The dream and fantasy are positive attempts to solve the problems that the conscious mind has been unable or unwilling to solve…Surrealism is a vigorous attempt to solve the problems which are facing us today by drawing attention to the fact that the roots of these evils lie in our minds…4
James Gleeson’s painting style over the last eight decades has evolved through a number of transformations and metamorphoses but ideologically he has remained a Surrealist.
The paintings of Gleeson from 1938-48 were a reflection of his youthful Surrealist ideals, influenced by Picasso’s transgression of form and Dali’s disturbing and inexplicable imagery. He searched for ways of tapping into his subconscious and meticulously recorded his dreams and nightmares; The Attitude of lightning towards a lady mountain5 is an early example of Gleeson’s commitment to the principles of Surrealism and the unconscious mind. The shifting relationship between the landscape and the body is a theme that occurs regularly, he has described it as:
One of the purely surreal paintings-without decipherable symbolism; classic architectural forms are used as stabilizing elements to emphasise the fluid plastic quality of other forms; the sky is used like a backdrop, the two mountains have broken through the sky to rest on a plain.6
During 1944/45 Gleeson produced three powerful paintings of violence and mutilation responding to what he saw as the atrocities and horrors of War. Gleeson was born during the First World War and started painting when the Second World War began; War was a lurking terror in his mind and subconscious. “These are the horrors of the concentration camp and the battleground seen through the eyes of a surrealist.”(Gleeson 1945). In Citadel7, we witness the triumph of the unconscious, only the hand of man is not swallowed by a fleshy mutating landscape of organs, vagina dentatae, skin and bone that erupts alarmingly conveying menace, horror, mental anguish and man’s self-destruction. The Sower8 is an ominous portrayal of the unconscious; monstrous dislocated limbs represent humanity’s self-destruction, The Sower is metamorphosing into the savage landscape fighting for its soul. The third painting in this war series Funeral Procession in a Wounded Landscape9 represents global violence. Gleeson depicts himself as a youth venturing off to the unknown war in a coffin shaped boat, protected only by a mother figure. Hills sprout claws and caverns snapping teeth frightening images of the artist’s subconscious. These fleshy mutating images would reappear in his later paintings. For the next decade under the European influence Gleeson’s paintings became more symbolic than purely surreal.
Influenced by the Renaissance and Michelangelo, Gleeson relied more on his conscious mind to paint his images, he meticulously planned his works, not allowing his subconscious to play a major role. His landscapes were dominated by male nude figures representing Plato’s ideas of man’s goodness, beauty and purity.
The Platonic idea of man’s beauty reflecting goodness-dominated, this was reflected in the style change mid-century. I believed Michelangelo and the Platonists for a while and later rejected it.10
Memorable paintings include The judgement of Paris 1950, Spain 1951, and Crucifixion 1952. Italy11, a monumental work painted during this time depicts history, ancient sculptures, the cultural achievements of western society, yet its ruins also depict man’s destructive nature. Italy viewed in the 21st century could also represent contemporary Baghdad and the smashed statue of Saddam Hussein. Gleeson felt on visiting Italy a:
…melancholy sense of loss, of ruined splendour, of a past wrecked not only by time, but by human indifference, barbarism or an instinct for destruction.12
Gleeson’s abstract triptych work Signals from the frontier13 painted in 1957/8 was a ‘signal’ of future works, a change of style. The ‘frontier’ of Gleeson’s imagination produces a bizarre seething mixture of viscera, bone, membrane and unidentifiable objects. Ronald Millar described it thus:
His triptych grows strangely, one visceral part out of another, landscape from body, membrane from bone, cages from ribs …Glottal shapes and mouths and tongues interchange…a bizarre composite of organic life throbbing away at Gleeson’s frontier of the mind.14
This visual subconscious imagery was achieved using decalcomania and the palm of his hand. The new landscape, one from Gleeson’s unconscious, is a forerunner of his psychological and philosophical landscapes, his ‘Psychoscapes’.
Gleeson’s ‘Psychoscapes’ painted during the 60’s and 70’s undergo their own metamorphoses. The 60’s images were of surreal landscapes dominated by heroic male nudes whose homoeroticism is clearly evident. Gleeson portrayed Greek myths and legends where man attempts to free himself and others through heroic deeds. Dreams and mythology are linked for the Surrealist through their subconscious imagery. This is clearly depicted in Daedalus & Icarus15 a series of twelve small paintings of highly realistic and detailed male nudes placed in colourful surreal landscapes. Gleeson’s subconscious allows the paint to dominate the landscapes.
