Red is a colour so vivacious that its use in many paintings seems to be to center the eye; or to set an emotional tone.

 

 

 

Pancake Baker and detail, c. 1625, oil on panel. 

Attributed to Adriaen Brouwer, 1608-1634, Dutch.  Philadelphia Museum of Art

 

 

 

Winter Games on the Frozen River Ijssel, c. 1626, pen and ink with watercolour, gouache and graphite.

Hendrick Avercamp, 1585-1634, Dutch.  National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

 

 

 

The Last Drop (The Gay Cavalier), c. 1639, oil on canvas. 

Judith Leyster, 1609-1660, Dutch.  Philadelphia Museum of Art

 

 

 

The Hall of Antiquities at Charlottenborg Palace, 1830, oil on canvas

Adam August Müller, 1811-1842, Danish.  Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

 

 

 

 

 Horses at a Fountain, 1862, oil on canvas. 

Eugene Delacroix, 1798-1863, French.  Philadelphia Museum of Art

 

 

 

 

The Lifeline, 1884, oil on canvas.

Winslow Homer, 1836-1910, American.  Philadelphia Art Museum

 

This image is based on an incident Homer witnessed in Atlantic City, NJ not long after his return from England.

The rescuer uses the newly invented breeches buoy in which ropes and pulleys are used to transfer a drowning victim to safety.

 

 

 

 

Portrait of a Boy, 1928, oil on canvas. 

Chaim Soutine, 1893-1943, Russian.  National Gallery of Art, DC

 

 

 

Bull Dogging, 1937, oil on canvas. 

George Biddle, 1885-1973, American.  Loaned by the artist’s family to Woodmere, Philadelphia in 2022

A statement of the endless interaction of men and violence.

 

 

 

 

Absorbing Art, 1941, oil on canvas.

Aristodimos Kaldis, 1899-1979, American. Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia

 

 

 

Tom the Dutchman, 1955, oil on canvas.

Dolya Goutman, 1915-2001, American.  Woodmere Museum of Art, Philadelphia

 

 

 

Michael Greenwood at Pett Rectory, 1950, oil on canvas. 

Sylvia Sleigh, American born Great Britain, 1916-2010.  Baltimore Museum of Art

 

 

 

 

Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), 1972 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private collection on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18.  

 

 

 

 

Two Guns Arikara, 1973/77, acrylic and oil on canvas.

T.C. Cannon, Kiowa-Caddo, 1946-1978. MOMA, NY

 

The description ‘redskins’  and the adjective ‘red’ for American Indians have been generally discontinued for its offensive association with scalping.  It took, however, until the murder of Henry Floyd in May 2020 for the renowned Washington Redskins to begin a process to change its name.

 

 

 

Portrait of My Brother, Robert Randy Taylor, 2010

 Henry Taylor, American born 1958. Private collection loan to the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY in 2023

 

 

 

 

Spring, The Hanging of the Tree Rocks, 2017, acrylic and oil on wood panel

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. The Phyllis and Jamie Wyeth Collection on exhibit at the Brandywine Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2024

 

The artist’s wife, Phyllis Mills Wyeth (1940-2019), is in the foreground of this painting.  Every year she would try to tame blossoming branches by weighing them down with a stone. 

I take the figure of the man to be a self-portrait of the artist himself. Mainstay of his wife’s life.

 

 

 

Don’t Tread on Me, God Damn!  Let’s Go – The Harlem Hellfighters, 2021, pieced, appliqued, and quilted cottons, silk, wool, and velvet. 

Bisia Butler, American born 1973. Smithsonian Renwick, Washington, DC

 

9 members of the 369th Infantry Regiment:  the ‘Harlem Hellfighters’ who saw service in both world wars.

American. Operating in an army which did not begin to be desegregated until 1948.

Multiply awarded by the American and French Governments for their results and their courage in action.

 

 

Red is associated with power which is undoubtedly why so many portraits of men, princes of the spiritual and temporal power, and rich men,  hang in red on the walls of our museums. With extraordinary hats.

 

 

 

Matteo Olivieri?, c. 1430s, tempera (and oil?) on panel transferred to canvas.

  Unknown Florentine artist.  National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

 

 

 

Francesco Sassetti and His Son, Teodoro, c. 1488, tempera on wood.

Domenico Ghirlandaio (Domenico Bigordi), 1448/49-1494, Florence.  Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

 

 

 

 

Portrait of a Man, tempera on panel, 1450. 

Andrea del Castagno, 1417/19-1457, Italian, Florence.  National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

 

 

 

 

Portrait of a Young Man, 1465-70, tempera on panel.

  Sandro Botticelli, 1445-1510, Italian, active Florence and Rome.  Philadelphia Art Museum

 

 

 

 

Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, c. 1500, unknown artist. Netherlandish. 

Loaned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2024 by the Palais de Beaux Arts, Lille, France

 

 

 

 

Adoration of the Magi, early 1500’s.

