'Walk through Walls' - Rodulfo's Yarmouth Collection

Within a few years of relocating his home and studio the visionary artist Peter Rodulfo (b.1958) has assembled an extraordinary portfolio of artwork which focuses upon the architecture and landmarks, street-life and social activities of Great Yarmouth. Rodulfo's Yarmouth Collection was exhibited at Skippings Gallery in Great Yarmouth  from April 14th until the 20th April 2018.

The Yarmouth Collection takes as its springboard observations made by the artist on walks throughout the town. Rodulfo's paintings depict the coastal town in both well-known and little-known guises. The walls which the artist invites the viewer to walk through are those of indifference and inattentiveness to one's everyday environment. Viewing the many gems of Rodulfo's Yarmouth Collection one not only acquires a new awareness of the sights and attractions of Great Yarmouth but also a deepened appreciation of the technical brilliance, wide stylistic diversity and protean imagination which the artist now commands, Rodulfo himself stating -‘Looking is like a language. The best art doesn't need a dictionary, but for general usage a context is needed’.

The attractions and architectural treasures of Great Yarmouth are the context of the Yarmouth Collection - its Marketplace, Regent Road, King Street, the Star hotel, St. George's Park, the Hippodrome Circus, Atlantis Tower, Nelson's Monument, Britannia and Wellington Piers all feature in the Yarmouth Collection.

The chequered fortunes of what geographically speaking was once little more than a narrow peninsula of shingle sandwiched between the North Sea and the River Yare, is clearly visible in Great Yarmouth’s  varied architecture. On  South Quay there's a 13th c.Tollhouse and  a 17th-century Merchant's House, as well as Tudor, Georgian and Victorian buildings. Behind South Quay there’s a maze of alleys and lanes known as "The Rows" while Yarmouth’s medieval wall is the second most complete Medieval town wall in the country. With eleven of  its eighteen original turrets still standing, its more extant than nearby Norwich's surviving medieval city walls.  

Rodulfo shares with fellow leading member of North Sea Magical Realism, Mark Burrell (b. 1957) an interest in the interaction between architecture and social activities; the townscape of Burrell’s hometown of Lowestoft  is often the setting of his luminescent paintings. As with Burrell however, its the overall ambience and mood of a location rather than meticulously reproducing architectural detail which interests Rodulfo. 

An ambiguous, even unsettling atmosphere is evoked in Approach to the Pleasure-Beach (below).  In equal measure of light and dark, cheer and gloom, an overcrowded boat is seen ferrying people to a Pleasure-Beach, some of which resembles the Bolton bros. fun-fair. With its sombre sky and churning water along with overcrowded boat, the viewer is left to wonder about the lengths people will go to in their pursuit of pleasure. The painting's background includes Yarmouth's 'Golden Mile' complete with the Atlantis Tower, Waterways boating-lake, windmill and approaching train.

Portraiture of Yarmouth’s leading cultural figures also occurs in the Yarmouth Collection. The proprietor of the Hippodrome Circus, Peter Jay, along with his bearded and bespectacled son Jack Jay, the current Ringmaster, can be seen mingling among the performing clowns and trapeze artists of The Day the Clowns Left (77 x 61 cm ) (below) as well as a pair of giraffes who rubberneck into the frame.

Great Yarmouth Hippodrome was built in 1903 by the legendary Circus showman George Gilbert. Its Britain's only surviving total circus building, one of only three in the world. The painting's title alludes to the fact that clowns are to be dropped from the performing artists of the Hippodrome Circus, because they are now considered to be too scary for a family audience.

Another leading figure in Yarmouth's cultural life, the artist John Kiki, a founding member of the 'Yarmouth six’ art-group is portrayed in On the Corner (below) with its grinning coffee-cup faces, vertical word COLUMBIA and surly-looking seagull peering from behind it.  John Kiki can be seen standing beside a yellow van in the lower right corner of the canvas, while in the lower left  corner stands a hill-top Greek village, a visual reference to Yarmouth’s long-established Cypriot-Greek community.

Rodulfo’s Quayside view of Yarmouth (below) far from either a pastiche or homage to Jan Vermeer’s famous View of Delft (1661) simply highlights an intuitive artistic perception - that Vermeer’s Delft and Yarmouth town share distinctive qualities of light, as well as cloud formations; both towns being situated on low land encompassed by water with a  full hemisphere of sky above (major contributing factors for Norfolk’s famed sunsets).

The skilful reproduction of cloud and sky reflected in the river Yare in Quayside view of Yarmouth is of particular note. The artist  himself stating of this  quayside view -

'I just thought the view is beautiful, but most people would walk by without a glance, as I am sure Vermeer’s contemporaries did, when walking past his view of Delft'.

Great Yarmouth itself is no back-water in British art history. Almost every major artist of the Norwich School of Painters which flourished exactly two centuries ago has an association with Yarmouth. Many Norwich School artists visited Yarmouth in order to paint beach and marine subjects; others, such as J.S.Cotman, resided in the Town attempting to make a precarious living, other Norwich School artists such as Joseph Stannard embarked from Yarmouth in order to view major art-collections such as the ‘Golden Age’ Dutch masters on display in Amsterdam; later in his short life the tubercular Stannard was sent to Yarmouth by family and friends in hope that the salubrious sea-air would restore his health. For many years John Crome visited Yarmouth weekly as an art- teacher, he also sailed from the sea-port in order to view the art-treasures newly on display in Paris which had been plundered by Napoleon in his military victories.

Another allusion to European art-styles occurs in a painting which features two of Yarmouth's tallest landmarks, the Britannia Monument (44 metres in height) and the Atlantis Tower (56 metres in height). A naval Admiral's hat, a crane stacking container cargo, seagull and traffic cone can also be seen in this relatively small painting sized 36 x  49 cm. (Top of this post). 

The Britannia Monument is a tribute to Lord Nelson (1758-1805) which was completed in 1819, some 24 years before the completion of Nelson's Column in London. The Monument shows Britannia standing atop a globe, holding an olive branch in her right hand and a trident in her left. Originally planned to mark Nelson's victory at the Battle of the Nile, its installation was delayed due to insufficient fundraising which resulted in it not being completed until after the Naval hero's death. Now surrounded by an industrial estate, Rodulfo links the monument's current environ to the settings of the paintings of Giorgio De Chirico (1888 -1978) who greatly influenced the Surrealists and whose paintings often included arcades and towers, stating- 'When thinking of monumental surrealism of course De Chirico springs to mind’. This being the primary reason why the painting references the  distinctive style of the Italian metaphysical artist.

In Yarmouth Market Place (148 x 117 cm)(below) the vibrancy of one of England's oldest and largest marketplaces is represented through swirling activity and a cheerful and pleasing tonal palette. Market produce of fruit and vegetables, flowers and clothes, along with  gangways and shoppers, are all depicted in what may be termed Rodulfo's multi-layered perspective. Gate-crashing into the picture are two seagulls, near ubiquitous to Yarmouth town, one humorous, the other slightly threatening. They also contribute to the general hustle and bustle of Yarmouth Market Place, and can be seen in various other paintings of Peter Rodulfo's wholly original Yarmouth Collection.

