Corn Field: From Dawn til Dusk

Though not the first, this is one of the most successful of what I sometimes call my “agriscapes.” These are paintings whose composition and color harmonies are determined by the interaction of the agricultural cycle with the land and sky. Long and still ongoing in development, these agriscapes are not simply landscapes with human activity, portraits of machinery, or glorifications of man’s technology as was the case of some modernist artists especially in Europe. 

The weekly readings from the Torah (the Pentateuch), in conjunction with readings from the Prophets, follow the agricultural cycles in Israel. In driving the forty miles to synagogue during my son, Joshua’s Bar Mitzvah training, I observed virtually every aspect that could be seen from a roadside of the yearly agricultural cycle of our two harvest seasons. It is roughly the same as in Israel. Driving home, whatever was happening in the fields outside seemed to be almost exactly what we had read about that Sabbath or Festival day, from plowing, to sowing, to harvest. Our new moon service in the synagogue was actualized in the heavens that evening. The story of Noah is read just before our fall rainy season. When I visited my brother, Baruch, in Netanyah, Israel, that coastal part against the Mediterranean Sea, I saw the same palm trees, the same crops ripening in the fields with only a few weeks difference. There were moments when I thought I was still here in South Texas. I had always been fascinated with everything pertaining to work on the land, both animal and crops, though I have never worked at either, but things started to come together. My love of the Bible began to take on a very physical reality and man’s production of food took on a great spiritual reality. 

The promises of God are simple. If we obey his moral commands, then God will deliver the rain on time for the growing and turn it off in order to have the crops dry for the harvest. I checked it out and South Texas is similar in latitude to the coastal lands of Israel. At times when driving here, I imagine a rope going straight from here to Israel, with myself here at this end in South Texas. I can pull on the rope and sometimes it seems to pull back, some message perhaps. This is a great gift that South Texas has given to me. From here I can lasso Jerusalem.

In this painting, there is a light that seems to evoke both early morning and late afternoon, the times for daily prayer.  My favorite viewing times somehow coalesced in this work. We see the ongoing labor both in the distance and up close as if standing in the soil amidst the crops. Purposely I put the viewer in these two distances, the far and the near. In the foreground, one sees the actual texture of the crops. In his little, enclosed cab space, the farmer sits on the horizon, his machine on the earth, his body projecting into heaven. Like the High Priest, the farmer labors in cosmic time, his farming rituals mediate between the heavens and the earth, God’s throne and footstool. “He rolleth away light from before darkness, And darkness from before light”.