  Hieronymus Bosch, c.1450-1516, Netherlandish.  Philadelphia Museum of Art

 

 

 

 

St. Maurice, 1520-25, oil on wood. 

Lucas Cranach the Elder and Workshop.  1472-1553, German.  Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

 

 

 

 

 

Cardinal Fernando Nino de Guevara (1541-1609), c. 1600-1604. 

El Greco, 1540/41-1614, Greek.  Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

I don’t know the meaning of the discarded piece of paper at his feet although this was a man who left the direction of the Inquisition to take up duties as a cardinal.

 

 

 

 

Cardinal Astalli-Pamphilo (1616/19-1663), oil on canvas, 1650

Diego Velazquez, 1599-1660, Spanish.  Loan from the Hispanic Society of America, NY to the Metropolitan Museum, NY in 2018

 

 

 

 

Portrait of a Young Man, 1520-30, oil on panel. 

Attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger, 1497/98-1543, German.  National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

 

 

 

 

Portrait of a Young Man, c. 1525-26. 

Jacopo da Pontormo.  Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Mansi, Lucca loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2021

 

 

 

 

Portrait of Joachim II, Elector of Brandenburg, 1529, oil on wood panel. 

Lucas Cranach the Elder, German active Wittenberg, Weimar, Vienna, 1472-1553.  Philadelphia Museum of Art

 

The museum points out that the beading on the jacket is of crowned hearts surmounts the letter M for Magdalena, the elector’s first wife. 

These alternate with a jester’s cap to point to the folly of love.

 

 

 

 

Portrait of a Man in a Red Cap, 1532-35, oil on parchment laid down on wood. 

Hans Holbein the Younger, 1497/98-1543, German.  Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

 

 

 

 

Charles I of England (1600-1649, beheaded), 1629, oil on canvas. 

Daniel Mijtens, c. 1590-1647, Dutch.  Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

 

 

 

 

Olivier Journu and detail, 1724-1764, pastel on blue-grey laid paper laid down on canvas. 

Jean-Baptiste Perroneuau, 1715-1783, French.  Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

 

 

 

Portrait of the Willett Children, 1789-91, oil on canvas. 

George Romney, 1734-1802, English.  Philadelphia Art Museum

 

 

 

 

Portrait of the Toreador José Romero, c. 1795, oil on canvas. 

Francisco Goya, 1746-1828, Spanish.  Philadelphia Art Museum

 

 

 

 

Ogou Feray, or Ogoun Ferraille, c. 1945, oil on Masonite

Hector Hippolyte, 1894-1948, Haitian.  Loaned by the Museum of Everything, London to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2021

 

This figure is derived from the Yoruba  orisha, Ogun: a powerful metalsmith who made a pathway, by hacking through the undergrowth and vegetation, into the world for other orishas. 

In Haiti, Ogun was subdivided into many Ogou.  Each represents an aspect of power and its application.

Ogou Ferrai is a martial power: a soldier, warrior and blacksmith.  Offerings to Ogou Ferrai often take the form of instruments of battle: machetes, swords as well as military medals.

 

 

 

 

Vir Heroicus Sublimis, 1950-51, oil on canvas.

  Barnett Newman, 1905-1970, American.  MOMA, NY

 

 

 

 

Reception; egg tempera and oil on panel, 1958. 

Honoré Sharrer, 1920-2009, American.  Loaned by the artist’s family to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia in 2017

 

 

 

 

The Master, 1992, oil on linen.  

  James W. (Bo) Bartlett, American born Georgia (southern USA), 1955.  Woodmere, Philadelphia

Perhaps the only indication as to why the tears is that this man is distant from his own continent.  No African would ordinarily wear fur around his neck on African soil. 

He must be in exile, voluntarily or not.

 

 

 

Equestrian Portrait of the Count Duke Olivares, 2005, oil on canvas. 

Kehinde Wiley, American born 1977. Rubell Family exhibition at the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia  I don’t recall when.

 

 

 

 

Pope Benedict XVI (1927-2022) wearing a red capello romano with thread of gold embellishment.  June 22, 2011.

VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

This hat can only be worn by popes.

 

 

 

Red’s negative reputation is its association with destructive fire, possessive love, the blood of criminality; with perversity, anger, pain, warning, and threat:

 

 

 

Hydrogen Man, 1954, colour woodcut. 

Leonard Baskin, 1922-2000, American.  Philadelphia Museum of Art

 

On March 1, 1954, the United States detonated the Castle Bravo thermonuclear hydrogen bomb on the remote Bikini Atoll islands in the Pacific Ocean. 

This print shows the effect of this blast on one man: his skin has been torn off and his blood vessels are visible. His right arm is torn off.  His right leg is barely attached to the body.  His head is no longer firm.  A walking dead man.

Leonard Baskin said:   “Art is man’s distinctly human way of fighting death.”

 

 

 

 

Apache Pull Toy, 1988, painted steel. 

Bob Haozous, Chiricahua Apache. Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, DC

 

 

 

 

Pain, Pain, Fear, Fear, 2006, acrylic on birch plywood.

