Philip Guston: Mother and Child (1930)

Early in his career Guston showed heavy influence from Picasso and the Mexican Muralists (Lucie-Smith- pg. 185) as is evident in this work. At the young age of 17, Philip Guston used common household paint to create his 1^st fully developed painting named Mother and Child. I would classify Guston’s art as expressionism which he evolved his work into abstract expressionism soon after this piece. When we compare this image with his other works, such as painting no. 9, the use of figures in Mother and child allow the viewer to read see the story entailed.

This woman bathing her child represents the bond between parent and child. Such an image as this one, most of Guston’s work can be traced back to his childhood when he found his father dead after he had committed suicide (Farthing- pg. 440). The absence of the father figure in this picture shows that Philip lost touch with his father and in his absence gained a close bond with his mother. I believe that the use of dark colors in this piece tell of the shattered emotions he shelters from the loss of his father. The baby in this picture represents the dependency he developed to his mother in context of the bath and dangling from her lap.

Though I am fonder of his later works, which moved more towards pop art and looked almost “cartoon like”, I chose this work of art to represent Guston’s evolution of his artistic style. Guston constructs the figures as lifeless forms, almost statue like, much in the way that Picasso’s classical style. The environment of this piece is very open and dark which the walls are incomplete and the dark blue sky with gray clouds. Guston uses his canvas in this work to tell a tale to the viewer of a deeper message than the story of life. I believe this is not a story of a woman with her baby as much as a story about the baby being with its mother.