'Rainy Bank Holiday' (with Atlantis Tower)

Four 'Rarities in Pictures' from Dr. Browne's Musaeum Clausum

When the artists Peter Rodulfo and Mark Burrell, the two leading exponents of North Sea magical realism were introduced to Thomas Browne’s Musaeum Clausum they instantly recognised the seventeenth century physician-philosopher as one possessing an inventive imagination; the paintings listed as  'Rarities in Pictures' in Browne's imaginary art-gallery in particular, attracted their interest. Subsequently, during the summer of 2016, both artists set to work, inspired by the novel idea of bringing to life a picture from Browne's bizarre art-gallery.

Musaeum Clausum (The closed or Sealed museum) is an inventory of lost, rumoured and imaginary books, pictures and objects conjured up by Thomas Browne (1605-82) quite late in his life (an event from 1673 is mentioned), several of which represent pre-occupations which fascinated the Norwich doctor throughout his life. Ever the literary showman with a flair for the theatrical and with subtle humour, Browne declares his inventory to be ‘Containing some remarkable Books, Antiquities, Pictures and Rarities of several kinds, scarce or never seen by any man now living’. 

In recent times Browne's writings in general have attracted the attention of many artists, not least his Musaeum Clausum for its anticipation of modern modes of artistic expression [1]. Indeed, the Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1996) a life-long admirer of Browne who alluded to him throughout his literary career, and the writer most often associated with the literary origins of magical realism once stated, as if with Browne’s Musaeum Clausum in mind  - 

"To write vast books is a laborious nonsense, much better is to offer a summary as if those books actually existed."

Musaeum Clausum's art-gallery of 'Rarities in pictures’ succinctly describes paintings roughly sketched out in a few brush-stroke sentences; some are located in exotic settings such as moonlight, the polar regions and underwater, others depict historical events such as sea-battles, amongst a variety of fancies from the Norwich philosopher-physician's imagination.

The artist Mark Burrell (b. 1957) selected the item entitled ‘A vestal sinner in the cave with a candle’ from 'Rarities in Pictures' as raw material to work on. Burrell’s Sacred Presence (detail above, oil and alkyd resin on board 19 x 19 3/4 inches) depicts a cave in which a young girl with a questioning and slightly defiant expression, stands beside a table on which several candles are lit. A highly-charged and numinous atmosphere is evoked through the lapsed virgin's encounter with a supernatural apparition. A floating, genie-like torso faces her, ambiguous in facial features, the apparition is simultaneously erotic and scary. A ghostly visage can also be seen looking on. As often in Burrell’s art, a numinous atmosphere is enhanced through highly-charged colouration along with skilful portraiture and exquisite detail. 

Candles and the magical light which they create can be seen in several of Burrell’s paintings. Exercising his artistic license Burrell has chosen to paint several lit candles, heightening the drama of the numinous moment. Until relatively recently candles were a primary source of light. In the modern age with its demand for eyes to constantly focus upon the artificial light of the phone, computer and television screen, candle-light is a relaxing and soothing balm to the eyes. Candle light retains its spiritual significance from mankind's very earliest religious experiences to the present-day. 

In  Mark Burrell’s Sacred Presence the torso of a hybrid creature, like a genie released from a bottle, hovers bare-breasted and quivers with secret Freudian allusions, the artist subtly inviting the viewer to project their own unconscious psychological contents onto its presence. From the bare skeletal frame-work of a single sentence description, Burrell has fleshed-out and conjured up a dark and mysterious, and ultimately inexplicable, fairy-tale narrative in his own unique and inimitable style. 

Burrell's Sacred Presence may poetically be described as an Hallucination gothique. It should be noted that the word 'Gothic’ in its original meaning is descriptive of the marvellous and amazing, such as found in Burrell's paintings of fair-grounds, sun-sets, bonfires and fireworks, along with the wonders of childhood, as much as the darker and gloomier associations of the word, while the word 'hallucination' here simply means a vivid, yet controlled, visual imagination, without any association of chemical inducement whatsoever. 

The setting of the cave invites exploration. In the ancient Greek philosopher Plato's famous allegory of the cave, found in book 7 of his discourse The Republic, the human condition is described as one in which unenlightened people forever mistake the fleeting and insubstantial shadows they see projected onto a cave wall for the reality of the Eternal Platonic forms. 

In the cave paintings at Lascaux in France, estimated to be 20,000 years old, various animals can be seen. First discovered in 1940, the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) after visiting the paleolithic caves remarked, 'They've invented everything'. Picasso subsequently incorporated imagery found in the caves of Lascaux in his own paintings. Indeed its no exaggeration to state, as Picasso realized, that the cave was in fact the setting of mankind’s very first art gallery. 

The subject-matter of Browne’s ‘vestal sinner’ originates from Roman antiquity. The Vestal virgins were entrusted to the task of keeping the sacred flame of the temple dedicated to Vesta permanently alight. A supreme importance was attached to the purity of the Vestal virgins, and a terrible punishment awaited her who violated her vow of chastity. If a Vestal virgin broke her vows she was punished by being entombed alive with a solitary candle in the certainty of death.  

There’s a casual, though entirely coincidental similarity to Burrell's Sacred Presence to a scene in the Mexican-American film director Guillermo del Toro’s cinematic masterpiece of magical realism, Pan’s Labyrinth (2006). Early in the film, the heroine Ofelia who loves reading fairy-tales, descends the steps of a  labyrinth to enter a cavernous space where she encounters a faun who sets her three tasks to complete by full moon. 

The faun in Pan's Labyrinth not unlike the spectral apparition of Sacred Presence is strongly imbued with the daemonic, that is, a benevolent nature spirit, which though seemingly scary, more often than not, is helpful to mortals. The daemonische also describes the particular genius or spirit of a place, something which Burrell expresses vividly in paintings of his home-town of Lowestoft, the sea-town possessing a distinctive character in his art.

Its important here to distinguish between the word daemonic with the much latter word 'demonic' and not to confuse the daemonic with the demonic. The Greek word daimōn was applied to the Judeo-Christian concept of an evil spirit by the early second century CE. Just how the original Greek word 'daemonic' alluding to the Spirits inhabiting Nature transformed to become 'demonic' is a good example of how the prejudices and hostilities of the Judeo-Christian world towards the Greek civilization  condemned Greek nature worship and labelled all such Nature-spirits originating from Greek civilization as pagan. [2]

There are many accounts in Greek mythology of mortals who encounter supernatural beings. In ancient Greek myth, the hero Oedipus challenges the female Sphinx who devoured all travelers who could not answer her riddle. When Oedipus gave her the correct answer he caused the Sphinx's death.

The Greek hero Oedipus is the subject of an early work of  portraiture by Mark Burrell. Painted over twenty years ago and measuring 6" x 9", Burrell’s portrait through sheer serendipity corresponds well to Browne's interest in the esoteric art of physiognomy as represented in the 'Rarities in Pictures' item - 

Three Draughts of passionate Looks; .............of Oedipus when he first came to know that he had killed his Father, and married his own Mother. 

This early work of Burrell's is a fine anticipation of what is now a highly-developed feature of his mature work, namely, portraiture involving great psychological insight.

* * * *

The artist Peter Rodulfo (b. 1958) is a star of equal brilliance in the celestial firmament of North Sea magical realism. Mercurial in subject-matter, style, dimensions and the medium of his art (Rodulfo is a sculptor as well as a painter) he is now clocking up forty-plus years of industrious creativity. However, one never gets the impression of any Sisyphean effort to Rodulfo’s art, even though he confesses his paintings are problems which he only sometimes solves. Most often, a joyful delight in productive, often experimental creativity weaves throughout Rodulfo's varied and wide-ranging art-works, like a silken golden thread in finely-woven tapestry .