Linda Alter, American born 1939.  Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

 

 

 

 

Katrina, 2006, oil on canvas. 

Oscar Page, Jr., American born 1943.  76th Juried Show at the Woodmere Museum of Art, Philadelphia

 

The security of New Orleans was militarized during the Katrina hurricane in 2005.

In 1997, Congress and President Clinton approved the transfer of surplus military materiel to all police forces.

Military materiel, arms, tactics and body armour have been in widespread use among the police since 9/11.  A heavy price in heavy-handed harassment and death, is being paid as a result by some North American populations. 

The dog, confused, is barely sketched in.  It is both a pet and K9.

 

 

 

 

Broken Skies 1 (Inferno), 2019, aquatint and photogravure on Somerset radiant white velvet paper.

Didier William, Haitian-American born 1983. Exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2021

 

 

 

Red men are the ones who lurked under our beds during the Cold War. They seem to be back now.

 

 

Mao, 1973, acrylic and silkscreen on canvas. 

Andy Warhol, 1928-1987, American. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY 

 

 

 

Putin, 2017, insulation foam. 

Tim Rusterholz, American born ?.  Woodmere Museum, Philadelphia

 

 

 

 

In the ‘West’, we see head-to-toe red usually only in couture; or the performing arts.

 

 

 

Romeo and Juliet, 1869-70, oil on canvas. 

Ford Maddox Brown, 1821-1893, British.  Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington

 

 

 

 

Harlequin, 1888-1890, oil on canvas.  

Paul Cézanne, 1839-1906, French. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

 

 

 

Two Trapeze Performers in Red, c. 1917, watercolour and graphite on wove paper. 

Charles Demuth, 1883-1935, American.  Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia from whose website this photo

 

 

 

 

Fugue, 1913, tempera on canvas. 

Otto Friedrich, 1862-1937, Hungarian.  Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

One of five paintings made by the artist after a style of music.  These decorated a music room in Vienna

 

 

 

 

Costume design for Vaslav Nijinsky in the role of  Issender in the ballet ‘La Peri’ (The Flower of Immortality);  watercolour and gold and silver paint over graphite; 1922.

Leon Bakst, 1866-1924, Russian.  Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

 

 

 

Choir Boys, 1942, oil on canvas. 

Ricardo Martinez de Hoyos. 1918-2009, Mexican.  Philadelphia Museum of Art

 

 

 

Self-portrait with Horn, and detail, 1938, oil on canvas. 

Max Beckmann, 1884-1950, German. Loaned by the Neue Gallerie, New York and a private collection to the Metropolitan Museum, NY in 2017

The artist as musician.

 

 

 

 

New Year’s Buddies, oil on linen, no date

Philip Cohen, American born 1923; on exhibit at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2022/23

 

Broad Street Reveries, oil on linen, no date

Philip Cohen, American born 1923; on exhibit at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2022/23

Members of the Mummers Parade which has greeted the New Year in Philadelphia since 1901.  The oldest folk procession in the US.

Originally all-male, all white Americans,  women were included from the early 1970s but remain very rare among the strutters. All ethnic groups are now also welcome.

Fabulous costumes made by artisans and artists working with competing cohorts of mummers in a long tradition of artistry and artisanship.

 

 

 

 

Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, 2008, From Sweethearts of Rhythm: The Greatest All-Girl Swing Band in the World; graphite, colour pencil, watercolour, and collage on paper. 

 Jerry Pinkney, 1939-2021 , American.  Woodmere, Philadelphia

 

 

 

 

DNA Study Revisited, 2022, urethane resin life-cast, foam, wire, acrylic paint.

Roberto Lugo, American born 1981. Smithsonian Museum of American Art

 

Each pattern represents the artist’s heritage in proportion to the amount: Taino, Portuguese, Spanish, African.

This work is both a performance and a statement of identity.

 

 

 

Eugene Lee Yang, a voice actor at the 2024 Oscar ceremony in an a skirt-suit designed by Walter Mendez. 

Photo by Nina Westervelt for the NY Times

 

 

 

 

Red is rarely worn prominently on a street or in a public place in ordinary attire.

 

 

Sir Charles, alias Willie Harris, 1972, oil on canvas. 

Barkley L. Hendricks, 1945-2017.  National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

 

 

 

Imagine my delight with these two encountered in a museum: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Red also represents love, beauty,  festivities, women, childhood.

 

 

 

Merry Company, c. 1629, oil on canvas. 

Judith Leyster, 1600-1660, Dutch.  Loaned in 2024 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

 

 

 

Of the Christian festivals, red is associated with Christmas, of course

 

 

 

American Christmas postcards dating to the 1920s

 

 

Wishing you all a peaceful season

and when the red rooster has crowed in the early morning of the new year, a very good new year!

 

 

 

Rooster Quilt made in cotton in Indiana, USA in 1930-31 by Mary Clara Milligan Kindler Moore, 1879-1978, American.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

 

 

 

New Year card c. 1920