By Louis A. Zona
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Back in the 1960s, the most prominent commercial art gallery in New York City was the OK Harris Gallery, which represented the newest brand of Realist art.
Among the artists represented was Don Celender. He created baseball cards, but instead of famous baseball players portrayed, the cards were so-called “art ball” cards that presented famous artists with baseball-like statistics on the reverse side of their photo portraits, just like the baseball cards we grew up with.
The art ball cards were educational and amusing. The best-known artists of the period were people such as Willem de Kooning, George Segal, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns.
Naturally, the more impressive art cards were those where the images and statistics were of the more famous artists. Using the image of sculptor George Segal on one, Celender created a card that seemed to relate perfectly to the realist sculptures that made Segal such a star.
The playful nature of art ball can be used to this day to move art into aspects of everyday life. Art is serious, and much of it attempts to move us intellectually or emotionally.
But, like Celender’s cards, it can be fun and as enjoyable as a comic strip. George Segal’s imagery, as seen on the art ball cards, mimics scenes from everyday life. But not all artists use humor as Celender did.
And some artists miss the boat when it comes to thought-provoking imagery. To them I say, try to find lightheartedness in the world around us. Art can indeed lift us and maintain positivity, the kind that Celender offers.
Sometimes the humor within art is obvious, and at other times subtle. Throughout history, artists have used humor – whether in portraiture or within other subjects.
For example, I have always been amused by Jacques-Louis David’s portraits of Napoleon that toy with his height (or lack of it) and stance in his official portraiture.
We’ve heard of the Napoleonic Complex, where someone like Napoleon imagines himself as larger or more powerful than he is. I get a kick out of Jacques-Louis David’s depictions of Napoleon that show him not as a powerful man but as a smaller character.
Andy Warhol’s portraits of movie stars from Marilyn Monroe to Mickey Mouse offer fun juxtapositions. And Jasper John’s playful yet serious imagery offers insights into his intellectually inspired world.
It may be hard to unravel Jasper John’s concepts, but the joy inherent in the process of discovery makes it all worthwhile. John’s spirited journey into a world of banality helps to make his best-known early work appear on the surface to be complex. But this artist of bullseyes, beer cans and maps eventually erased the imprint of these earlier works and became America’s old master.
Understanding Jasper John’s work is akin to understanding the music of the same era. The music of the day is filled with beautiful melodies that eventually morph into the heaviness of pure rock. The art of the 1960s is easily understood as the music of the same period. If I could translate the art of the Vietnam era into a baseball analogy, I would have team A work toward establishing solid defense and team B an offense that hits home runs.
Getting back to the premise that the art of any and every period possesses classic beauty and similarly the art of every period can offer us a degree of ugliness: The big question is who is to say that something may be beautiful and something else may be ugly? And, of course, no one is capable of passing such judgment.
President Lyndon Johnson is said to have made the comment that “beauty is defined differently by the person making the judgment. And if we all had the same definition of beauty, we’d all have the same wife.”
The world may simply be made up of beautiful things and ugly ones as well. And just maybe the two words – beauty and ugly – may blend into a single concept.
I remember walking with my mother and coming across a girl in my grade school. I said to my mother, “That girl is not very good looking. I would imagine that she would have difficulty someday in finding a mate because of her looks.”
My mother stopped me right there, placed her hand on my shoulder, and said, “You’re wrong, Lou. I want you to know that when she becomes a woman, she will meet a fellow who will appeal to her on every level. He will also appeal to her and find her beautiful.” Years later I saw the same woman in the grocery store and thought Mom was right.
My former art teacher, Jon Naberezny, once said to me that art really is not a search for beauty within but exists instead to find the beauty that already exists in God’s perfect universe.