Oil paint on canvas
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/barkley-l-hendricks-14929" aria-label="More by Barkley L. Hendricks" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Barkley L. Hendricks</a>
Cold Day on Mountain
Presented by the Tate Americas Foundation, courtesy of Susan Hendricks 2022
<p><span>Cold Day on the Mountain</span> is a medium-scale oil painting on canvas produced by the artist in 2006. Tondo (or circular) in format, and surrounded by an elaborate gilded frame, it depicts a Jamaican landscape where a purple-grey mountain top – faintly visible beyond a hill covered with trees and lush green vegetation – is pictured below a sky of broken clouds. The oval format of the composition and the heavy gold frame create the impression of looking at a scene through a photographic or optical lens, or even a window.</p>
painting oil paint canvas
Cold Day on the Mountain
support, circular: 564 × 824 mm
Presented by the Tate Americas Foundation, courtesy of Susan Hendricks 2022
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<i>Cold Day on the Mountain</i> is a medium-scale oil painting on canvas produced by the artist in 2006. Tondo (or circular) in format, and surrounded by an elaborate gilded frame, it depicts a Jamaican landscape where a purple-grey mountain top – faintly visible beyond a hill covered with trees and lush green vegetation – is pictured below a sky of broken clouds. The oval format of the composition and the heavy gold frame create the impression of looking at a scene through a photographic or optical lens, or even a window.</p>
<p>From the early 1980s onwards, Hendricks spent periods of time in Jamaica each winter. Drawing on the long-established tradition of painting <i>en plein air </i>(or out of doors), and recalling the work of nineteenth-century landscape painters such as John Constable (1776–1837), he produced a significant body of landscapes which chart, in his words, ‘the beauty of the land of wood and water’ (quoted in Nasher Museum of Art 2008, p.60). Much as the portraits – such as <i>Family Jules: NNN (No Naked Niggahs)</i> 1974 (Tate L02979) – for which Hendricks is best known depict particular individuals rather than generalised stereotypes, the landscapes likewise portray specific places around the island. This effort to capture Jamaica as faithfully as possible – an island that he selected for its rich and far-reaching cultural heritage, as much as for its beauty – demonstrates a deep understanding of the nation’s historic significance and stands, in a similar way to his portraits in the studio, as a celebration of a black vernacular. Speaking about this choice, curator Trevor Schoonmaker has noted: ‘As a geographically small island, it [Jamaica] has played a major role in the development and dissemination of black ideology and culture, from Marcus Gavey to Bob Marley. The very fact of being set in Jamaica connects his landscape paintings to his long-standing practice of painting the black body.’ (In Nasher Museum of Art 2008, p.35.)</p>
<p>Whilst Hendricks’s Jamaican landscapes celebrate his interest in their cultural context, they also demonstrate his interest in the immediacy of experience that painting <i>en plein air </i>provided. Working on a canvas from start to completion outdoors, and being subject to constantly changing light and weather – the title of <i>Cold Day on the Mountain </i>suggesting, perhaps, that it was painted in less clement conditions – offered a new challenge to the studio environment. Hendricks said: ‘it is always a cool thing to find a place in … the Jamaican countryside to sit and paint for several hours. It’s a meditative event with oil and watercolour pigments. There are rapid dictations from Mother Nature where you have to pay attention.’ (Quoted in Nasher Museum of Art 2008, p.89.) The challenge of changing conditions was matched by that of time pressure, and the landscapes are modest in scale and uniform in format in response to the number of hours of working light in a winter’s day on the island. Speaking about his enthusiasm for ‘the immediate gratification of <i>plein air </i>painting’, he said: ‘With the figure, you have to plan the pose, the props, the clothing. In Jamaica I can finish a painting a day.’ (Quoted in Landi 2008, paragraph 13, accessed 15 June 2018.) </p>
<p>In 1966 Hendricks was awarded a travel grant from the Pennsylvania Academy of Arts which enabled him to travel through Europe. The lasting influence of the Italian Renaissance painters and Greek icons that he saw is demonstrated in both the tondo format of <i>Cold Day on the Mountain </i>and its ornate gilded fame, which is a fundamental part of the work itself. Learning his trade from his father, who was a home remodelling contractor, Hendricks was a skilled craftsman and produced a number of his own frames. These demonstrate his interest in the qualities of luminescence, ornamentation and reflection, as well as his understanding of gold’s wider symbolism and cultural associations.</p>
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<b>Further reading</b>
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<i>Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool</i>, exhibition catalogue, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC, 7 February–13 July 2008.<br/>Ann Landi, ‘Hip Off the Old Block’, <i>ARTNEWS</i>, June 2008, republished April 2017, <a href="http://www.artnews.com/2017/04/20/from-the-archives-studio-visit-barkley-l-hendricks-2008/">http://www.artnews.com/2017/04/20/from-the-archives-studio-visit-barkley-l-hendricks-2008/</a>, accessed 15 June 2018.<br/>Laila Pedro, ‘On Seeing Barkley Hendricks, and Portraits of Everything’, unpublished article to accompany the exhibition <i>Barkley L. Hendricks: Them Changes</i> at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, 15 February–24 March 2018.</p>
<p>Hannah Johnston<br/>June 2018</p>
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2023-09-29T00:00:00
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