To Kill a Mockingbird

Recalling her reaction to reading To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, my friend said, "When I finished it, I just wished that everyone could be like Atticus Finch, or at least try." Indeed. If only everyone could be decent and virtuous through and through. If only everyone would treat others with respect, regardless of their place in society. If only everyone could retain their faith in humanity in the face of prejudice and ignorance, in the face of threats against himself and his family. If only every parent could be gentle and understanding while setting firm limits. If only every man who was a dead-eye shot could avoid using a gun except when it is necessary to defend the community from a clear-cut danger.

Harper Lee intended for readers to long for decency. Not only that, but she spelled out exactly what she thought 'decency' and 'right living' means on a wide range of issues from large to small: what is justice, what is honor, what is duty; what is sympathy, what is courtesy, what is tact; what does it mean to love one's neighbor; how does a reckless child learn to be a responsible adult? She demonstrated her code through both the actions and the words of her characters.

Far from being the utilitarian and sentimental potboiler that I expected, To Kill a Mockingbird is a masterpiece of fiction. Harper Lee unfolds her stories in such a homely and leisurely manner that you don't realize you're taking in a systematic moral treatise at the same time.

The literary device that enabled the author to reveal the setting, the plot, and the characters slowly, in tiny easily digestible units, was using the viewpoint of Atticus's daughter, a precocious little girl, in her eighth and ninth years, called Scout. Lee didn't attempt to create a childish voice, but she depicted events in the way that Scout experienced them.

In order to deal with themes of racism and justice, the major plot has to do with the trial of a handicapped black laborer, Tom Robinson, who is falsely accused of the rape of a white woman. Atticus Finch is assigned by the judge to defend Tom, and he makes a very convincing case for Tom's innocence, while knowing that the jury would never take the word of a Negro over that of a white man. When a mob threatens to lynch Tom, Atticus is prepared to defend him without using a weapon, sticking by his principles at the risk of his own life.

The subplot concerns a reclusive neighbor, known by the children as Boo. When he was a young man, Boo, whose real name is Arthur Radley, got in trouble with the law while hanging out with a gang of ruffians. His parents' response was to keep him hidden at home. After 15 years of isolation, Arthur casually stabbed his father in the leg as he passes by. It is evident that he needs some kind of help, but his father refuses to let him go to an asylum, so he ends up back at home, even more isolated. When his parents finally die, his older brother Nathan moves in and continues Boo's confinement.

Scout and her brother Jem, who is about 4 years older, and their summertime friend Dill, who is 8-10 years old, make the mysterious Boo into a dangerous monster. Sometimes they are afraid to pass his house; other times, they try to provoke him to show himself. Although they manage to rile his brother Nathan—who takes a pot shot at them when they enter the Radley place late at night in an effort to leave Boo a friendly note—Boo sees their gesture as friendly play, as it was intended. He responds by leaving tiny keepsakes in a hole in an oak tree, but mean Nathan cuts off that form of contact by filling the hole with cement.

The way these two plots are intertwined is a marvel to behold.

The man who falsely accuses Tom Robinson of rape is a shiftless, no-account white man, named Bob Ewell, who lives on welfare with a ragged bunch of motherless children next to the dump—quite literally 'poor white trash,' but still higher in the social pecking order than the lowly Negroes. His eldest daughter, Mayella, age 19—friendless and isolated, like Boo—becomes attracted to Tom Robinson when he passes her house each day on the way to and from his job working as a laborer on a nearby farm. Although his left arm is damaged and hangs useless, he is young and strong. His only fault is sympathizing with Mayella's situation. He sees that she totally lacks support from her father and the younger children in the family, and he instinctively comes to her aid when she asks him to help with some task. When she takes advantage of the situation to kiss him and hold him in her arms, she seals his doom. Her father observes the embrace through a window and totally freaks out. He enters the house raging, and when Tom quickly departs, he proceeds to whack Mayella about the head and neck, not stopping until she is on the floor. Then he covers up his violence by accusing Tom of rape, and Mayella goes along with this in order to hide her shame.

