Throughout the decades of the 1950s and 1960s, Philip Pearlstein, a later-century vanguard realist, adamantly persisted in creating a body of work rooted in the tenets of realism, in spite of the critical, intellectual, and commercial inducements to follow the conventions of the day. PearIstein, in fact, has remained so wedded to his personal conceit that he has risked becoming a "one-trick pony" rather than deviate from his almost obsessive signature style. Perhaps no mainstream realist has been more faithful to his particular craft than has Pearlstein. The prototypical painting features disengaged nude figures unnaturally posed, and cropped so that limbs or heads are often truncated by the edges of the canvas. The figures are treated much like objects and are usually part of a compositional assembly of diverse items characterized by eccentric relationships and unnatural perspectives. The nullification of persona in the emotionless nudes is enhanced by Pearlstein's calculatedly muted and restrained palette. Color, energy, and mystery are introduced into the works through accessories such as oriental rugs, quirky artifacts or mannequins, and stylized furniture. Monumental scale, odd perspectives, and cropping draw attention to the precise rendering that subjects beauty and sensuality to the same dispassionate distillation as is given to anatomical imperfection.

Pearlstein's unique style is the result of a confluence of factors: artistic choice, happy accident, practicality, and personal whimsy. A student at Carnegie Institute of Technology in the 1940s, he was introduced to Abstract Expressionism as the then-declared art form of the moment. The Abstract Expressionists and the critical devotees to that movement were convinced that art had surely reached its purest state once the canvas served not the representation of visual observation, but the manifestation of energy, emotion, and passion. In his early work Pearlstein attempted to join the ranks of the abstract expressionists, but needed some trigger point, some natural phenomenon from which an "abstract" or "expressionist" painting could be realized. In his own words, "I was just looking for abstract compositions in nature." (note: Russell Bowman, Hilton Kramer and Irving Sandler, Philip Pearlstein: The Complete Paintings, [New York: Alpine Fine Arts Collection, 1983] 56.) Instead, Pearlstein discovered, or better rediscovered, the static energy, tension, design, and movement in the observable world. Along this journey he also remembered a fundamental truth of art: "The only thing that matters in the long run is what the work looks like." Thus freed from the prevailing intellectual barriers, Pearlstein began to paint what he wanted, and how he wanted.

Pearlstein also had worked with landscape as subject matter, but as he had formed the conviction that the human body was among the purest forms of natural beauty. The figure, particularly its topography, soon became his material and his muse. His small studio was lit by three incandescent light bulbs, and the cramped space forced him to work at close range to his subjects and to climb a ladder to gain distance. His muted palette, harsh shadows, and odd angles resulted, in part, from the practical limitations of these circumstances. Because he believed that the human eye could capture a subject with more veracity than could a camera (and in this he is one of the few realist artists who does not depend on a camera), his nude models were forced to sit for long hours. Pearlstein decided to incorporate their bored looks, indifferent body language, and vacant staresÐthe result of this tediumÐinto the paintings.

By the early 80s, Pearlstein's canvases began to include the now-familiar odd assortment of companions for his modelsÐthe mannequins, puppets, antique toys, weathervanes, and other objects of Americana collected by Pearlstein and his wife from antique and consignment shops over a lifetime of travels. Typically with antiques, the objects have associational valuesÐin the case of Americana, with the vitality of the Yankee spirit, with the humble visions of American craftsman, and with a quirkiness that delights both their creator and the collector. Ironically, these inanimate figures convey an eccentric energy distinctly absent in the lifeless and listless live men and women featured in the paintings. They quietly impart a nostalgia for a more vibrant past, of simpler and perhaps more satisfying times, when art was less encumbered by commercial enterprise and "isms."

Two Nudes with Horse Weathervanes and Punch (1988), included in this exhibition, is a paradigm of Pearlstein' s unique vision. The crafted "horses" in the painting are typically more animated and energized than the two pale and lethargic women, who themselves seem more truly to resemble weathervanes, which respond indifferently to whichever way the wind happens to blow. Surveying this paradoxical vista is Punch, whose bearing and expression suggest that he is as much a director ofthe scene as he is an observer, a visual oxymoron of the puppet turned puppet master. In their monumental scale, unusual arrangements, unconventional dialogue, and role reversals the props and the models hint at a new sort of still life, devoid of symbolism but convincing of the continual fascination offered by the human body even in its most distilled and dramatically objectified form. And intriguingly Pearlstein, the child of mid-50s modemism, with monumental human figures as his instrument, produced the polar opposite of the high-pitched, intensely personal, impassioned, and moody colored marks and gestures of the abstract expressionists. The nature of Pearlstein's contribution to realism is the continuation of the ancient dialogue between art and craft and the discourse on the life of forms in art (note:Henri Focillon, The Life of Forms in Art [New York: Wittenborn, 1948].)

©Virginia Anne Bonito, Pearlstein "Get Real", January 16, 1998.

For a more detailed printed view of the collection order the book:
	Get Real: Contemporary American Realism from the Seavest Collection Virginia Anne Bonito. Foreword by Michael Philip Mezzatesta, pp. 138, 68 colorplates, 2 b/w photographs Exhibition at DUMA April 4-July 6, 1997. Hard cover $40.00 Soft cover $25.00 To order contact: Duke University Museum of Art Click on Publications