Peter Rodulfo also selected an item from Browne’s Museum Clausum during the summer of 2016, his painting Dr. Browne  goes Submarining originating from the 'Rarities in Pictures'  item of -

Large Submarine Pieces, well delineating the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, the Prairie or large Sea-meadow upon the Coast of Provence, the Coral Fishing, the gathering of Sponges, the Mountains, Valleys and Deserts, the Subterraneous Vents and Passages at the bottom of that Sea .... Together with a lively Draught of Cola Pesce, or the famous Sicilian Swimmer, diving into the Vorago's and broken Rocks by Charybdis, to fetch up the golden Cup, which Frederick, King of Sicily, had purposely thrown into that Sea.

Adhering closely to Browne’s description, Rodulfo’s giant-sized (180 x 220 cm) oil on canvas displays the artist's masterful utilization of a strong blue pigment, in conjunction with skilful perspective and an exuberant delight in marine-life. In fact there are now many art-works by Rodulfo in which marine life is a primary feature. Three paintings by the artist focus upon the stages and symbolism of the Night Sea Voyage, for example. 

An attentive viewing of Rodulfo’s 'Large submarine Piece' reveals not only the silhouetted figure of a diver, but also,‘the golden Cup, which Frederick, King of Sicily, had purposely thrown into that Sea’.  The deep fathoms of water from the golden cup resting upon seabed to surface is effectively conveyed through a shaft of hazy sunlight at the top left of the painting. A platypus with its wide, flat bill can be seen diving headlong in its top right. The viscous nature of the sea is hinted through various pieces of flotsam and jetsam floating in the water. There's also a skillful use of perspective in the outlines of rock formations, along with finely-worked frottage which enhances the depth of Rodulfo's aquatic vision.  

Digital photography can never fully reproduce an original art-work, especially one which is so large in its dimensions. Nevertheless, a detail from Rodulfo’s jumbo-sized painting (above) goes some way towards highlighting the fantastic detail of its imagery. 

In Rodulfo’s submarine fantasy, with its hints of civilizations such as Atlantis as recounted in Plato’s Timaeus, the gods of a distant time, far from being stern and implacable, are portrayed as approachable and cheerful and above all, not necessarily patriarchal whatsoever. Male and Female together, they suggest some long-lost civilization celebrating the Hieros Gamos or 'Sacred Marriage' when men and women were co-equal in a meaningful way, long since forgotten.  

Its interesting to note that both Burrell and Rodulfo were attracted to paint items allusive to the hidden in nature. For whilst Burrell selected an item featuring the subterranean, that is, under the earth, Rodulfo opted for the submarine, that is, under the sea. These settings may be considered as allusive in symbolism to the subconscious of the human psyche. Its a moot point in terminology between the difference of subconscious and unconscious, it being far easier for an artist to depict examples from under nature than the unnatural and 'not of nature'. Of  far greater importance is the fact that both Rodulfo and Burrell are well aware that much in human relationships and affairs is influenced and driven by the hidden, subconscious psyche. 

It would be a daunting task to even begin naming the numerous influences of Rodulfo’s and Burrell’s art. Both artists live and work in historic North Sea ports which for centuries have been vigorous conduits, not only of travel, trade and commerce, but also of cultures, fashions, ideas and  art. Nevertheless, above all others it's the Swiss artist Paul Klee whom Peter Rodulfo admits to admiring most, while for Mark Burrell the English artist Stanley Spencer is held in the highest regard. Both artists also take a casual interest in the psychology of C.G. Jung and the psychological element is evident in both artist's work, consciously and unconsciously, as the shared symbolism of their respective paintings suggests, the subterranean setting of Mark Burrell's Sacred Presence harmoniously matching the submarine setting of  Peter Rodulfo's Dr. Browne goes Submarining.

                                                  *    *   *  *

In the nineteenth century Russian artist Ilya Repin's scene from the medieval Russian fairy-tale of  the minstrel singer and sailor Sadko, the hero is seen visiting a submarine kingdom. Repin's fanciful painting entitled Sadko visiting the Underwater Kingdom (1876) alludes to lost civilizations, along with depiction of a wide variety of  marine-creatures. One wonders if the Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov ever viewed Repin's painting, the subject of Sadko and his fairy-tale adventures are the plot of Rimsky-Korsakov's triumph of national opera, Sadko (1889). Rimsky-Korsakov's contemporary and great rival, Peter Tchaikovsky also found Russian fairy-tales to be inspiring. The music of Tchaikovsky's world-famous and well-loved ballets Swan Lake (1875-77) and The Sleeping Beauty (1890) along with Igor Stravinsky's  ballet The Firebird (1911) are all structured in plot and narrative upon fairy-tales. 

In the sixth scene of Rimsky-Korsakov's opera Sadko the minstrel Sadko descends to the Sea-Tsar's kingdom in order to win his daughter's hand in marriage. 

                                                          *   *  *

Cheerfulness, along with humour and wit are prominent characteristics of much of  Peter Rodulfo's art, not least in his choosing to realize one of the funniest of all the items in Browne’s 'Rarities in Pictures' namely, An Elephant dancing upon the Ropes with a Negro Dwarf upon his Back.

Painted sometime late 2016/early 2017, in addition to an elephant dancing upon a tight-rope with a gyrating liveried flunky upon his back, a lobster, butterfly, tortoise, starfish, seagull and the tail of a large cetaceous creature can be seen, all of which are visible evidence of Rodulfo's great love of animals. Elephants in particular can be found lumbering about in several of Rodulfo's paintings, including his key-signature art-work As the Elephant Laughed (2012). Elephants feature in Rodulfo's art perhaps because their colossal size and docile intelligence impressed strongly upon the artist's memory when resident in India as a young boy. 

In Rodulfo's Elephant Dancing on the Ropes the rough hide of an elephant has been imitated with a thick, heavy layering of paint worked onto the canvas with a spatula. The elephant's hide is strongly lit by moonlight shining  upon its back. The drama of the moment is further enhanced by the setting rays of the sun catching the tail of a large cetaceous creature about to dive, along with the strobing beams of a lighthouse on the distant horizon. The swell of the sea in its foreground, complete with ripples and bubbles are also skillfully delineated. 

Its interesting to note that although they are quite different in mood, Rodulfo's highly amusing painting of an elephant lolloping along a rope and Burrell's sombre Sacred Presence nevertheless share imagery involving moonlight and candles. 

There are two possible sources from which Thomas Browne may have been informed about tightrope-walking elephants. As an antiquarian and a keen numismatist he may have seen ancient Roman coins which appear to depict tight-rope walking elephants, but alas, such coins are in fact of elephants treading upon serpents, with the attendant symbolism of such an act, and not tight-rope walking at all. 

A far more reliable source for tight-rope walking elephants occurs in Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars. The ancient historian records that it was the Roman emperor Galba (3 BCE - 69 CE) who introduced the spectacular novelty of tight-rope walking elephants at the festival of Floralia [3]. Perhaps Browne, who owned a copy of Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars read of tight-rope walking elephants there. However, what can be of little doubt is that Browne, who candidly confesses in Religio Medici that-

 'I can look a whole day with delight upon a handsome Picture though it be but of an Horse'. [4] 

he would have immensely enjoyed viewing Rodulfo's mirth-inducing realisation of An Elephant dancing upon the Ropes with a Negro Dwarf upon his Back.

