The Rake's Progress 1993

Jorg Immendorff made this large painting, The Rake’s Progress, layering characters, objects, and references to theater and art history. Imagine him, wrestling with these forms, pushing them around the canvas, trying to get them to line up and make sense. But maybe the point is that they don’t quite fit? I get the feeling that Immendorff was onto something about the chaos and the stage. All the world's a stage, right? I wonder if the artist felt like the rake? A character who's always moving, searching, never quite satisfied. And what about all those faces in the background? Spectators? Maybe they represent the weight of history, all the artists who came before, watching, judging. Immendorff is in dialogue with them, borrowing, stealing, and remaking painting in his own image.