The Countryside I 2013

Editor: Lisa Yuskavage’s “The Countryside I,” created in 2013 using tempera and oil and acrylic paint, feels…unsettling to me. It’s a landscape, but with these almost cartoonish figures huddled around a tree. What symbolic readings are present within the composition? Curator: Indeed, the landscape tradition here isn't about picturesque beauty; it’s imbued with the anxieties of modern life. What catches my eye are the ghostly figures populating the scene. Does this "countryside" truly evoke tranquility, or something else? What associations arise within you looking at them beneath the tree? Editor: Definitely not tranquility! Those figures have vacant eyes; they remind me of how anxieties can feel like they are crowding you, pressing you down, similar to how they crowd beneath the tree. Curator: Precisely. Yuskavage often uses distorted figuration to explore psychological states. Consider the tree itself – a symbol of rootedness, but here it seems barren, almost skeletal. And the 'countryside' background - are those telephone poles? Could this image represent the encroachment of modern life upon an idealized nature, thereby affecting our well-being? Editor: That makes sense. The distant forms I mistook for countryside feel industrial, and contrast oddly with the nakedness of the figures at the base of the tree. So the figures might represent not innocence in nature, but rather alienation within an evolving environment. Curator: Yes, exactly. The power of her symbols rests in revealing this unease. Does this shift in perspective alter your feelings about this ‘countryside’? Editor: It definitely does. Initially, it felt weird. But now it seems more about how internal states manifest in what we see – and how what we *think* we see changes based on how we engage with symbols and memory. Curator: Excellent. Through deconstructing established motifs like the ‘natural landscape’ and ‘figure painting,’ Yuskavage encourages us to confront uncomfortable truths and complexities buried beneath the surface of the idyll.