Montfaucon

Title: Montfaucon
LC Subject: Painting Scene painters Mural painting and decoration Castles Flowers Flowers in art painting (image-making) paintings (visual works) oil paintings (visual works)
Creator: Pander, Henk, 1937-
Description: (Detail) A realistic scene of the ruins of a castle on a hilltop. A bed of flowers occupies the foreground while a pinkish sunset enlivens the sky. OSU Mural Project; Henk Pander The Oregon Arts Commission has ten Regional Arts Councils that provide delivery of art services and information. The Council for this location is: Linn-Benton Arts. You may view their website at: http://www.artcentric.org/
View: castle detail 2 (floral)
Location: Memorial Union >> Benton County >> Oregon >> United States Benton County >> Oregon >> United States
Street Address: 2501 S. W. Jefferson Way, Corvallis Oregon
Award Date: 1985
Identifier: 1983_osu_mem-union_01_b03
Accession Number: 1983_osu_mem-union_01_b03
Rights: In Copyright
Dc Rights Holder: Pander, Henk
Type: Image
Format: image/tiff
Measurements: two panels; each 22 ft x 16 ft
Material: Painting; Mural The paintings are oil on Belgian linen, 22' x 16'. They are glued onto the arched panels in the Memorial Union. Both pieces took about eight months to complete, from November, 1984, to June, 1985. First one was painted from the top to the bottom with an underpainting, then the other, then back to the first, working back and forth until they were both complete. They were placed in the building according to their subject matter and the orientation of the Memorial Union in space. Upon entering the building the west wall is to the right, the east wall is to the left. The painting on the east wall, which is a European landscape, was placed on that wall partly because Europe lies east of us geographically. (excerpt taken from Pander's artist statement, 1983)
Set: Oregon Percent for Art
Primary Set: Oregon Percent for Art
Relation: 1983 Oregon State University Memorial Union Mural Project 1983_osu_mem-union
Art Series: Memorial Union Murals
Has Version: slide; color
Institution: Oregon Arts Commission University of Oregon
Note: To view a map of the artwork location in context to Oregon State University, see http://oregonstate.edu/cw_tools/campusmap/?BN=Memorial+Union Union lobby
Color Space: RGB
Biographical Information: THE PAINTING OF MONTFAUCON: The Memorial Union was built in 1928 as a memorial to the First World War and the Oregon State students who fought and were killed in that war. However, rather than paint a historical painting or recall something that happened 70 years ago, I wanted to make a contemporary painting expressive of the present but with elements which would transcend time. With that in mind, I went to France to explore areas where Americans had had some specific-involvement. I set out to look for something around the battlefields of the First World War that was still visible after 70 years. At the same time, I looked for images that would be compatible with the actual setting of the Memorial Union -- the dome, the arched shape, the illusionism, the classical setting. I tried to find forms or ideas that were reflective both of the architectural space and the space of the war itself, a linkage. I found the ruins of the church of Montfaucon, a village on a hilltop 20 kilometers west of Verdun which is a city historically infamous as a military stronghold. Montfaucon is the sight of an imposing American memorial to the First World War and at the same time contained the architectural elements I was looking for. The landscape is ambiguous. I travelled to France in the springtime because I thought that the battlefields in a spring setting would be expressive metaphorically of time healing the wounds of war. On one hands-sense of growth and life, on the other the pitted, hilly, hummocky quality of the landscape in which the impact of the bombs was still visible. The idea for painting a sunrise came directly out of the literature of the First World War. A strong visual aspect of that war was that most of the battles were fought at sunrise. The soldiers had an intense awareness of the eastern morning sky, contrasted to the extreme devastation of the subterranean environment of the trenches in which they fought. The ironic element of the sunrise in this painting, then, is that while sunrise has always been a metaphor for hope and future, in the First World War the symbol reversed itself; sunrise was the image of impending terror and death. There is also the classic literary comparison of blood on the battlefields and the red of the poppies painted in the foreground. The rhythm of the painting is vertical; it is divided into horizontal bands: the floral still life in the foreground, the middle section with the hill, the city and landscape behind the hill, the hills behind the landscape, and finally, the horizontal bands of the sky repeating themselves all the way to the top of the painting. All the horizontals are broken by the vertical forces of the architectural elements of the painting, which are again rhythmical: the rhythm of the building, the repetition of the columns, the openness of the columns, the enclosed spaces. To the left the viewer looks inside the curved vaulted space and through the gate sees the open landscape. The enclosed arch is countered with a single pylon. All of these elements [are meant to] give rhythm and depth to the painting. My reasons for selecting the ruins of Montfaucon for this painting transcend the fact that they are a monument to the First World War. The arches of the ruins recognize the arch of the panel. The early gothic church refers to early western European cultural history and the history of architecture within that culture. At the same time, the architecture of the church makes a pun with the architecture of the Memorial Union which, with its Corinthian columns and domed ceiling, refers back to the much older cultural history of the Romans and Greeks. (excerpt taken from Pander's artist statement, 1983)