John Currin's "Thanksgiving" (2003): A Painting's Clever Subversion of a Quintessential American Holiday
Yesterday morning, I was searching for a Thanksgiving-themed artwork to post on my Instagram account, artstigator. I was initially going to use Roy Lichtenstein’s 1961 image of a turkey done in his signature comic book-inspired style of primary hues and Ben-Day dot patterns. But then, everything changed as soon as I encountered a much more recent painting aptly titled Thanksgiving (2003) by the figurative painter John Currin (American, b. 1962). Title aside, this image was perfect for the occasion as this is a vastly different approach to Thanksgiving-themed art for its subtle satirical jabs and predominantly Eurocentric art historical influences, two attributes that automatically put this in conflict with traditional perceptions of what constitutes an “American” representation of Thanksgiving - be it the rustic, homespun festivities of folk artist Grandma Moses’s scenic farm landscapes, the homefront propagandistic-yet-tug-at-your-heartstrings sentimentality of the iconic Freedom from Want painting by Norman Rockwell, or whitewashed attempts at historical depictions of pilgrims feasting with Indigenous Americans in colonial Massachusetts.
Since the 1990s, Currin has focused on portraiture as his preferred genre of painting in which he purposefully depicts his subjects in exaggerated, unidealized, or macabre manners (in one sense, you could describe him as a more palatable version of Francis Bacon as he does not vie for grotesque fleshiness/meatiness of the human body). Currin’s art functions as social satire on a broad spectrum of closely interrelated topics, including: sexuality, beauty, domesticity, sentimentality, humor, etc. It must be stressed another core characteristic of his, which will become readily apparent upon viewing even just one of his paintings like Thanksgiving, is that Currin derives much pictorial inspiration from Renaissance & Baroque artists.
In Thanksgiving, we see three young women in a cozily decadent interior of corinthian columns and silver-framed mirror whilst gathered before a table that occupies the lowest section of the foreground. Each woman is engaged in a separate action: the central figure with the elongated neck and open oval-shaped mouth is about to consume something off of a silver spoon held by the woman standing on the left, while the rightmost woman is seated with her gaze focused on a grape that she holds. Along the table, there is a large raw turkey on a white dish with grapes, an onion, an empty white plate, and a small clear vase of differently colored roses (both fully-bloomed and wilting). Despite this straightforward description, there is much to unpack with this image as this is anything but an ordinary Thanksgiving scene.
Perhaps it would be best to start with the overtly European aesthetics that make this painting appear as if it were set in someplace like 15th Century Flanders or 17th Century Amsterdam. The perspectival wood-paneled ceiling and bronze chandelier recalls the ceiling of the sumptuous interior from Jan van Eyck’s The Arnolfini Portrait (1434). The hyper-focused attention to detail of the uncooked turkey or the mixed roses could very well be an homage to the food still lifes of Clara Peeters or the floral paintings of Jan Brueghel the Younger (the vase, in particular, seems to echo the one from Caravggio’s Boy Bitten by a Lizard). And, of course, the stretched neck of the central woman is unquestionably inspired by the Mannerist painter Parmigianino’s Madonna with the Long Neck. These details alone really defy one’s expectations of the style of any of the aforementioned Thanksgiving scene types. Nevermind the fact that all of this precedes the interpretative phase of this close looking exercise.
Though it has allusions to Thanksgiving, it is important to first note that there is a specific meaning of this painting that is personal to Currin as work on this piece became an “allegory” for the nine-month pregnancy cycle of his wife, the artist Rachel Feinstein (American, b. 1971), who posed for each of the women. Aside from this deeply familial connection, Currin’s darkly comedic touch comes through in a few ways that completely subverts the quaint and festive images with which we are accustomed for this holiday.