01 Work, The Art of War, Maynard Dixon's Shapes of Fear, with footnotes

Maynard Dixon

Shapes of Fear, c. 1930-1932

Oil on canvas

40 x 50 1⁄8 in. (101.5 x 127.3 cm.)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

The abstract idea of fear is concretized here, in the way the four shapes representing four humans stand huddled together, their faces missing but their feet visible under their long cloaks. The cloaks appear like shrouds hiding faces paralyzed by fear. Out of the four shapes only one is facing the viewer, with a mere hole of a face where the face is supposed to be. The rest of the four may not be having any faces here or may not have had any at any time. Fear makes one so much faceless in the face of danger.

The feet are apparent and visible because in a “fight or flight ” situation, feet are essential, even when the faces are lost. More on this painting

Born in Fresno, California, Maynard Dixon was largely self-taught as an artist. His first sketches were of the Western landscape. In 1893 he attended the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art in San Francisco, but withdrew after only three months. That same year his first illustrations for the Overland Monthly appeared, beginning a long association with that periodical.

For the next fifty years Dixon traveled and lived throughout the American West. His illustrations of the people, landscape, and lifestyle of this region won him an enduring place in the history of Western artists. In 1920 Dixon married the noted documentary photographer Dorothea Lange. Her unique vision was certainly an important influence on the development of his own realistic approach. Aside from his magazine illustrations, Dixon worked prolifically in other media, illustrating novels, painting murals in several cities, and even writing poetry. More on Maynard Dixon 

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