Incidentally,  imagery involving elephants as well as the bottom of the sea occurs in Sir Thomas Browne's phantasmagorical discourse The Garden of Cyrus (1658) while the physician-philosopher's vigorous introduction of new words into the English language includes the words 'hallucination' as well as 'submarine'.

Rodulfo and Burrell first became aware of each other through fellow artist Guy Richardson (b. 1933) though in the eventuality they first met at a New York bar while exhibiting their art in America. As the senior member of North Sea magical realism  Guy Richardson has influenced both Rodulfo and Burrell at various stages of their artistic careers. His mixed media artwork, A Shark-wrestler in a bottle is related to themes and preoccupations encountered in both artist's work, it being a fusion of Rodulfo’s wit and humour and Burrell’s intensity of expression. 

This post is dedicated to Ms. Katerina Mayfaire  - perhaps America's biggest fan of North Sea Magical Realism, with many thanks for her inspiration.

Notes

[1] The German photographer Klaus Wehner and his art-project entitled Museum Clausum  from 2001 Link here.
The avant-garde composer Eve Beglarian and her electronic music piece entitled the Garden of Cyrus  and an American rock-band naming themselves The Garden of Cyrus spring to mind.
[2] Thanking  Ms. Clair Papillion for bringing this distinction to attention.
[3]  Suetonius Lives of the Caesars Galba section 6.
[4] Religio Medici Part II. Section 9.

Mark Burrell's 'The Trump Show: Let's Make America Great Again'.

In the British artist Mark Burrell’s painting Lets Make America Great Again (2017) the negative emotional and psychological traits of America’s controversial President, Donald Trump are satirized.

Realized in the medium of alkyd resins, Burrell's artistic imagination is clearly alive and well, enhanced as ever through skillful draughtsmanship and a meticulous attention to detail. These talents, in conjunction with the artist’s sensibility, insight and occasional dark humour contribute to create a provocative art-work.  Donald Trump is portrayed as an overgrown baby in the care of a hooded baby-sitting member of the KKK who is pushing a pram on the edge of a cliff. Meanwhile, the American flag is in flames as Trump in his pram stuffed full of dollars and lit by coloured bulbs, sounds off his horn, only to emit bubbles in vain.

With its extensive landscape, rock formation and setting sun background Let's Make America Great Again  alludes to the Romantic 'Wild West' landscapes of the American painter Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902), in particular the sweeping landscape of his Emigrants Crossing the Plain (also known as On The Oregon Trail). By utilizing Bierstadt's famous painting as a template for his own art-work, Burrell effectively contrasts and parodies America of the 19th century, a nation built by aspirational, freedom-loving emigrants, to an America of the 21st century and a President who advocates the construction of walls to prevent emigrants entering America.

Albert Bierstadt  Emigrants Crossing the Plain 1869

Finer details of Burrell's Let's Make America Great Again include - the hammer and sickle in the American flag, a letter saying Trump loves Putin, and a meteorite heading towards the White House. Its background features two contrasting scenes, to the right, a Hieronymus Bosch-like scene of hell in which a factory belches thick pollutant smoke, to the left, a heavenly woodland scene in which a copse of trees bathe in the golden light of a setting sun.

The allusions are stark and disturbing. The fate of a nation seems balanced between a heavenly and hellish future in the hands of a man-child. By placing Trump in a pram there's more than a hint of the recently-elected American President's well-documented record of  immaturity and childish temper tantrums.

Like many similar-minded artists, Burrell has exercised his artistic talents to speak out on the behalf of a mostly silent and unrepresented majority of sane-thinking people. In his own words -

'I felt compelled to paint a picture of my concerns of which I think millions of others in the world are also fearful'.

In Let’s Make America Great Again (65 x 75 cm.) Burrell is following in the footsteps of a long established tradition of British art, that of political commentary through satire. Its a tradition which historically spans from the cartoons of James Gillray (1756-1815) and Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) to the Victorian humour of the magazine Punch to the latex puppetry of Peter Fluck and Roger Law in the British TV show Spitting Image (1984-96).

One weapon of the artist and cartoonist alike is that of satire, defined as the mocking of characteristics and personality traits, often of politicians and those in power in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intention of shaming individuals, corporations, government, or even society itself into improvement. Satire's greater purpose is constructive social criticism, it uses wit to draw attention to issues affecting the world and society today. [1]

Trump’s fatal combination of psychological traits, perceived by many to be those of arrogance and ignorance, are rich pickings  for comedians, artists and satirists alike. They are also psychological traits which are often attributed to Americans in general, either through prejudice or misunderstanding of cultural norms, but also occasionally correct in assumption, hence the view of the stereotypical American throughout the world. Arrogance and ignorance may be considered charming and excusable attributes in a child or baby perhaps, but hardly ever acceptable in a septuagenarian leader of a world superpower.

The very real anxiety for millions of sane-thinking people today, politics apart is simply, how could someone with a well-documented unstable personality have become elected as the leader of one of the world’s most powerful nations ? Burrell along with millions of others' concerns are very real, especially when the danger of a thermonuclear war is threatened through the fatal combination of one individual with immense power being psychologically unstable. Never before as much as now has the world urged America to ensure there is a rational mind fully in control of its nuclear arsenal.

Burrell’s artistic desire to to portray ‘the raw emotions behind the mask’ in which an insane-looking Trump appears little more than a monster blighting a beautiful country, succeeds on several levels; Let’s Make America Great Again is simultaneously a satirical portrait and indictment of Donald Trump’s psychological and emotional stability, a near hallucinatory and apocalyptic-impending landscape allusive to the world's future as one of heaven or hell, and not least, a worthy addition to a life-time portfolio of art conjured with steadfast industriousness in tandem with free-ranging imagination.

The title of Mark Burrell's painting (detail, above) originates from a frequently repeated statement made by Donald Trump throughout his election campaign - 'Let's make America great again'. The statement can only be rhetorical. How can America be 'made great again' when it already is ?

Perhaps President Trump means make America great again as one of world's nations with the greatest inequalities of wealth distribution ? America's already great at that. Perhaps he means 'Make America Great Again' in terms of military expenditure ? America is also great at that. Its expenditure in military hardware and defence outstrips the rest of the entire world combined, and at the present time of writing President Trump has  completing a series of arms deals with Saudi Arabia totaling more than $300 bn. Perhaps President Trump means make America great as a world distributor of pornography ? It already is. Perhaps he means make America great again in the number of people incarcerated in prison ? America's already one of the greatest at that too. Perhaps he means 'Make America Great Again' in terms of America being a world leader in consuming the world's resources ? Again, its already great at that. One strongly suspects Trump's election slogan appeals most to those with a weak identity and suffering from insecurity in the face of a rapidly-changing world.

The indisputable facts remain - the American population which represents only 5% of the world's total population consumes an astounding 26% of the world's energy. America also consumes a staggering 30% of the world's resources and is the world's largest single emitter of carbon dioxide, 'Greenhouse gas' emissions which cause climate change and global warming. Phenomena which are scientifically proven but which worryingly, for all those who care about the world’s future, the current President denies. At the present time of writing Trump has withdrawn from the crucial Paris climate agreement talks, as if one nation could isolate itself from environmental concerns which affect the world.

