D for Defense #34

(So many people with so free time)

(by El Torres)

As an strict investigator of art movements thoughout history, Mr. Liefeld translates his genious in these two pannels. Not only is it a homage but a composite outline in deconstruction and reconstruction of Modernism and erotic narrative of final 19th and beginings of 20th Century. All that without leaving the usual pop art schemas usual in superheroe comic books.

Modernist guidelines are present and deconstructed. From the presentation frame (an awesome stablishing shot where the mountain crowns the bath tub, the interior / exterior shown as an integrated whole) to the scrollwork also very present in modernism (see the affiches in Mucha and Casas, for example), that brilliantly take here the form of a ethereal smoke, vaporous, like an ambiguous gauze that conforms a sensual ambient.

Also, the zenith drawing of the bath tub not only meets the objective of framing the pannel into a narrative time but it also becomes compositive part, integrating itself in this great pannel. The wood
surrounds the environment, giving it an organic plasticity while it also pays homage to the images we talked about before.

The main characters in the image operate in a misleading sexual manner, with a sensual view halfway between art and the erotic narative that the author has researched in the making of this pannel. The woman seems to rush into the experience, opening her thighs, while the man receives her with his erect knee in a clear sexual metaphor. What in other scope may be a simple image where two characters relax in a tub, in Liefeld’s hands becomes an erotic game, ambigous, with
several layers of meaning.

Mr Liefled plays with the approach, with the deliverate deceit, with the subtle metaphor that manifests his genious.

Progressive Boink’s critism has no substance or fundament. It’s based in personal opinion, pointing the deformity of the characters without going deeper into the authors proposal. I would assume that the same critics in front of a Greco painting would comment: "Oh, those characters are stretched".

 

 

(Be here next week for this:

)