Art Analysis -- Walter Anderson's

¶ … Art Analysis -- Walter Anderson's Crabs Figure 1- Blue Crabs, Walter Anderson Walter Anderson was born in 1903 in New Orleans and grew up in a home surrounded by an appreciation for the arts. He attended private school, then the Parsons Institute of Design in New York City and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine arts. Earning a scholarship to study abroad he traveled throughout Europe and was particularly moved by the primitive cave art in Les Eyzies, France.

He returned to the south, married, and went to work at his brother Peter's pottery company. In the 1930s he worked on the Works Progress Administration's Mural Project and began to be noticed as a muralist. However, in the late 1930s he began to experience severe depression and was institutionalized for a time, finally returning to an extremely productive period. Finally, in 1947 he left his family, lived alone in an isolated cabin on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

He spent 18 years using the materials, flora, and fauna of the area as inspiration and worked under primitive conditions, often sleeping in his boat for weeks at a time and enduring extreme weather conditions. He died at the age of 62 of lung cancer, and only by chance when cleaning his cottage were his very imaginative works discovered (The Life of Walter Inglis Anderson, 2009). We do not know exactly when Anderson conceived and painted his Crabs-2, but this painting was indicative of his obsession with color, primitivism, and nature.

Crabs 2 is a watercolor, approximately 8 1/2 X 11 on parchment paper. It is a simple drawing, two Southern Blue Crabs facing off for a battle or perhaps a mating ritual. Taken together, the crabs form a circle, or, more accurately, two individual arcs the envelope each other. There is really no single focal point, in fact the eye moves around the object, giving it a sense of movement within the frame. The color of the background is "sandy," obviously giving us the impression that this is meant to be natural in orientation.

While the overall schemata is one-dimensional, the coloration used gives the work a sense of depth; particularly if we not the dark blue and black shadings combined with the almost anatomical nature of the crabs. It is with this coloration and transparency that Anderson communicates the primitive nature of these animals, and the oneness with nature. In fact, if one looks at a few other actual "primitive" pieces of art, one can easily see how Anderson was influenced in style and technique.

Three examples come to mind: the aboriginal art of the indigenous peoples of Australia, the native art of Central and West Africa, and some of the cave paintings from Lascaux. Like Anderson, each produced colorful, realistic, yet unique depictions of nature and animals. Shown here from left to right are Australian Aboriginal Art, Folk Art from Tanzania, and a poster of one of the Cave Paintings from 10-15,000 BC in Lascaux, France.

Note the similarity in texture and line to Anderson, the fact that the animals almost curve, and that we have an anatomical element within each of the three interpretations. Anderson, however, is far more enveloping than many other primitivists. One can almost sense the hours he spent observing these creatures.

And, the sense of movement that is communicated in the flatness by the oscillation of the circles from crab to crab, as if they were imitating sonar back and forth: In fact, it is this movement that is so fascinating in Anderson's depiction of nature, as well as his whimsical material on children's fairy tales and folk art. Compare the curves in The Red Pot with the emanating lines in Crab2, and one sees that the pot takes on an almost nautilus-like characteristic.

It helps to know Anderson's story, his struggle, his abject loneliness and depression, and the manner in which he struggled to produce a number of modern masterpieces. However, that.