Accordingly to Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies, the authors of Why do people Hate America, it was the acclaimed British dramatist, screenwriter  and Nobel prize winner, Harold Pinter (1930-2008) who stated in 2002 -

The US has ‘exercised sustained, systematic, remorseless and quite clinical manipulation of power world-wide, while masquerading as a power for good’. It is ‘arrogant, indifferent, contemptuous of International Law, both dismissive and manipulative of the United Nations: this is now the most dangerous power the world has ever known - the authentic “rogue state”, but a “rogue state” of colossal military and economic might’.   [ 2]

Along with the commonly-held perception of many Americans appearing as arrogant and ignorant, the briefest of inventories of commonly-held grievances against America and its people includes - resentment at thinking themselves the centre of universe, an unhealthy diet and epidemic obesity, a gargantuan consumption of the world's resources, the export of trash cultures, an obsession with war, diplomatic meddling in other nation's affairs and acting unilaterally on the world-stage of politics. [3]

The tragedy of today is that much of the world has long looked up to and respected America as the upholder of humanitarian and democratic values, only to be bitterly disappointed by American protectionism, unilateralism and rabid nationalism in the policies of its latest President, Donald Trump. 

Mark Burrell’s The Boy who was Happy to be Himself (2017) is a witty response to America's export of 'Trash culture', in particular Hollywood and its machismo superheroes. Quintessentially gothic in its evocation of a mysterious atmosphere, its an artwork which is humorous but with a serious message as well. 

Set at night in a urban street in moonlight with a broad wash of midnight blue, the centre-stage of The Boy who was Happy to be Himself  depicts a floodlit bill-board with three life-sized superheroes. The slogan Coming to you Soon is inscribed above them. With his back against these figures, and seemingly oblivious to them all, a boy is seen engrossed, reading a book. Beside the boy there's a book-stand with the words ‘The Magic of Books’ inscribed upon it. Meanwhile, life goes on in an intimate street setting - a bonfire is attended and chimneys smoke, someone taking an evening walk carries an umbrella which mysteriously provides light. A masked schoolboy standing beside the billboard gazes towards the viewer. A tower-block of flats can also be seen, allusive to a landmark visible from Burrell's studio in his home-town of Lowestoft.

A  hallmark of Burrell’s art is its unique colour tonality, an instance of which occurs in the reflected colours of the paving-stones in the foreground of The Boy who was Happy to be Himself, effectively making the ordinariness of paving-stones appear magical, a superb example of magical realism, no less. Another attribute of Burrell's art is its skillful draughtsmanship, the viewer's eye perusing the scene in this case is tugged between a calm street background and intriguing foreground imagery.

Burrell's art encourages the viewer to look and look again, and in doing so discover new layers of allusion, meaning and detail. A closer inspection of its superheroes reveals Batman to be obese and thus barely capable of acrobatically swooping across the night-sky while Superman's youthful vigour has long past, his receding hairline suggestive of an ageing Dad-with-Slippers adventurousness, while the Norse god Thor has a glazed and manic expression, suggestive of a Viking berserker barely capable of intrepid North Sea navigation. Uninterested and unimpressed by any of these three superheroes, a  boy with his back turned against them reads a book. The contrast between the ability to think for oneself and not allow the Hollywood film industry to shape one's view of the world, is stark.

Burrell’s humourous painting is not without a serious message. Hollywood’s film industry with its pervasive influence upon the human imagination cannot be over-estimated. There are few in the world today whose imagination has not been manipulated by its relentless agenda of advertising American values. Hollywood's influence  is often far greater than consciously realised, contributing towards what may quite rightly be termed as none other than American cultural imperialism. Hollywood's domestic market consumption in turn may well contribute towards an acclimatising and hardening of American youth towards war, conflict and economic competition against the world at large, rather than relate and understand cultures and people beyond the American border.

The superheroes Batman and Superman originated from 1930's America, an era of economic depression and rampant crime, and as such are the product of American wish-fulfillment to eradicate social problems without any realistic understanding of the dominant cause of most social problems then as now, namely, grossly unfair wealth distribution. Hollywood itself is a multi-billion dollar industry which is little sympathetic to  its impact upon the environment or its consumption of the world’s quite finite resources.  Its hard to comprehend the facts. Warner Bros. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) has a supposed $410 million price tag. Superman Returns (2006) cost $246 million to make, Man of Steel (2013) cost $228 million and grossed $668 million worldwide, The amazing Spider-Man (2012) cost over $238 million, grossing $752 million, Superman Returns (2006)  cost $246.4 million and returned $391 million for its financial investors, Spider-Man 2 (2004) cost $250 million and made $783.8 million.

But are any of these badly misinterpreted Nietzschean Ubermensch worthwhile emulating in any way ? The predictable and formulaic plots of many Hollywood films are inevitably the product of scripts written with investors in mind and who simply want a large financial return on their investment without any concern of artistic integrity. One questions with Burrell, whether Hollywood's consumption of the world’s quite finite resources, purely for entertainment purposes, often of quite a childish nature, can ever be truly justified.

Recent  political propaganda which satirizes the British Prime Minister Theresa May and her election slogan (Strong and Stable). 

The inclusion of the Norse god Thor in The Boy who was Happy to be Himself produces a startling cognitive dissonance when juxtaposed to all-American superheroes. Burrell's Thor has a manic look about him, reminiscent of the stentorian British actor Brian Blessed (b. 1936) or wild-man  Oliver Reed (1938-1999). Its a look suggestive of one whose brain may be burnt-out from drinking vast quantities of mead or from ingesting too many fly agaric mushrooms as the Viking Berserkers were inclined to do.

Thor's joining the ranks of American superheroes is a good example of cultural appropriation. The Norse god was a sacred figure who existed thousands of years before Hollywood, yet has been used by American filmmakers as an example of a super-hero and as such is an example of what is termed as 'cultural appropriation'. Examples of cultural appropriation, that is, the 'borrowing’ of symbols associated with a specific cultures include amongst numerous examples, Mohawk hair-styles, Tartan kilts and Rastafari dreadlocks, all of which are worn by those not part of the culture from which they originated, but appropriated as badges of identity. Cultural appropriation and its widespread abuse by Western culture is discussed in depth in the Palestinian historian Edward Said in his ground-breaking work Orientalism (1978).

Incidentally, understanding of the Viking era was considerably enhanced when in 1938 at Woodbridge in Suffolk, just 40 miles south of Burrell's home-town of Lowestoft, the site of two 6th and early 7th-century cemeteries was discovered by archaeologists. One cemetery contained an undisturbed ship burial, including a wealth of Anglo-Saxon artefacts of outstanding art-historical and archaeological significance. The Sutton Hoo Viking burial site remains one of the most important of all archaeological discoveries of  the Viking era (500-1100 CE).

With self-deprecating humour Burrell confesses to 'getting tired of American propaganda', such as produced by Hollywood, whilst admitting to indulging in a little propaganda of his own. He also suggests it may be the Buddhist-orientated spiritual self-help guide, the international best-seller The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle which is being read by the young lad in his painting.

Holding no illusions about the reception of his new painting, Burrell states -

'Some will pick up subliminally my message, others will think it just another funny pic'.

Burrell also reflects on how certain motifs in his paintings featuring candles, tea cups, fun-fairs and flags and which are often set during evening or night, have altered little over the past 40 years.