The courtroom scenes where Atticus reveals the Ewells' squalid life and the flimsiness of their accusations through patient and respectful questioning are great set pieces of sustained drama. The children look on from the balcony among the black community, who are stunned that any white man would put so much of himself into defending a black man. The raucous white people on the floor are temporarily subdued by doubt and suspense. After unexpectedly long deliberations, the all white male jury finds Tom guilty and sentences him to death. The injustice of the verdict hits the children and the reader like an anvil falling to the floor.

Though Bob Ewell gets his way in court, he is humiliated by the experience, and he vows to get Atticus if it takes the rest of his life. Instead of going directly for the attorney, he attacks Scout and Jem on Halloween night. Scout is saved by the chicken wire in her ham costume and rolls comically out of danger, but Ewell succeeds in twisting Jem's arm behind his back and is on the verge of delivering a fatal blow with a jack knife, when he is overpowered by Boo, who stabs him to death with a kitchen knife. It is unclear to the children who saved them: Jem passes out and Scout's vision is impeded by her awkward costume. When Sheriff Tate arrives on the scene, he quickly figures out what has happened, but he chooses to cover up the truth—by saying Ewell fell on his own knife—because saving the children's lives would make him a hero in the small town, and he figures Boo would hate being the center of attention—it would be a kind of punishment.

The issue of killing mockingbirds is mentioned early in the book, when Atticus gives Scout and Jem air rifles for Christmas. He tells them never to point a gun indoors, and never to shoot a mockingbird, because killing a mockingbird is sinful. A friendly neighbor explains why: "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us." At the end, when Sheriff Tate decides to hide the truth about how Bob Ewell died, he explains: "To my way of thinkin', Mr. Finch, taking the one man who's done you and this town a great service an' draggin' him with his shy ways into the limelight—to me, that's a sin." Scout understands this. She says, "Well, it'd be sort of like shootin' a mockingbird, wouldn't it?" There's a time for justice, and a time for mercy.

All this drama and high seriousness is interwoven with comical scenes, such as the hilarious Halloween pageant featuring children dressed as the agricultural products of the region. Or the meeting of the ladies' Christian group that earnestly discusses the plight of some happy heathens, while freely engaging in un-Christian prejudice against members of their own community. Or Scout's first day in school, when her teacher is reduced to tears by her own ineptitude and one of the younger Ewell children, who sasses her and walks out of school.  Or Jem's attempt to use a fishing pole to get a message to Boo in the middle of the night, and losing his pants in the process.

As appealing as this story is—full of homely detail, childish innocence, and colorful anecdotes—it is tempting to take it literally, but it is not a documentary, it is a story, a constructed piece of fiction. In fact it is a parable—a story with a moral. The characters have been idealized and simplified to illustrate certain principles.

I read this book because I wondered why it kept appearing on so many lists of best books and favorites. It appeals to our longing for basic human decency with subtle and refined artistry.

René Magritte: The Fifth Season

"The Fifth Season" is an exhibit of paintings by René Magritte (1898-1967) now showing at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It features work from the latter part of his career, starting with the 1940s, when World War II was raging in Europe.

I've been a fan of Magritte for a long time, but I gave up trying to figure out the meaning of his paintings at the Royal Academy of Art in Brussels, which had more works by this highly prolific artist than I could digest in one afternoon. However, after viewing this well-arranged show, with seldom-seen works borrowed from all over the world, and doing some online study, I suddenly had a feeling that I could understand the paintings now. I thought I would share my thoughts in hopes that the reader might be stimulated to put on their own interpretative cap: the "true meaning" is up for grabs.

The Human Condition, 1933

In the 1930s, Magritte was a well-known Surrealist. His images combined hard-edged realism with optical puzzles that played tricks between images and the realities they depict. He complicated the matter by assigning the works weighty titles that apparently bear no connection with the subject. My interpretation of this work is that the human condition is such that we mistake illusion for reality; we are deluded.

The Return, 1940

Here the silhouette of a bird in flight is filled with very realistic clouds of a daytime sky. The setting is a dark night where trees are silhouetted in black, as you would expect. In the foreground is a naturalistic depiction of 3 perfect eggs. If the bird form represents the soul, and the eggs represent the birth process, we might have a statement about death and rebirth, or the eternal life of the soul.  

