Crash, By Linda Bacon

4 Pages 896 Words

Upon initially viewing Linda Bacon’s oil painting, “Crash”, one witnesses a chaotic jumble of activity. There is a tall wooden man standing with one leg poised on a sleek red car. That car is one of three others that appeared to have some sort of “crash”. A small man is running from his car to another with a scowl look on his face. Just behind the wreck a steel blue car is speeding away from the scene. Farther up the road a large red truck is abruptly making its way over the hill and into the direction of the crash. Above the truck, the sky is a mixture of pinks and blues except for in the upper right corner where it appears a storm is raging. Finally, surrounding both sides of the country road, lush green grass pierced with barbed wire fence and telephone poles fades into the distance.
There are many things that can be interpreted from this work of art and just as many inferences can be made about the artist’s intentions. First off, the large wooden man on the left is clearly one object that seems out of place in this piece. It seems as if he is some sort of voice of reason. The large size and one bent leg resting on the car give him an imposing and commanding presence as he surveys the “crash”. Moving over to the actual crash; one can find many interesting tidbits upon closer inspection. At first your eyes are focused on a small little man that appears to be going from his green car to the red car quite hastily and with some aggression. We can make the assumption that he is running due to the position of his legs. Unlike the arms, his legs do not have a hinge so they can not move at all. Had the figure been placed any other way, it would not have had the same effect. The artist captured a moment of pure aggression and anger that could not have happened in any other position. Looking further at those front three cars it is obvious an incredible amount of detail was put into painting them. Every piece of rust and flaki...