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| Woman and Man with Books |
Having recently shared some of her artwork here a couple weeks back, I wanted to take a deeper look at a few individual pieces. Besides the fact that her work is interesting, I am also attempting to teach art viewers that increased engagement with another's art can yield some interesting, and occasionally profound, ideas.
Woman and Man with Books
This painting fits comfortably within the tradition of mid-century expressionism, with echoes of Paul Klee, Georges Rouault, and even touches of Lyonel Feininger in the angular treatment of faces. Yet it doesn't feel derivative. It has its own visual vocabulary.
Here are some things that immediately stand out. There's a geometric aspect to their faces. The woman's triangular nose, simplified eye, and sharply outlined jaw reduce the face to a few decisive forms. She is recognizable without being individualized.
This suggests Birkenstein was searching for emotional truth rather than anatomical truth. The black contour lines don't imprison the figures—they hold them together, almost like stained glass leading.
There is a psychological aspect to the painting which depicts two people reading in a cramped space yet different emotional spaces, each lost in what they are reading. The woman dominates the foreground, yet her head is bowed. She appears introspective, perhaps withdrawn into the book she is holding. Behind her is the bearded man.
He leans in, but not aggressively, almot hovering. Though he almost occupies another plane of existence, he is simulataneously near.
Notice how restrained the palette is. Soft greens, muted pinks, warm browns. Almost no saturated color. The effect is contemplative rather than dramatic, like the characters themselves.
The watercolor is wonderfully free. Rather than carefully filling shapes, Birkenstein allows washes to bleed into one another. Some passages are almost accidental, allowing a spontaneity that gives the work life.
This is an ambitious work that creates a world filled with symbolism while remaining rooted in ordinary life. The obvious subject appears to be two young farmers beside an old automobile or truck.
The title has to do with rural life, but its theme may be the human condition. The bull peering in from the upper right almost functions as a silent witness.
The drawing itself is technically fascinating.
The cross-hatching dominates the picture.
Almost every surface vibrates with directional marks, building atmosphere.
Notice how the darkest passages unify the composition. There is almost no empty space.
Everything participates.
The two young farmers wear serious, understated expressions. Neither smiles, neither seems posed. Birkenstein avoids telling us exactly what they are thinking. That ambiguity draws us in.
A dominant image here is the wheel, which anchors the lower left quadrant. As a symbol the wheel can have many meanings: progress, modernity, work and (esoterically) the wheel of life.
There's an emotional tone present in the story pictured here. It's not despair, nor does it convey sentimentality. It's not even resignationb exactly. Perhaps it's quiet endurance in the face of a conundrum. It makes you want to inquire further of the author. Something has happened. What preceded this moment? What follows?
That's the cool part of engaging a painting or drawing. Here are the clues, what's the story? Every work suggests a narrative. Birkenstein compresses a lot of clues into a finite space. If I may quote Marvin Gaye, "What's going on?"
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PostScript
Regarding the first piece, Man and Woman with Books, this weekend our family discussed an article in The Atlantic titled "The End of Reading Is Here," which presented some disturbing stats regarding our national decline in literacy and reading for pleasure. Kids can graduate high school without ever having read a book. How can this be?
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