During the 1940s, Magritte abandoned his signature flat style, and experimented with brushier styles, such as Impressionism, Expressionism, and Fauvism. The generally accepted explanation is that he felt disillusioned and alienated during the German Occupation of Belgium. Magritte was born in Belgium and lived there most of his life, and he stayed in Brussels during the Occupation.

I think his reasons may have been more artistic than war-related. Even though his brushstroke might be loose to the point of messiness, his tricky turn of thought is very recognizable, and there is no emergence of social or political themes. Nazis were not keen on Surrealism, and it could be that he wanted to cloak his haunting questions in styles that had proved acceptable. It could also be that as an artist he was saying, "Even when I change my style, I'm still myself." It should also be noted that during this time Magritte was supplementing his income by selling copies of other artists' works.

The Fifth Season, 1943

The show was named for this crude and brushy painting of two anonymous similar men carrying paintings in opposite directions. One carries an image of the forest; the other an image of the sky. There is something sombre about this work; the artist doesn't know whether he is coming or going; dragging himself though his routine, he perseveres in his effort to sell paintings. This painting is very much in the manner of Edvard Munch, a contemporary whose roughly rendered figures are doubtful and confused.

Forethought, 1943

By shocking contrast, Magritte painted this utterly delightful bouquet, worthy of Renoir or Monet, in the same year. Surrealism as a movement was over at this point, but as a style, this painting clearly shows a similar way of thinking. The flowers are wonderfully convincing, but examples of several different species are growing on the same plant, which is more like a tree than a bush, and which looms gigantically over a serene impressionistic landscape.

The Harvest, 1943

In that same year, Magritte made a little art history joke. There was a long tradition of treating the reclining nude in this posture with upraised arm and sleeping or dreaming face. Historically, she was supposed to be receiving the god Zeus in the form of a shower of gold; so she might be blissed out, so to speak. In this case, instead of Zeus hovering overhead, she has a dream of a beautiful, fertile landscape in the background. The surreal element is the body's coloration; if you had been in contact with a supernatural power, you might feel he had brought out your true colors.

Elsinore, 1944

This picture shows a figure of a castle combined with that of a forest in a green land under a cloudy sky. Elsinore is a real port in Denmark, and it is also the name of the Castle where Hamlet lived with his benighted family. Again, this painting makes me think Magritte was seriously exploring the styles of other painters because it looks so much like the forest scenes of Gustav Klimt, another contemporary artist.

Image with a Green House, 1944

Can we squeeze in a little music? The world is very regulated and insulated, very closed and overheated—is anyone making room for culture? The title directs us away from the violin, which is trying to hide in the shadows.

Intelligence, 1946

Here we have two identical men wearing masks and caps looking at each other as though they were scheming. Behind them are icons of industrialization. On the right is a candelabra-like figure with three identical female faces gazing toward the men with very expressive looks. The color scheme is overheated. Once again, culture appears to be threatened. Perhaps a painting like this does show alienation; the painter feels that his values are threatened.

The Cut-Glass Bath, 1946

This little work from the same year, a gouache on paper, is a straight-forward wine-drinker's joke. Want to feel as lofty as a giraffe? Have a nice glass of wine; it centers you, as shown by the concentric white brushstrokes.

By the late 1940s Magritte had resumed his signature crisp style, and added new complications to his philosophical themes. The War was over and life was starting to return to normal. The art market was waking up, and his contemporaries were pumping out work in fresh styles.

The Liberator, 1947

Magritte's hard-edged super-realism has returned with this image, along with cynical wit. Whatever the liberator is, he ain't what he's cracked up to be. His promises are just castles in the air.

The Pebble, 1948

Here Magritte clones the late style of fellow surrealist Georgio de Chirico to present a frank image of a woman masturbating. She is in a room that morphs into the ocean, suggesting that auto-eroticism can take you away from it all. The experts who mounted the show worried about the painting's title; I think the meaning would be evident to any woman similarly engaged.

