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About Thomas Benton
This preparatory painting for an oil and tempera on canvas (John W. Callison Coll., Kansas City; 42¼ x 56¼ in.) was executed in 1934, when Benton was rising like a beacon in theAmerican art world. His self-portrait appeared on the cover of Time magazine at the end of that year (Christmas issue). At that time, Benton became known as a Regionalist, along with John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood, and the media established them as the triumvirate of Regionalists. Benton had already completed the Whitney mural, "The Arts of Life in America" and another mural for the State of Indiana’s exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair (1933).
We know that Benton was extremely interested in his composition to the fullest extent because, in addition to the preparatory work, there are several extant drawings that show the Holiness band; they range in date from 1930 to 1934. Benton’s interest in the healing-by-prayer procedure goes back at least to 1926 when a Holy Roller camp meeting in Western Virginia inspired him. In fact, there is a certain rough similarity to a drawing of 1926 to the interior scene he presents in Lord Heal the Child. As an American Regionalist who was interested in the common population, such a display of spiritual devoutness would have fascinated him for most of his life but especially in 1934 when he focused upon this rather humble congregation in Greenville, South Carolina. The scene depicts worshipers in a "Holiness" church in that town. In his painting style, Benton eliminated superfluous detail to arrive at the fundamental simplicity of the church service. The dynamic of these common folk is second only to their hope to invoke the power of the Holy Spirit to heal the child as she sits surrounded by the lady preacher and the well-meaning congregation. Such an image reveals Tom Benton at his best.
Benton himself described the scene, which he witnessed:
When we got into the House of God the woman preacher was at work on a sickly child. She was praying . . . She stepped quickly back and forth on the pulpit, raised her hands, and prayed again.
After a while I saw Red climb up on the platform. He sat with his banjo among a lot of other players, fiddlers, guitarists, and harmonica blowers. He was moved by the seriousness of the Occasion and I could see his lips saying, "Amen, amen."
The healer started a hymn. The instrumentalists broke in. The congregation burst into voice. The rafters shook. Three or four roaring hymns were sung or stamped. Then the woman preacher started again. Her soft, careful voice droned on and on. The little child, the object of her attention, was asleep in an old man’s arms.
The church was still. Never in a Holiness gathering have I seen such quiet. [Later] tears rolled down the cheeks of the woman preacher. . . ."
The focal point is the preacher with the little girl. To the left in the final version are a trio of singers led by a conductor. Benton used his favorite diagonal composition, defined by the floorboards, while the directional movement of the preacher crosses this diagonal. She forms a classical triangular form, symbolic of her protection of the child.
A few preparatory drawings are known. The painted sketch contains all the elements of the final version. It is kind of elaborate ébauche, a sketch whose emphasis is on broad areas, and in which there is very little detail and only three basic values, minimal modeling and a lack of facial features. Here the figures have a unified cubistic simplicity. All of the forms work wonderfully together in a repetition of the angular shapes of arms and legs and this interlocking of figures creates a perfectly balanced composition. |
Paintings by Thomas Benton
| Lord, Heal the Child |
| oil on canvas: 12½ x 16¾ inches |
| signed: lower right |
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