The 'message' of The Boy who was Happy to be Himself seems to be - the easiest way to emancipate one's mind is simply to read, preferably in printed book form (still arguably the most efficient way to absorb information) to find out for oneself in order to think for oneself, independent from influences such as the near world-wide dominance of American culture.

Mark Burrell's The Watchers (36" x 30") is a sharp indictment of the City bankers, debt-collectors, government bully-boys and jobsworths in general in Britain today who are busy devastating the lives of the disabled, vulnerable and unemployed without a thought or care of the damage they cause, whilst 'only doing their job'.

Painted in 2009, the year in which the harsh realities of the world Recession began to be assimilated by millions of people with a noticeable decline in living standards, Burrell's The Watchers features a combination of two of the artist's strongest attributes, namely, skillful portraiture and a social conscience. Not unlike the German artists George Grosz (1893-1959) or Otto Dix (1891-1969), both of whom documented the social injustices and inequalities of Germany's Weimar Republic (1919-33), Burrell  is also well-capable of utilizing his artistic talents in order to produce hard-hitting social commentary. In the artist's own words -

'People are being constantly abused by the state and the unemployed are being used as scapegoats. People need to look a bit harder. Its a heavy unfair system full of legal forms of corruption'.

Much of the Western world's current economic and social woes can be traced back to the era of Thatcher and Reagan and their adoption of the economic model advocated by the so-called Chicago school of economics as represented by Milton Friedman and the Austro-British economist Friedrich Hayek. Basically, Neo-liberalism (which is neither new or liberal) is an ideological knee-jerk reaction against socialism which rejects the responsibilities of the Nation-State towards its citizens. Indeed, when the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1925 - 2013) first came to power she allegedly slapped a copy of Hayek's book, 'New Economics' onto a table, saying, 'this is what we believe in'.

Since the collapse of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2008 resulting in a debt being passed onto the rest of the world and paid for by those who were not responsible for the banking failure, the economic policies of Neoliberalism have been found wanting, in particular in a fair distribution of wealth, resulting in a certain amount of on-going brutalization in sectors of Western society, as depicted in Burrell's The Watchers. One certainly wouldn't want to bump into any of these characters down a deserted street !

Through their familiarity in exploring the little understood world of the imagination, the British artists Mark Burrell (b. 1957) and Peter Rodulfo (b. 1958) the co-founders of the North Sea Magical Realism art-movement are equally adept at adjusting the focus of their artistic imagination. Its thus relatively easy for them to venture into new territory such as the arena of political commentary.

The artist Peter Rodulfo has also been known to make a satirical statement in his art concerning politics in England today. In his A Barrel of Laughs painted in 2013, some 4 years before the British Referendum upon continuing membership to the European Union, Rodulfo astutely identifies the prime culprit who instigated the fiasco and farce which continues to embroil British politics. Surrounded by pigs, suggestive of the phrases 'Pig-headed' and 'Pig-ignorant' the Far-right politician Nigel Farage (b. 1964) is seen in a barrel, perhaps an allusion to his tub-thumping, jingoistic and rabble-rousing tendencies, certainly not because he is in any way whatsoever A Barrel of Laughs, as the colloquial British phrase puts it.

Of particular note is the great care taken in A Barrel of Laughs in its draughtsmanship and depth of perspective, resulting in an extensive landscape with a finely wrought cloudscape.

Humour and playfulness in general are frequently encountered in much of Rodulfo's art. Although satire is most often associated with literary forms, it also occurs in the visual arts. Because satire often combines both anger and humor, as well as the fact that it draws attention to controversial topics, it can be profoundly disturbing, not unlike the thinly-veiled racism of the central character featured in Rodulfo's A Barrel of Laughs.

Nigel Farage’s hobbies includes predictable pre-occupations of the Far-Right, an unhealthy obsession with World War II in which, contrary to his rhetoric, he took no part whatsoever, the historical event occurring long before he was born. He also likes to tour battlefields in preparation for a history book  which he plans to write for schoolchildren.

Underlying much of Farage's and fellow Brexiteer's ideology is the delusional belief that English exceptionalism can take on and beat all Europe. In essence, the founding myth of the Britain which exists in Farage and his followers minds is simply a way of justifying their xenophobia. For Farage and his followers, the Second World War was not about fighting against the Nazis, but purely and simply about fighting against foreigners. They may say "Nazis" but in reality they simply mean "Germans". The supreme irony being which is lost on Farage and  followers of the Far-right who incessantly harp on about a war in which they did not participate as they were not even alive, is that the second world War War had as its imperative the objective of the elimination and defeat of the Far-Right in power in Europe at the time.

     

Unlike Nigel Farage, Peter Rodulfo is well-read enough to be described as erudite. Indeed, in 2016 Rodulfo proposed the seventeenth century literary figure Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) to be an ancestral member of the North Sea Magical Realism art-movement. Browne's elective affinity to the art-movement is founded upon several factors. Firstly, geographically, as Browne is recorded as botanizing upon Great Yarmouth's sand-dunes and throughout Norfolk's extensive coastline. Secondly, as an artist possessing unique imaginative gifts in concept, imagery and symbolism, and finally and not least, as one whose contribution to the visual arts is far greater than is commonly known. For example, one of several techniques employed by political cartoonists includes that of caricature, a word which derives from the Italian of caricare—to charge or load, thus caricature essentially means a "loaded portrait". According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word 'Caricature' was introduced into the English language by Sir Thomas Browne. Its one of hundreds of words which the seventeenth century polymath and literary artist is credited as the first to employ. Browne's definition of caricature being, 'When Men's faces are drawn with resemblance to some other Animals, the Italians call it, to be drawn in Caricatura', while also advising his eldest son Edward Browne - 'Expose not thy self by four-footed manners unto monstrous draughts, and Caricatura representations'. [4] 

However, in Rodulfo's painting it is as much the word-play of the plural of pigs, the word 'swine,' which means 'a contemptible or unpleasant person' in the English language which may be applicable to Farage than the specific art of caricature itself.

Rodulfo's satirical painting A Barrel of Laughs voices the concern of all sane and politically literate people in England today, namely, how far previously unacceptably right-wing views have permeated into British politics. Indeed there remains little for Nigel Farage's single - cause political party UKIP to campaign for, now that their goal has theoretically been achieved, namely the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Project.

The British philosopher A.C.Grayling speaks on behalf of many, including doubtlessly Rodulfo, when stating of Nigel Farage -

"I think he’s a bounder. He’s a cad. He’s an embarrassment. I cringe at the thought of how he behaved like a football hooligan and a lager lout in the European Parliament. What an advertisement for the best of the English character. I have no time for him at all. I think he is an embarrassment and a waste of space".

When distinguished academics such as A.C. Grayling raise the concern that Brexit is beginning to look like a right-wing coup its surely time to heed the early warning signs of a nation sleep-walking into fascism, chanting in their sleep, 'It couldn't happen here'. It could, and is happening.

The North Sea Magical Realism artists Mark Burrell and Peter Rodulfo are united in their concern over recent political elections in the USA and GB. Their art goes some way towards highlighting and combating the exploitation of the politically illiterate, indoctrinated through a right-wing media and those whose misanthropic politics of greed and hatred are alarmingly vociferous in America and Great Britain today.

Recommended Reading

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle pub. Yellow Kite 2001
Meaning in the Visual Arts by Erwin Panofsky pub. University of Chicago 1955
Why do people hate America ? Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies pub. Icon Books 2002
Orientalism - Edward Said 1978

*High quality prints of Mark Burrell's 'Let's Make America Great Again' are available from the artist.

