Analysis of The Town of the Poor by Sonja Sekula Essay Example
In Sonja Sekula’s The Town of the Poor, 1951, the simple color palette and complicated, overlaying brush strokes are the first components that are clear to a viewer (Fig. 1). Sekula primarily worked in abstract expressionist artwork, as seen in this painting. This style often uses simple elements in a scattered, spontaneous manner to allow for interpretation and its key characteristics include “gestural brush-strokes or mark-making, and the impression of spontaneity.” Abstract expressionism was a popular art movement in the 1940s and 1950s, especially in New York City. Jackson Pollock was one of the most notable artists of this style, but Sonja Sekula sets herself apart from other abstract artists of the time through her stylistic and thematic choices within her works.
Town of the Poor is a large oil painting on canvas, spanning 66 by 90 inches, and even from afar it is clear that there may be more detail than can be seen from across the room. This detail and the surrounding brush strokes are all performed within a limited color palette, mainly consisting of gray tones, and the occasional white, blue, or yellow. Colors are not within any sort of lines or bounds, moving between objects and intersecting one another. There are larger, vertical brushstrokes, and the oil paint has been thinned down which adds to this layering effect. At first glance, it seems that there is no cohesion within the elements of the painting, but this can soon be recognized as not being true.
The details of this painting are not that detailed at all. When closer to the piece, the smaller “detail” within the painting is seen to be simplistic figurations, illegible words, and buildings all painted with an opaque black. There is a repetition of circles on both a small and large scale, often as the heads of these faceless stick figures. Sekula creates depictions of buildings as simple blueprints, with just their outlines in an intersection fashion with some of the larger downward brush strokes. Smaller scribbles are very much in contrast with the other coloration and gestural brushstrokes within the piece. We can see a mass of these sketches and figurations in the middle left section of the painting. The sketches are created on very small scales, in black paint. Elements such as coloration and gestural brushstrokes are executed on a larger scale in the painting and are thinned out so that we can see many layers on one another.
When scanning over this painting, there is a sense of chaos and that the elements do not fit in with one another. An unclear perspective within this painting is the primary source of this chaos and disorder. Sekula is situating the viewers to both looks at the city below them and also give the perspective that they are trapped within a room. We see the outside world with the figuration and blueprints of buildings spanning the majority of the painting except for the very top section. On the top of The Town of the Poor, there is little to no figuration and the vertical, thinned-out brush strokes are most clearly seen. These downward brush strokes may be a representation of curtains since they allow us to look through them a bit, but viewers still seem to be trapped in this view. There are also rows of circles in white and yellow on the top middle of the painting, which appear to be lights or reflections of lights against a window. Sekula gives us these hints to demonstrate how lonely we can be among all the chaos in her painting.
Sekula demonstrates some of the defining components of abstract expressionism in Town of the Poor. Gestural brush strokes are used throughout the painting, as a way to overlay colors and are used as smearing of other colors into one another. An example of this smearing effect can be seen in the bottom right corner of the painting. There is a green-gray patch of color that has a brushstroke smeared down through it. This stroke picks up the black pigment and smears it along with the brush into the blue on the bottom of the canvas. Mark-making is seen through the repetitive use of circular shapes and arches, which are in the bottom middle of the painting in gray, white, and blue. The shapes and strokes are often short and close together, but without a clear intention or figuration. Spontaneity is another defining aspect of abstract expressionism. Sekula utilizes spontaneity throughout Town of the Poor, through the overlapping layers, the intersection of figures, and random shapes within the paint. A specific example of this is seen in the top left corner, where there are multiple vertical arching strokes of paint, a faded blue star shape, and many colors overlapping one another haphazardly.
As a woman living in the 1950s, Sekula would have already had to face many strict gender expectations and struggles. Women in all parts of the social world were trying to prove themselves and stand up to their male counterparts, but this was especially true for female artists. In the early fifties, the treatment of female artists could be seen through the Ninth Street Show, and Claudia Pierpont writes that “there was some initial discussion of whether including women in the exhibition would diminish its chance of being taken seriously. Eventually, the jury selected eleven women, and sixty-one men, to represent the creatively rich (if otherwise impoverished) new downtown art world.”
However, Sekula sets herself apart from other abstract artists of her time. While she uses classic components of abstract expressionism, she adds figuration all over Town of the Poor. Across postwar abstract expressionism, figuration was rarely used and often shunned by advanced artists. This did not stop Sekula from making figuration one of the main elements of The Town of the Poor. By having all of the figurations in opaque black paint and the rest of the painting in translucent gray tones, Sekula creates two main layers to her painting: traditional abstract expressionism and her contribution of figuration and lettering. By depicting the loneliness of the city around her, Sekula puts herself in a place of power as a female artist going so far out of the bounds that are traditionally set for this art style.
Images
Figure 1. Sonja Sekula, The Town of the Poor, 1951. Oil on canvas, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. https://www.moma.org/collection/works/280438
