HOW ABOUT SUB-PASTORAL EXPRESSIONISM? cont'd.
Jean de Brunhoff has just finished his second Babar the elephant book and decides to go see the De Kooning show at the local village gallery. He comes home, his head filled with ideas, and finds a telegram from a big record company on his doorstep. They want him to paint the cover for Led Zepplin's next album which is their version of Debussy's chamber music. He gets to work immediately, pausing between canvases to teach himself the violin. The album is never released and the violin proves harder than he thought, but the paintings ... oo la la!
Why Sub-Pastoral Expressionism? Aside from the tongue-in-cheek pretension it could be a somewhat accurate label. Like "sub-Saharan Africa" or "sub-zero temperatures" it suggests an expressionism that's maybe pretty but kind of edgy and not quite up to fully pastoral. Alternately, it may refer to what lies beneath scenes thought of as traditionally pastoral: imagine an exploded technical illustration of a Claude landscape. Either way, there is a freedom and freshness of vision here that I like a lot and as an adult would have to describe as childish yet somehow French. Vive Babar!
