What makes art, or at least a good painting? For my money this is it, and hats off to Larry and the Web Site for displaying it.
Sure, the portrait of Rome is dead on, not only recognizable in the way a photograph is, but also capturing the guy, or presenting him, as a sort of devil-pixie or whatever word-label you like. There is no tension in his face, no doubt of his Rightness, some kinda self-knowing Rome-ness that glows out, unperterubed. I dont even know Rome, but you dont have to. The art tells who he is.
Larry's operating in the Folk Art school, I think. Means he probably doesn;t make a living at this and chooses local subjects, rather than painting kings and queens. Consider that Picasso would not be able to paint this like Larry did. Larry presents our mountain as a green haven, steeps piled against each other. Its a special perspective absorbed after years in an LZ with a particiular view of the scene, layered by a hundred other angles when flying. Compare this vision to the great photograph of Kagel that we sometimes run in the same place on the Web page. Both are accurate in their own way.
The subject, war on ground squirrels, is in the satiric traditon of William Hogarth, in which politics mix with action. Hogarth often depicted people pouring liquids--gin, boiling oil, and so on. Pouring works really well in painting, it seems more vidid and alive than a gunshot, maybe because its a process that takes time, seems to be unfolding, stretches the moment of looking at it.
The fun of the picture, of course, is that Rome is well known and so are squirrels, and the squirrels may be winning. A less subtle observer might miss the point that, buried in the lore of SHGA, there is some notion of coexistance, a recognition that the damned squirrels are not going anywhere no matter what we do.
You could talk for days about Sylmar and hang gliding and the people in the club, and never get near the remarkable impression one knowing painting makes at a glance and with a smile.
Great job.