Sheherazade, 1950

Sheherazade is a character in a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales first compiled in English in the early 1700s. She is a young woman who attempts to trick a sultan who has a practice of bedding a virgin every night and beheading her the next morning. She forestalls her own death by telling the king a fascinating story, and stopping each morning before it is finished. She has prepared herself for this challenge by absorbing all the great literature and histories of her time. She holds the king's interest for 1001 nights—which would be over 3 years—by which time, he is in love with her. He marries her and makes her his queen. Which says a lot about the value of story-telling and the imagination. Magritte represents this magical person as a bejeweled carnival mask; she is the ultimate mystery because she contains infinite wisdom.

The World of Images, 1950

This sunset is so gorgeous that it burst through the window.

The Survivor, 1950

This is the most pointed and poignant of Magritte's images, a weapon covered in blood. Its placement in a homey, well-lighted room, depicted with loving attention to textures and patterns, connects it with American pop art. It resonates loudly nowadays when random bloodshed is so commonplace.

The Fair Captive, 1950

A stormy night on the ocean; a brilliant campfire illuminates a picture frame, which may be empty or may be a perfect likeness of the ocean, but somehow manages to reflect the fire's light; the fire is complemented by a boulder on the other side of the easel. The four elements are represented: air, earth, water and fire. I think the implied artist is trying to express something infinite; a successful painting is a fair captive of his effort.

The Active Voice, 1951

This portrait of an isolated rock—could be a boulder or a magnified pebble—is one of Magritte's bluntest statements. No matter how closely you look at an object, you still can't understand it. The title adds an aggravating complication; nothing seems more silent and passive than a stone. Is an active voice as hard as stone? The artist wants to worry you with these questions, in order to point you toward the mystery in art.

The Kiss, 1951

Here we recognize the free spirit represented by a cloud-filled silhouette of a bird in flight. The free spirit feels at home in the starry night with the eternal ocean as its companion.

Pandora's Box, 1951

Pandora is a character in a Greek myth who unknowingly opens a jar left in her husband's care by Zeus, the most powerful of the gods. The jar contained sickness, death and many other unspecified evils, which were then released into the world. The jar was long ago mistranslated as a box. Magritte said of this painting, "The presence of the rose next to the stroller signifies that wherever man's destiny leads him, he is always protected by an element of beauty."

Personal Values,  1952

This humorous painting, which is owned by SFMOMA and frequently on view, is such an appealing puzzle that the mind can hardly settle down. We recognize a comb, a neatly made bed, a wooden match, a wine glass, a bar of soap, a mirrored armoire, and a shaving brush, but the proportions are comical, the walls give way to the sky, and we have a pesky reflection that can't be explained. Can we say that sleeping and dreaming, smoking and drinking, personal grooming and reflective thinking are some of the painter's personal values. Or is this just a silly joke. The painter wants to put you on the edge of understanding.

The Blow to the Heart, 1952

It doesn't take much interpretation to relate to this figure. A pink rose generally stands for love, and the sharp connection between a thorn and a dagger is easy to make. Whenever you let love into your life, you open yourself to the possibility of pain. Is this a general observation, or is Magritte reacting to something in his life? For instance, Magritte's mother tried to commit suicide several times and finally succeeded in drowning herself when he was 13.

The Enchanted Domain, 1953

The Enchanted Domain in place at the casino.
Internet grab.

In 1953 a fan of Magritte's commissioned him to decorate the walls of a grand circular room in his casino in the seaside town of Knokke, Belgium. Instead of painting directly on the walls himself—which is a specialized skill—he did a series of eight easel paintings that technicians could enlarge and place continuously around the room. This gave the artist a chance to create an enchanted world filled with his own metamorphic figures. This exhibit includes five of Magritte's paintings.

Can we say that the enchanted domain, or enchanted realm, is a world where nothing is what is seems to be? Where absurdity reigns supreme? Where the rules of rationality don't apply? Good setting for heedless gambling.

The Dominion of Light, 1954

One of Magritte's best known themes is a dark city street under a blue sky with puffy daytime clouds. It should be mentioned that the scene he saw from the windows of his own home was a neighborhood like this one. Also in far northern regions like Finland, where the sun never goes down, it is possible to see real scenes where the streets are dark while the sky is still light. Some of these paintings seem almost like that. 

The artist produced several variations on this theme, partly because it was popular, and partly because the idea fascinated him. In each one, the idealized sky is a different shade of blue, the arrangement of houses and street lamps and silhouetted trees is different, and the light effects in the dark half of the image vary. The exhibit included several of these, but a two is enough to get the point. 