Contact  Mark Burrell Art   to purchase.

*All three paintings discussed here are exhibited at Burrell's Open Studio's week-ends  
June 10th / 11th, 17th / 18th and 24th / 25th.

Notes

[1] Wikipedia
[2]  Granta Spring 2002
[3] 'Why do people hate America ?' by Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies pub. Icon Books 2002.
[4] Christian Morals pub. post. 1716
[5]http://www.euractiv.com/section/uk-europe/interview/a-c-grayling-brexit-is-starting-to-look-a-lot-like-a-coup/

Peter Rodulfo's 'Night Sea Voyage' triptych.

The British artist Peter Rodulfo's Testing the Water conjures a numinous moment. In a lugubrious twilight at a sea-side pier, a solitary saxophonist plays whilst a close encounter occurs. An ethereal, crab-faced creature raises a glass to the viewer whilst dipping its toe into water.

Testing the Water (oil on canvas) is one of a sequence of three paintings, technically known as a triptych, which Rodulfo completed during the late autumn/early winter of 2015. They are each connected in their imagery with the ‘Night Sea Voyage’ of ancient mythology and alchemy. Rodulfo’s Testing the Water may be interpreted as representing the embarkation point of a 'Night Sea Voyage’.

Testing the Water is set at a sea-side pier and fun-fair in twilight. The silhouetted figure of a solitary saxophonist stands high upon the pier. A sea-horse surfaces from the lapping waves, perhaps attracted by its sound. The pier's fore-shortened perspective draws the eye towards two fairground booths, both with brightly-lit interiors which intrigue upon the entertainment within. The pier terminates in a sloped ramp suitable for embarkation. In the background the architectural structure of a roller-coaster girder decorated in candy coloured peppermint and pink, along with a golden neon crab illumination, while in the foreground seaweed, a pair of menacing pincers and a herring can be seen. Centre-field, a convivial, but also slightly scary crab-faced creature stares with a penetrating gaze towards the viewer, while dipping a toe into water. Raising a wine glass, bubbles escape from its cavernous, rosy-red mouth.

Contrasting areas of colour tonality can be seen in each quarter of Rodulfo’s painting. Its top right features decorative peppermint green, light raspberry and golden hues. In its bottom right, primary colours are dominant. Its sea is mostly turquoise, while its sky consists of broad washes of very dark and muted tones. There are also some intriguing objects to view including a large rattle-like cog, horned tubing and a long strip in blue which unravels in a swirl from background into foreground.

With its square dimensions Testing the Water (90 x 90 cm) holds favourable comparison to well-designed 60's and 70's pop and rock album art-work which introduced artists of the calibre of Sir Peter Blake, Mati Klarwen and Storm Thorgerson, among others, to a wide and discerning audience. Music itself plays a big part in Rodulfo’s leisure-hours. After a long day spent in the studio he enjoys listening to music from a wide-variety of genres and performers, including Lou Reed, Dr John and the Argentinian composer Oswald Golijov, to name but a few.

The music instrument the saxophone is featured in Testing the Water. One of Belgium’s greatest gifts to music, Adolphe Sax’s 1846 invention of a hybrid woodwind and brass instrument is effectively a brass-instrument played with a wood-wind reed, producing a new aural tonality, powerful, sometimes slinky and velvety timbre, capable of great agility. The saxophone is commonly associated with, but not restricted to the genre of jazz. Notable recent works for saxophone include the American composer Philip Glass’s Concerto for Saxophone Quartet (1995) in which all four members of the saxophone family (soprano, alto, tenor and bass) can be heard weaving away in polyphonic minimalist delight with each other in music which is highly evocative in feelings associated with embarkation. [1] There's also a lively Concerto for Saxophone (1993) by the composer Michael Torke b. 1961 which is worth hearing as well.

Remembering all interpretations to be subjective, Testing the Water may be heard as an expressive aural soundscape to the receptive viewer’s inner ear. The sounds of a lapping tide, perhaps with a ship's fog-horn in the distance, a saxophone softly playing, the whirr and cries from fairground rides, even the menacing click of lobster claws and air-bubbles escaping from a vocal larynx can all be heard with an imaginative inner ear.

Another fitting musical back-drop to Rodulfo's canvas can be heard in the ambient electronic music of the composer Edgar Froese’s aptly entitled Mysterious Semblance at the Strand of Nightmares. [2]

Because crustacean imagery occurs no less than three times in Testing the Water its worthwhile exploring symbolism relating to the crab in depth. There’s a certain frisson between the idealized fair-ground image of a golden neon crab and the stark reality of encountering a hard-gazing crab-faced creature, for example in Rodulfo’s painting, as well as a hint of a momento mori in the form of a  'Death's Head'  in its crab-face symbolism. Indeed the word 'cancer' has long been used to describe a malignant tumour affecting the body. But before embarking upon any analysis of cancerian symbolism in Testing the Water, its imperative to be mindful of what Rodulfo himself states of the crab-figure in his painting-

".... of course when the crab appeared I was aware someone would interpret it astrologically, that was not my intent; I have no interest in astrology. As with most of my imagery I simply arrived at a point in the painting when something crab shaped was required to balance the structure. For me when working on imaginative pieces, the paintings are abstract and I only consider the formal structure, tonal relationships, colour and so on.... The imagery is a bi product of that process. I am interested to see what imagery comes out of the process, but I do not whilst working attach any meaning to it. [3]

Although Rodulfo himself has no interest in astrology, nevertheless, poets, artists and composers when engaged in their exploration of the unconscious psyche invariably encounter archetypal imagery which can be elaborated upon; as the psychologist C.G. Jung recognised, succinctly noting of Cancer’s symbolism -

In astrology, Cancer is a feminine and watery sign, and the summer solstice takes place in it. In Propertius it makes a sinister appearance. ‘Fear thou the ill-omened back of the eight-footed crab'. De Grubernatis says, 'the crab... causes now the death of the solar hero and now that of the monster'. As De Grubernatis thinks, the crab stands now for the sun and now for the moon, according to whether it goes backwards or forwards. [4]

In ancient mythology the Greek  historian Callisthenes in his Alexander Romance relates how crabs dragged Alexander's ships down into the sea. In the folk-tales of the Indian Sanskrit known as the Panchatantra, written circa 300 BCE  there is a tale (Bk.V, 2) of how a mother in order to protect her son from evil and bad luck, gives him a crab which saves his life through killing a black snake. It was a giant crab which bit Heracles in his fight with the many-headed hydra monster. Hercules crushed the crab underfoot and continued with his labour. The goddess Hera placed the crab in the night-sky for its efforts.

Herakles and the Hydra. Etruscan Water Jar circa 525 BCE

Hubble Space Telescope mosaic image of the Crab Nebula

In astronomy the Crab nebula is the remnant of a super-nova star and pulsar wind nebula, first observed and recorded by Chinese astronomers in 1054 CE.

In essence Testing the Water captures the numinous or transcendent moment, those not easily defined moments in the spiritual dimension of life in which an awareness of one's existence in space and time, the mystery of being, and the secret, internal workings within the psyche happen.