The impulse behind [them] was to create in the background, a very free, spontaneous space, landscape…it was fantasy, it was invention, then I put into it these little painted nude figures which were extremely realistic…16
Christianity’s belief in the sacrifice and heroic deeds freeing mankind from its sin is represented in After the Fall 17; the male figures represent the neo-platonic ideas that only beautiful forms can render goodness or purity. The concept and tile of Crater with Revenant18, where the figure and the landscape are in perfect harmony, had its genesis in a dream evolving from the depths of Gleeson’s unconscious mind, a pure Surrealist painting. By the late 70’s, these figures were replaced by technological gadgets, space-age symbols, insects, and plants floating in a surreal cosmic reality in a series of large collages, his Locus Solus19 series. Gleeson explains this change:
…the small figures in landscape ended because I stopped believing in that sort of beauty…So I took the opposite line to see how far the body can be distorted and still retain its identity20.
Gleeson’s full potential as a Surrealist artist is evident in his huge body of work from the late 70’s till today. As an artist, he has undergone his own metamorphosis, finally allowing his conscious mind to surrender to his unconscious mind, to chance and instinct, his paintings transporting the viewer to an alternate, disturbing reality.
Since 1983 James Gleeson entered the most prodigious and radical period of his career as a Surrealist artist. Painting over 450 large meticulous panoramic works set at the edge of a surreal ocean. Fascinated by the border between earth and sea since childhood, his late paintings are dominated by oceans, sky and grotesque yet beautiful organisms of the sea; the point of convergence at this inter-tidal zone reflects a connection between the conscious and unconscious mind of Gleeson. His visionary landscapes exist between the boundaries of earth and sea, beauty and horror, conscious and unconscious. As Christopher Heathcote suggests:
It is not possible to grasp the full significance of James Gleeson’s recent paintings without acknowledging that they are imaginary. Where else would we encounter churning miasma, slimy organisms and mutated viscera, all placed within a creeping slithering landscape that seems to pounce, but in the imagination. Gleeson’s pictures are Surrealist imaginings; they are the irrational stuff of the unconscious, of dreams, of phantasmagoric nightmares21.
His paintings are cosmic, visceral visions of grotesque distorted marine creatures, molluscs, tentacles, crustaceans, eyes, shells the primordial ooze of creatures from the subconscious representing the reality of what man has or could become. In The Arrival of Implacable Gifts22, Turneresque storm tossed oceans become the sky, the artist’s conscious self is witness to the arrival of cryptic gifts from his unconscious. In the catalogue notes Gleeson alludes to the old proverb, ‘beware of what you wish for’. The idea for the painting was linked to the cargo cult:
Primitive people thought gifts would come from the sky, dropped from silver winged birds. These gifts would make life easy, fill their hearts’ desire. So often these gifts turn out to be anything but beneficial23.
In his extraordinary self-portrait, Portrait of the artist as an evolving landscape24, he is devoured by his own subconscious visions; he is morphed into the landscape. Real world events since September 11th have inspired Gleeson’s recent works and titles, Icons of hazard and Declaration of intent25. These works reflect humanities collective unconscious. Gleeson says:
My work has changed a great deal since September 11. I feel that we are living in a different age now, an age of terror. I find it’s a dark age we are in, that comes out in my paintings. I think there is a definite split between the Muslim world and the rest of the world and I think they must have felt cut away from the development of the West since the crusades26.
The powerful imagery drawn from Gleeson’s conscious and subconscious realities poignantly reflects his words in Images from a darkening time27.
James Gleeson, at 89, now into his eighth decade as a painter, is the longest serving world Surrealist; he is an artist of stature, a social commentator, the ‘Grand Master’ of Surrealism. By his own words he was ‘born a Surrealist’, and although his style has dramatically changed over the decades, his passion, philosophy and psychological understanding of the concepts and techniques of Surrealism have never waned. Influenced by the writings and paintings of early Surrealists, Gleeson has developed his own unique and formidable style. Gleeson’s has always sought to explore the senses and a synthesis of conscious and subconscious imagery is reflected throughout his numerous works. James Gleeson’s oeuvre is undeniably the art of the unconscious.
“Surrealism is really about reaching into one’s inner imagination. Children do that automatically and they don’t have any problem with my paintings, they see an unconscious that is surreal”.
James Gleeson
Footnotes
1 Carl Jung, The Spirit of Man, Art & Literature: Collected works of Jung. Vol. 15, ‘trans’ Gerhard Alder & R.F.C Hull. (New Jersey, Bollingen, 1971), p100.