If you have day and night at the same time, you have the whole day at once. And the best part of the night or the day is the light, which makes everything visible, or almost visible, and makes painting possible.

Euclid's Promenades, 1955

Once again we have a canvas on an easel in front of a window. The cityscape in the window, presented as the real thing, is just as much an illusion as the cityscape on the canvas within a canvas. And the confusion between illusion and reality is compounded by an optical illusion calling attention to the illusion that from a certain perspective, parallel lines do come together, just like the sides of a cone. Euclid was a Greek mathematician who is considered to be the founder of geometry. Space, like time, is arbitrary and relative.

Hegel's Vacation, 1958

Now that we're all familiar with the value of absurdity, at least from the songs of the Beatles—"I'm fixing a hole where the rain's comin' in, and stops my mind from wanderin'"—the juxtaposition of a glass of water and an umbrella draws an easy guffaw. Hegel was a 17th century German philosopher who proposed the idea of "absolute idealism," in which the dualisms, such as mind and nature, and subject and object, are overcome.

The Listening Room, 1958

 This gorgeous oversized apple looks trapped and wistful. From Genesis, apples have associations with temptation, with knowledge, and with evil. And what about this 'listening room.' Is the room listening to the apple? Is the apple there to listen to the ocean? Is listening a form of temptation?

The Anniversary, 1959

Now it's the boulder's turn to fill the room and gaze at the ocean. Taken at these gargantuan sizes, inanimate objects such as an apple and a rock, seem to assume awareness and feelings. The rock seems a little more at home than the apple, but it must long for a little breathing space. Is Magritte an animist? Does he see every natural object as living and aware? Or perhaps when an anniversary comes up he feels too large for his situation.

The Tomb of the Wrestlers, 1960

This poor rose is not only too large for its space, it is harshly lighted as though by an interrogator. How the title might be related stumps me; I comfort myself by remembering that Magritte was happy when he posed a problem that foiled the thought process.

Magritte was in his sixties in the 1960s, and his work reached its peak of popularity, with his images being adapted to commercial uses. He continued to be concerned with the nature of reality and the role of imagination and illusion. Many of his symbols returned in different formats.

The Great Family, 1963

Once again we have the cloud-filled silhouette of a bird in flight, this time rising out of the sea and into a stormy sky. Seabirds are at home with both the sea and the sky. The free spirit need not fear the threatening storm.

The End of the World, 1963

Once again we consider the view on a dark street, with buildings and trees, and a bowler-hatted head, are silhouetted against the sky. This time, however, the cheery daytime clouds and light is replaced by a dim and threatening sky. For a painter, the end of light is the end of the visual world.

A Sense of Reality, 1963

This time our beloved boulder is hovering over a serene landscape. Is the painter's sense of reality floating away?

We conclude with four paintings featuring a bowler-hatted man, or his silhouette, centrally framed, like a religious icon. The bowler-hatted man is generic and anonymous (none of the many images of him show a face), so he may stand for Everyman. However, Magritte himself dressed formally and wore a bowler hat, so he may have identified with the figure.

The Son of Man, 1964

This image illustrates the idea that behind every reality is another reality, or the truth is always hidden by illusion, and illusion is based on temptation. The artist offers his creations in place of himself.

The Granite Quarry, 1964

The tempting apple returns in a group of three, arranged on a granite wall by the sea. The silhouette of the bowler-hatted man is filled with both fluffy clouds and bright stars, with a crescent moon thrown in as well, against a pale, disappearing seascape. Dichotomies of night and day, organic and mineral, natural and spiritual come to mind. This figure is attending the mysteries inherent in reality.

High Society, 1965-1966

The bowler-hatted silhouette is filled with the familiar puffy clouds and peaceful seascape, and its shadow (!) is filled with a close view of foliage, suggesting a forest. The sea and the forest are good company, the highest form of society.

