Bo Bartlett: Paintings 1981-2010

FROM THE BOOK

"Bartlett is not simply a realist, but a psychosocial realist. And a postmodernist realist, for his work is buoyed by historical references to Old Master art. Not only iconographic references; the pyramid construction in some canvases is typically Renaissance. Like the Old Masters, Bartlett uses contemporary figures to tell age-old stories. Most importantly, and apart from any narrative content, Bartlett figures transcend what T. S. Eliot called the dissociation of sensibility—the separation of feeling and thinking—characteristic of modern art, thus restoring the sense of human presence—human integrity and wholeness—evident in Old Master art. Whether his figures belong to the lower classes or to the upper classes, they think feelingly, to use the psychoanalyst Gilbert Rose’s idea that art teaches us 'to see feelingly.' Rose argues that art 'restore[s] the feeling and sensuousness that were once integral to thought and perception, but which were isolated to protect against traumatic flooding,' thus restoring 'balance of distance and closeness.' Bartlett’s figures are close and distant—in a space of their own, yet seen close up, as though Bartlett was carefully scrutinizing their faces with a camera, in effect forcing them into self-disclosure. What Bartlett’s probing eye discovers is their peculiarly traumatized state, which is the source of their sense of isolation. He reveals their self-alienation and social alienation, and their heroic struggle against it."

Donald Kuspit, excerpted from Bo Bartlett: Paintings 1981-2010.