2 Bruce James, Australian Surrealism, The Agapitos/Wilson Collection. (Roseville, The Beagle Press, 2003), p46.
3 Quoted by Donald Williams, In our own Image: The Story of Australian Art. (Sydney, McGrawHill, 1995), p258.
4 James Gleeson, What is Surrealism? Art in Australia, 25 November 1940, p27-30.
5 James Gleeson, The attitude of lightning towards a lady mountain, 1939. Oil on canvas, 79x63.3cm. The Agapitos/Wilson collection, Sydney.
6 Quoted by Renee Free, ‘James Gleeson: Ideas from the Shadows’, James Gleeson: beyond the screen of sight. (Roseville, The Beagle Press, 2004), p54.
7 James Gleeson, Citadel, 1945. Oil on composition board, 182.5x122cm. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
8 James Gleeson, The Sower, 1944. Oil on canvas, 76.2x50.8cm. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
9 James Gleeson, Funeral procession in a wounded landscape, 1945. Oil on canvas, 116x177.5cm. The Agapitos/Wilson collection, Sydney.
10 Quoted by Renee Free, James Gleeson: Images from the Shadows. (Roseville, Craftsman House, 1996), p29.
11 James Gleeson, Italy, 1951. Oil on canvas, 127x97.2cm. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
12 Quoted by Hendrik Kolenburg & Anne Ryan, James Gleeson: Drawings for Paintings. (Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2003), p51.
13 James Gleeson, Signal from the frontier, 1957-58. Triptych, oil on composition board, 122x46cm, 122x92cm, 122x46cm. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
14 Ronald Millar, Civilized Magic: an interpretive guide to Australian paintings. (London, Thames & Hudson, 1975).
15 James Gleeson, Daedalus and Icarus, 1964. Oil on composition board, 14.7x11cm each. Private collection.
16 Quoted by Hendrik Kolenburg & Anne Ryan, Op. cit., p22.
17 James Gleeson, After the Fall, 1966. Oil on canvas, decalcomania, 153x122.5cm. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
18 James Gleeson, Crater with revenant, 1966. Oil on canvas, 75.2x54.9cm. Frank O’Keefe collection, Sydney.
19 James Gleeson, Locus Solus Series, 1978. Ink, wash, monoprint, airbrush and collage, with some frottage on paper, 102.5x68.8cm. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
20 Quoted by Renee Free, Images, Op. cit., p33.
21 Christopher Heathcote, The Visceral Eye of James Gleeson, Art Monthly Australia, Canberra, no. 75, November 1994, pp26, 28-29.
22 James Gleeson, The arrival of implacable gifts, 1985. Oil on canvas, 198x245cm. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
23 Quoted by Renee Free & James Gleeson, Unpublished cataloque raisonne, compiled 1980’s-90’s. no.49.
24 James Gleeson, Portrait of the artist as an evolving landscape, 1993. Oil on canvas, 152x204cm. The Agapitos/Wilson collection, Sydney.
25 James Gleeson, Icons of hazard, 2001. Oil on canvas, 173.2x202.5cm. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
James Gleeson, Declaration of intent, 2001. Oil on canvas, 137x178cm. Frank O’Keefe collection, Sydney.
26 Quoted by Ashley Crawford, The real and the imagined. The Age, February 14. 2004.
27 James Gleeson, Images for a darkening time, 2003. Oil on canvas, 178x137cm. Private collection.
Bibliography
Arnason, H. H, History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Photography. Fifth edition, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2003.
Chapman, Christopher, Surrealism in Australia. Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 1993.
Free, Renee, James Gleeson: Images from the Shadows. Roseville: Craftsman House, 1996.
James, Bruce, Australian Surrealism, The Agapitos/Wilson Collection. Roseville:The Beagle Press, 2003.
Jung, Carl, The Spirit of Man, Art & Literature: Collected works of Jung. Vol. 15, ‘trans’ Gerhard Alder & R.F.C Hull. New Jersey: Bollingen, 1971.
Klepac, Lou, James Gleeson: beyond the screen of sight. Roseville: The Beagle Press, 2004.
Kolenburg, Hendrik & Ryan, Anne, James Gleeson: Drawings for Paintings. Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2003.
Millar, Ronald, Civilized Magic: an interpretive guide to Australian paintings. London: Thames & Hudson, 1975.
Williams, Donald, In our own Image: The Story of Australian Art. Sydney: McGrawHill, 1995.
Journals
Christopher, Chapman, The body of the text: James Gleeson’s poem-drawings, 1990, Art & Australia, Vol.28:2:229-233.
James, Gleeson, What is Surrealism? 1940, Art in Australia, no.25:27-30.
Christopher, Heathcote, The Visceral Eye of James Gleeson, 1994, Art Monthly Australia, Canberra, no.75:26, 28-29.
Geoffrey, Smith, James Gleeson, 2003, Art & Australia, Vol.40:4:626-633.