The Happy Donor, 1966

This time the bowler-hatted silhouette reveals a night scene, with a night sky. It is placed in front of a brick wall and accompanied by a bifurcated sphere, against a dull brown background. While the silhouette seems like a memory of home, the sphere has no corollary in the real world. The bifurcated sphere appears in many of Magritte's paintings, though only once in this group, and it never accumulates any meaning for me. Does the silhouette represent a happy donor? And what is it donating, anyway? It is donating mystery to life, or donating life to mystery.

Magritte died of pancreatic cancer in 1967 at the age of 68.  Year after year he made viewers question their assumptions about the nature of reality and the role of the imagination, and his influence is widely felt.

René Magritte with his bowler hat.

Nathan Oliveira at Stanford

Through a serendipity of web browsing, I discovered that Stanford University has a meditation center called Windhover, and that Windhover, which is normally open only for the Stanford community, has a weekly Public Tour on Saturdays at 11:00 a.m., no fee and no reservation. I learned that the building has a unique, Japanese-influenced style, and that it is adorned by paintings by Nathan Oliveira, an important California painter who was also a long-time professor at Stanford. As a meditator myself, and an art hound as well, I felt bound to check it out.

My usual venues at the university are the art museums, which are some of the first buildings you reach from the town side of campus. Windhover is a half mile across campus from there, away from town, and no cars are allowed in the the central section of the campus. To approach by car, it would be practical to enter the campus from the other end, but I wanted to see what lies between the museum and the meditation center, so I parked in my usual spot in front of the museum (The A-permit lot there is open to the public on week-ends), and made the distance on foot. A half-mile jaunt is not a big deal, but it is noticeably uphill, and the temperature was way too hot to be outdoors. It was well worth the effort though because the campus is so beautiful. Ancient spreading oaks offered welcome shade along the route between noble sandstone buildings. Lawns, courtyards, and wading pools were occupied by young adults playing with scampering children. There could hardly be a lovelier vision of utopia.

Windhover is almost hidden—its presence is so muted. The sign at the entrance is transparent, cut into a sheet of iron. The entrance is hidden behind a dark wall and a long row of lofty bamboo, shielding it from the busy campus.

The building is low, and has glass panels in certain sections. I arrived early, so I had time to walk around to the reflecting pool on the far end, and to look inside the building. I saw a great red canvas on the wall, and on the floor, two students, lying prone. They squirmed when they noticed me, but were undeterred in their "meditation."

I sat on a stone bench by the tall wooden front doors and waited. After a few minutes, two other women arrived, one at a time, each asking about the tour. And then two tiny, bent elders shuffled up the long, bamboo-lined path to the entrance. The man fussed around the card-reader getting the doors opened up, while the woman introduced herself as Lucky, and asked our names. Then we entered the sanctum.

The first gallery has a window wall that looks out on the reflecting pool, another wall features one grand red painting, and the third wall is formed by a divider and a low dark water feature.

Lucky wasn't very authoritative or informative about the site; what interested her was to know what we saw when we looked at the grand red painting, with its radiating impasto and its two perfect arcs. Each of us noticed different things, and that led to some discussion and further looking.

However in the course of our time with Lucky, we gradually learned the story of how Windhover came to be. The meditation center was the dream of artist Nathan Oliveira, who taught studio arts at Stanford for over 30 years, from 1964-1996. Lucky and her husband, who slumped mutely on a bench, had known the painter and his wife, because Lucky's husband had also been a professor there; the wives had met through the Faculty Wives Club. It was an honor to meet someone who had been close to the artist and to the project of establishing Windhover.

Nathan worked in the art department's studio up on Dish hill, on the back side of the campus. It had great views and access to trails. He took regular walks, and the landscape inspired a suite of huge abstract transcendental paintings. He did this series late in life, and kept the paintings as aids to meditation. They are said to have been a source of comfort to him during the losses and sufferings of old age, and he dreamed of bestowing that peace upon the Stanford community in the form of a meditation center featuring these works as vehicles to a transcendent state, like mandalas.

The next room has two paintings. One is a diptych that is very wide, at least six times the width of his own outspread arms, and bears the image of spread wings soaring.

On another wall is a canvas one third that size that bears only an arc, trailing glory in the form of creamy, glowing impasto.

A glass wall looks out into a shady grove.

Passing down a long, glass-walled hallway, we came to the final gallery, where a disgruntled student sat cross-legged, facing the grove.

