BMA 1989.39

Colescott realizes that some people might be offended by his work or even reject it outright. Still, he says, "I've never felt that there were any boundaries or limits to what I might do."

The subject matter of The Three Graces: At the Bathers Pool (Venus Is Still Venus) is both easy and difficult. It is easy to describe the picture: Four nude women are standing in or near a pool of turquoise water. Three of the women are black and one is white. On the left, pressed into the corner, sits a young man with an apple. The landscape is rocky, brilliantly colored, and barren.

That being said, it gets more difficult to be sure what the painting is really about. The white woman, whoever she is, strikes a raw nerve. Towering over the other figures with hand defiantly on her hip, she displays a mangled body that has very little sensual appeal. Her glaring eye, although blue, has no warmth. Her mouth, although bright red, is tight and nasty. Her hair, although blond, looks like a brass helmet.

The black women, whose poses are more inviting, eye the white woman tentatively, perhaps well aware of their greater allure, but also uneasy about her dominant position and disagreeable frame of mind.

The male figure, nearly camouflaged against the rocks in the corner, seems unsure how to react to the scene being played out before him. Already partially cropped by the left edge of the painting, he looks as if he might be trying to ease his way out of the picture while nobody is looking.

Although we can't pinpoint exactly what's happening in this picture, it is clear that the mood is uncomfortable. Colescott is not trying to paint a pleasant afternoon at the pool. "I'm painting about ideas," he said.

During the 1980s, Colescott was seeking ways to make the public aware of the standard female stereotype that American society had created to help sell products. Colescott describes her this way:

"Diabolically effective, she has big breasts, long legs, slender hips, and is usually blonde with big blue eyes. She promises pleasure, active companionship, and racial status. Men spend, buy, and perform for her favors."

Colescott found himself wondering why in this diverse country there seemd to be a single standard of beauty. So he made some paintings "...as messages from myself to myself, getting in touch with my own fears, frustration, and anger," he explained.

"...My recent [Bathers Pool] series, which depicts the fictional first encounter between two "pure" races, deals with the clash of African and European cultural standards of beauty. In these paintings, I have invented a kind of African female archetype. Loosely based on the proportion and exaggeration of African art, she looks a little like a living African sculpture."

Colescott pursues his concern about multiple standards of beauty in modern society in The Three Graces: At the Bathers Pool (Venus Is Still Venus) by retelling an ancient Greek myth, "The Judgement of Paris." In this story, Zeus gives a young prince named Paris the thankless task of deciding which of three goddesses is the most beautiful. He must award a golden apple marked "For the Fairest" to the winner.

Colescott dutifully paints the women (four rather than three) and Paris with his apple off in the corner, but he adds a new twist to the story by asking "What if the women were of different races?" What standards of beauty would apply? How would the women of different races regard each other? What kind of competition would the women feel among themselves? Would the hapless Paris ever be able to make a decision?

It may seem strange that in retelling this story, Colescott has made none of the women especially beautiful. The white woman, in particular, appears shrewish and grotesque. Is this a picture of her actual physical appearance or a picture of a nasty heart and soul? Will this unappealing woman be given the apple simply because she is white? Do the black women have a chance at winning the apple or does the title "Venus Is Still Venus" suggest that the standards of beauty are inflexible? Is Colescott poking fun at all beauty contests? Or is he using the beauty contest to question the way society attaches more value to one group of people than another?

"I think satire is one way of talking about subject matter that's so serious that it's hard to get at, hard to get people to think about, that people are embarrassed about or afraid of."

Robert Colescott, who was born of Creole parents, has long been interested in questions of race, class, and gender. In the 1960s, Colescott spent two years in Cairo, Egypt where he was immersed for the first time in a non-white culture.

"It meant a lot to me in terms of my self-esteem because here was a whole country and everybody, from the top to the bottom, was African. For me to experience that wiped out a lot of doubts I had about myself, my strengths, my place in the culture and fears I had about my identity. It was, I think, maybe the strongest of any adult experience I've had."

Colescott painted his "Bathers Series" while teaching at the University of Arizona, where the view of the desert landscape near Tucson brought his experience in Egypt back to mind. When he started to paint, he intended to paint a simple landscape with nudes, free, for once, of politics. But as usual, his political concerns became a part of the painting as he dealt with the questions of multiple standards of beauty.

Colescott is the first to admit that his work can be "tough and disagreeable," that it takes on "provocative, trouble-making themes" and presents people with "images they do not wish to confront." Still, it is popular. One of Colescott's favorite reviews appeared in The New York Times. Critic John Canaday wrote:

"...there was this exhibit by Robert Colescott, and it was vulgar and obnoxious and it went against all values of good taste and high art, and to my embarrassment I like it."