Just as avian imagery occurs in Rodulfo's As the Elephant Laughed, (one of the most beautiful and cheerful of all his paintings) in which a blackbird intrudes into the frame, allusive to the cyclical return of darkness, and the nigredo stage of alchemy, so too in the sombre atmosphere of Testing the Water, avian imagery is utilized to modulate the mood-music of the canvas. The head of a smiling duck appears apparition-like in its sunset cloudscape; and in completely polarised symbolism to the avian imagery of Laughing Elephant, it hints of an eventual return of  day, light and the albedo stage of alchemy.

Testing the Water is a painting capable of challenging its viewer as to how they personally respond whenever meeting an unfamiliar face in daily life, or in the momentary awareness of being in the presence of unknown psychic phenomenon; with its intense stare it provokes and challenges the dark mistrust, fear and even hatred of 'the other'  lurking asleep, deep within us all. Its a painting which can even stimulate thought in a receptive viewer as to how they personally would react if ever experiencing a close encounter with an alien or extra-terrestrial life-form.

Collectively, Rodulfo’s ‘Night Sea Voyage’ triptych corresponds on a mundane level to the nautical terminology of embarkation, passage and docking in a sea-voyage. Not only is each painting in the triptych artistically realised with seemingly casual, yet in fact consummate brushwork and draughtsmanship but also highlights different facets of Rodulfo’s artistic persona; in his Testing the Water  its the artist's well-disciplined mystical and esoteric inclinations which are given full expression. The persona of the imaginative inventor of bizarre contraptions and hybrid organic and inorganic forms is prominent in Night Passage, while the persona of the witty and jesting commentator is at large in Dry Dock, both of which are discussed in the following commentary. But first, its useful to elaborate upon the symbolic meaning of the 'Night Sea Voyage' itself.

In many accounts of the 'Night Sea Voyage' in world mythology, comparative religion and esoteric literature, the hero travels, often in the belly of a beast or in a vessel (a boat, an ark or casket) across a dark, primordial sea, following the unseen course of the sun after it sets in the west, and later magically reappears in the east.

The night-sea is a boundary which adventurers and heroes are usually reluctant to cross because it is dark and populated with all the monsters that the unconscious can conjure. Night sea voyages of mythology often involve a dragon or a giant fish, such as the Biblical story of Jonah and whale. In any case, those who embark upon the journey undergo a temporary death in anticipation of a rebirth or renewal. The night sea journey is said to take the individual back to their original self, into a sea of possibility and one’s greater and deeper being.

The 'Night Sea Voyage' involves the combination of two dynamic symbols of the unknown, namely, night and the sea. The sea remains a sometimes hostile, not totally explored and wild aspect of nature; its also one of the few expanses of total darkness left in urban lives. To go into the night is to return to a state of indeterminacy and to intermingle with nightmares, monsters and ‘black thoughts’. Night is a potent image of the unconscious and in the darkness of sleep the unconscious psyche is set free. Night is associated with danger and with the fear of the unknown, not least because darkness obstructs sight, a major sensory organ. Night-time is also associated with vulnerability and human physical survival, as well as dreams and the unexpected. Like all symbols, night contains near inexhaustible meanings.

The  starry night-sky has been described as the world’s oldest picture-book. An understanding of  the constellations of the night sky until relatively recent times, was essential to navigate seas and oceans in order to arrive at one's chosen destination. The reason why the night-sky is a picture-book crowded with stories representing the myths of gods and animals in its constellations is explained by C.G.Jung thus-

As we all know, science began with the stars, and mankind discovered in the dominants of the unconscious, the "gods", as well as the curious psychological qualities of the zodiac: a complete projected theory of human character. Astrology is a primordial experience similar to alchemy. Such projections repeat themselves whenever man tries to explore an empty darkness and involuntary fills it with living form.  [5]

According to the psychologist C.G. Jung the hero returns from the night sea-journey in better shape for the tasks of life. The night sea journey is a kind of descensus ad inferos -a descent into Hades and a journey to the land of ghosts somewhere beyond this world, beyond consciousness, hence an immersion in the unconscious. [6] The importance of the moon as the ruling luminary of night and the significance of night is defined by C.G. Jung this-

Luna is really the mother of the sun, which means, psychologically, that the unconscious is pregnant with consciousness and gives birth to it. It is night, which is older than day.  [7]

Because it occurs during the night, its not so much the seeing and sighting of exotic lands or the viewing of weird creatures as much as hearing disturbing sounds such as the squeak and gibber of departed souls, or the cries and calls of luring sirens and unknown monsters on islands sailed past when on the Night Sea voyage. Strange sounds blown on the wind, sometimes heard across vast distances upon the open sea as mere whispers, at other times in deafening volume; in particular, when freak acoustics occur, heard sailing past cliff and rock formations, caves, eddies and whirl-pools, inducing fear, trembling and wonder in the sailor’s imagination.

Rodulfo’s Night Passage (80 x 100 cm) was begun in 2012 and completed in late 2015. In a silvery-blue moonlight, a Night Sea voyage is in full motion. The viewer is taken aboard an extraordinary form of transport, a hybrid combination of ferry, air-bus and taxi which abounds with organic and bizarre mechanical forms with some very curious travelling passengers, including an octopus and a giant shrimp. On its pod-like floor there's frozen, protozoan fossils. Large, grinning skates hover upon its ceiling vault. A pair of  late-night lovers can be seen in a wing-mirror. Night Passage exudes an unusual atmosphere, one which paradoxically floats somewhere between every-day commuting and a futuristic fantasy.

In  the third in sequence of Rodulfo’s 'Night Sea Voyage’ triptych, the night sea voyage  is high and dry, quite literally. In a humorous variation upon the ‘Ship of Fools’ allegory which originates from the ancient Greek philosopher Plato's The Republic (Book 6) where the allegory of a ship with a dysfunctional crew is discussed in relationship to government, Rodulfo's Dry Dock (51 x 76 cm) is a scene based upon the nautical dilemma of going aground.  A tattered and rusty ship is beached on dry land. An unconcerned atmosphere of 'Crisis, what crisis?’ pervades its crew members who carry on with their various preoccupations irregardless. But whether they're waiting for a rare, exceptional high tide in order to float and set sail once more, or simply carrying on with life, irregardless of setting sail once more, is not known. In the background a ship can be spotted which clearly is afloat, the wind billows its sails. Dry Dock is a painting best enjoyed for its typical Rodulphian humour, without intensely scrutinizing the canvas for any hidden, philosophical 'meanings'.

In conclusion, the night sea journey may be interpreted as none other than the fragile vessel of the psyche successfully navigating the uncharted waters of the unconscious imagination, and, if surviving the perils of the deep, returning to port with new insights and treasures. Rodulfo’s art is one such treasure. With their sophisticated technique, numinous subject-matter,  display of extraordinary imagination and humour, Peter Rodulfo’s Testing the Water and Night Passage are exemplary of the aesthetics of North Sea magical realism and significant navigational buoys which confirm the art-movement as well-worthy of continued admiration and study.

Notes
[1] Link to Philip Glass - Saxophone Quartet
[2] Link to Mysterious Semblance at the Strand of Nightmares
[3] Email correspondence from the artist.
[4] Carl Jung Collected Works Vol. 9 Part 1 Para. 605:
Another translation of the Elegies of Propertius reads - 'Your dread must be the ominous sign of the eight-legged crab'.  Book 4:1: line 150
[5]  Carl Jung C. W. vol 14 para. 346
[6] CW 16 par. 455
[7] CW 14 : 219

 In Memorium of a Hawthorn and Redwood tree, long seen and enjoyed from my flat's window and now no more.