Another glass wall showed a small gravel-lined court with a modest, silently flowing water feature.

The huge painting in this space looks like dawn to me, the essence of universal dawn.

Like the meditation center, this suite of paintings is known as 'Windhover.' The title was suggested by a visitor to Oliveira's studio, an Irish poet, who was inspired by the paintings to recite a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins by that title. Here's the first stanza:

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-

    dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

    Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

    As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding

    Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Hopkins' poem is obscure, but basically it is a tribute to a type of bird known as a Windhover in some places, but in northern California is known as a kestrel, which is a type of falcon. Oliveira's paintings had, in fact, been inspired by the flights of the kestrels and hawks seen from the trails near his home, and so he adopted that title for the suite, not giving titles to the individual paintings.

Lucky pointed out that there was a long-standing debate among fans and meditators about the pronunciation of Windhover, whether WINdhover or wind-hover. I thought the former the most common, but she pointed out that hover is more poetic: the kestrel hovers in the wind.

When I said good-bye to Lucky and the professor emeritus, and the two other visitors, I felt quite elevated and enlightened. A passerby with a bicycle advised me not to miss the meditation garden, so I walked around to the area that is visible from inside. There I found a magnificent pepper tree, probably original growth, guarding and keeping the meditation center, and nearby a meditation maze worked in tile on the ground.

From there I coasted comfortably downhill toward the Cantor Art Center, maneuvering between dark patches of deep shade and the cool outer hallways of massive sandstone buildings to mitigate the baking heat.

I headed straight for the Cool Café, the museum's order-at-the-counter eatery. Air conditioning, iced tea, and a juicy grilled chicken sandwich restored my strength.

I began to think about Nathan Oliveira again. I wanted to see examples of his usual work, which hadn't made a very big impression on me in the past. So I took a quick sprint around the upstairs gallery devoted to late 20th century and contemporary art. There I found one canvas.

Stelae #20, 1993

A stela is a stone memorial, so this image suggests overlapping grave markers, perhaps signifying a descent into death. This work from the 1990s is very late in the artist's career.

Making a final push, I went next door to the Anderson Collection at Stanford, where I discovered three more canvases by Nathan Oliveira.

Reclining Nude, 1958

This highly abstracted nude emerging from, or sinking into, obscurity, reminds us that Oliveira's reputation was originally as a member of the Bay Area figurative school, a group of painters who applied the techniques of Abstract Expressionism to the figure, as well as to landscapes and other subjects.  

Stage #2 with Bed, 1967

 After the bright and radiant images of Windhover, the dark palette of Oliveira's work in the 1950s and 1960s is shocking. This image of an empty stage in the dark seems to be a reference to death. Notice that in this work he uses a smooth, invisible brushstroke to create crisp lines and edges. 

Nude in Environment I, 1962

This colorful work depicts a female nude looking toward us from an inner world swirling with ideas and emotions, or so I surmise.

By this time, I was worn out. I didn't have the energy to do either the Anderson or the Cantor justice. I couldn't explore any more of the campus's wonderful gardens and architecture. I just needed to rest—and to meditate on my findings.

When I looked at my photos of Oliveira's work, I could see that my sample was too small to indicate the nature of his art. I was also surprised by the darkness of the vision they projected. So I did a little online research. When Oliveira died, in 2010, at the age of 81, the New York Times neatly summed up his career. The obituary says that he was influenced by the dark visions of European artists like Edvard Munch, Oskar Kokoschka, and especially Max Beckmann. He was committed to expressing the dark side of human emotions.

The obituary in Stanford News pointed out that Oliveira's father, a Portuguese immigrant, drowned in the Russian River when Nathan was young, a fact that seems to explain a lot. The article points out that Oliveira described his artwork with the Portuguese word saudade, a feeling of yearning and nostalgia.

Here are a few more significant examples.

Standing figure with Hands on Belt, 1960
from WikiArt

Standing Figure, 1970
from New York Times

Untitled - Figure Leaning, 1972
Watercolor and graphite on paper
from Berggruen Gallery

Ryan Figure #9, 1982
Oil on canvas
From Bergrgruen Gallery

Untitled Figure, 2010
from the Stanford News