the word “pilgrimage” in any poem, she did use “pilgrim” in five poems.  In one of those five, “Will there really be a ‘Morning’?” the poet concludes with this: 

Oh some Scholar! Oh some Sailor!
Oh some Wise Man from the skies!
Please to tell a little Pilgrim
Where the place called "Morning" lies!

I can see in the subject’s expression of Sherald’s “Pilgrimage” a similar longing – perhaps a search “where the place called ‘Morning’ lies” (whatever “morning” might symbolize).​

Interestingly, in the opening stanza from another poem in which Dickinson used the word “balloon,” she stated this: 

I would not paint – a picture –
I'd rather be the One
It's bright impossibility
To dwell – delicious – on –
And wonder how the fingers feel
Whose rare – celestial – stir –
Evokes so sweet a torment –
Such sumptuous – Despair –
​
I wouldn’t say that the expression of Sherald’s subject evokes torment or despair; however, he has the look of contentment, perhaps, of one who has overcome some obstacle or desperation. 

In exploring this work, I found a very interesting interpretation at Phillips.com, and it mentions, “The balloons against a sky blue background serve as a natural symbol of uplift, implying the upward direction of the protagonist’s pilgrimage.”  The analysis addresses thoroughly, too, the view of the subject as “chameleon” – linked to “process of assimilation” and “code-switching” – and how the “balloons express a sense of optimism.”  The complete review is HERE.

What do you see in this painting?  In his expression?  In those balloons?