What is the context?
Eric Zener is an American-born
painter best known for his photorealistic oil paintings. Photorealism is an art
form in which a photograph is taken and replicated with extreme precision and
detail in another medium. In Zener’s case, much of his photorealistic oil
paintings revolve around swimming pools. His works are greatly valued in the
art community and are frequently bought by both public and private art
collectors. Moreover, Zener’s hyper-realistic paintings often retail for tens
of thousands of dollars. Many of his paintings capture women in various stages
of diving, swimming, etc. in a swimming pool. When asked of his choice of
mainly painting scenes revolving around water, Zener said that to him water
represents a transformation. As one submerges himself inside a body of water,
he is escaping the world and retreating into an endless vacuum of silence and
thoughts. Moreover, when emerging from water, one reenters the world in a
different manner then in which he left the world (i.e, one is dry when entering
a swimming pool and wet upon leaving it). Zener specifically pays attentions to
colors, reflections, and lights in his paintings as he attempts to make them as
close to the original photograph as possible. Overall, his unique perspective
is key to his paintings.
What is the artist communicating?
How?
The above, unnamed painting is
unique in Zener’s body of work. For one, it is one of few of his paintings
without blue water. Moreover, Zener’s choice model is nude and in the fetal
position whereas the majority of his paintings capture women as they glide
across the water in bathing suits. Zener is communicating the themes of sorrow
and repenting in the above painting. The theme of sorrow is immediately
apparent. The nude woman is curled into a helpless position and appears to be
sinking into blackness. The colors of the painting are extremely dark and
moody, further emphasizing this woman’s sorrow. She is simply allowing herself
to be pulled into darkness even as she is breathing out air. Furthermore,
Zener’s choice to virtually eliminate any sort of light or reflection in the
backdrop of the painting captures the woman’s turmoil in a bleak situation. The
theme of repenting is also quite apparent in the painting. As the woman is breathing
out air bubbles, she is also breathing out little parts of herself. These may
be anything from toxic memories to personal sins and she is letting herself get
rid of them. Furthermore, the theme of repenting is obvious in the fact that
the only light in the painting is the one reflecting off the woman’s skin. As
she is ridding herself of these harmful memories, more light is reflecting on
her skin thereby pulling her from the darkness of the surrounding water and her
own personal world.
Why do you find it beautiful?
I find this painting to be
extremely haunting. As I look at it, I wonder just what the woman is attempting
to escape by essentially submerging herself into a well of darkness. I wonder
what has put the woman in such a desperate and animalistic position. She no
longer resembles an adult and has instead reverted into a child through her
fetal position. Moreover, her position is representative of her torrential and
unwavering darkness. To me the overall bleakness in this painting is what makes
in beautiful. I want to learn more about this woman and yet I want to leave her
to wallow in her own self-harming behavior. Perhaps I see myself in this woman
and that is why I am so inexplicably drawn to the painting. There have been
multiple times in which I have retreated into myself with desperation to escape
my problems or worries of the moment. I suppose some part of me envies this
woman’s ability to literally block it all out by submerging herself in water. I
also find beauty in the fact that the painting is unnamed. It is as if one
could simply replace himself with the woman in the painting and nothing would
be amiss.
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