Parkes\' Gargoyles Michael Parkes Painting

Parkes' Gargoyles

Michael Parkes painting of the girl on a roof with three gargoyles is very popular. This painting, which has been turned into a print and poster, is sold everywhere. This document will discuss the painting, the background of the subject matter, what the artist conceives of as reality, and a critique of the work itself.

The artist evidently is very much interested in the concept of medieval grotesque figures, which we call gargoyles, which used to be placed on the tops of buildings in ancient times. Originally used as the mouths of waterspouts that shed rain from roofs, they evolved into intricate, yet eerie statues of monsters and chimera that were placed on roofs to scare away evil spirits. These gargoyles were scary themselves and hover over most of the major cities in the world.

Gargoyles have grotesque features, often like malformed humans, some half-animal and some fantastical, having limbs or heads of imaginary monsters and demons. In contemporary fiction, these monsters have become a winged humanoid race with horns, tails, talons and sometimes beaks. Since they are high above the cities, they have wings with which to fly or glide. They are made of stone or look that way.

Michael Parkes may be referring to any number of literary works in his painting of Gargoyles, which have been featured in works of fantasy fiction, such as Terry Pratchett's Discworld series (Discworld gargoyles) and the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D gargoyles) and Rifts role-playing games. In fiction, gargoyles are not a separate race but rather an obscure bloodline, (minor clan), of vampires created by the blood mages of Clan Tremere to serve as guards and servants, the result of experiments with captured members of other Clans. Many of these creatures escaped their bondage and struck out on their own. The World of Darkness Gargoyle was released as a playable bloodline alongside Caitiff and Lasombra antitribu, they could fly and also possessed strange abilities that were linked to stone.

Constable Downspout is one of the Gargoyles that lives on the Discworld, taking up a position in the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. These gargoyles were also prominently featured in a Disney animated series, Gargoyles, and played a role in that company's adaptation of Victor Hugo's the Hunchback of Notre Dame. A violent gargoyle in the TV series Monsters was played by actress Adrienne Barbeau. In Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, Rae Dawn Chong played a gargoyle in human form. In the Gargoyle's Quest series, a gargoyle named Firebrand is featured in the Ghosts 'n Goblins series, whose infamy as a difficult foe to defeat cast him as a hero.

Whatever the literary source, Parkes' painting tries to tell a story. A young girl stands on a rooftop, blowing bubbles. Suddenly, the gargoyle in front of her leaps out after one of the bubbles, reaching for it with his (her?) hand. The stone that holds it to the pedestal shatters, with shards of rock and plaster flying everywhere. But though this gargoyle has a tail, it does not have wings. Will it be able to fly or glide, or float through the air. There is an unanswered question here. The girl is still blowing bubbles and has barely noticed what has happened yet. But two other gargoyles turn to watch this one gargoyle who has freed itself from its eternal bondage. One of these is screaming, as if he is afraid, or wants to join the one who has become free.

The young girl seems to be involved in what is before her, not the image of the gargoyle. But lying in the shadows is her teddy bear, an image of her babyhood, lying forgotten on the edge of the stone.

The gargoyles depicted in this painting are not the medieval norm. Though their heads are monstrous and have huge fangs, they are also half-human. The bodies are definitely human, though the back legs remind one of amphibians' legs, with huge muscles. There is a definite image depicted, perhaps from one of the specific literary works mentioned.

The viewer of the painting feels fear and exhilaration, fear because of the monsters, fear of falling, as the gargoyle leaps out into space, yet excitement over the newly found freedom, the chasing after bubbles and the symbolism in that. Bubbles are nebulous and may represent ideas. When someone dies for an idea, it is always exciting.

Yellow is the color of the dress that the young girl wears, a dress representing warmth and life, of waiting, of caution, of hazard. It is also the color that is often set against blue, as it is here, where the girl in the yellow dress is set against the blue sky. Blue is the color of eternity, of calm, of peace, of purity that keeps bad spirits away. It is a confident color, set against the girl's yellow dress that sometimes depicts cowardice.