Bridal Spell
Artist
Jess
(American, 1923–2004)
Date1979
Mediumcollage mounted on plywood board
Dimensions118.1 x 166.7 cm (46 1/2 x 65 5/8 in.)
ClassificationsCollages / Assemblages
Credit LineGift of Bradley C. Higgins
Object number1981.7
Label TextJess (born Burges Collins but dropped his last name in the 1940s) was a San Francisco-based artist who worked outside the contemporary art mainstream throughout his career. He initially studied chemistry and spent three years at the Atomic Energy Laboratory, where he had a small part in the Manhattan Project to develop the first atom bomb. He became disillusioned with science after having a nightmare about the world destroying itself, and embarked on a career in art.
Jess’s art is about the retrieval of images from a culture overflowing with them. In Bridal Spell, an example of his elaborate collages which he called “paste-ups,” he created fantastic juxtapositions from far-ranging references. Compositionally based on Peasant Wedding, a 16th-century painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the image morphs from details of females by Sandro Botticelli and Alphonse Mucha to skydivers, automobiles, and myriad flora and fauna.
He wrote, “Stream of consciousness is a muddle-headed phrase. It’s not a stream, it’s a pool, a sea, an ocean. It has depth and greater depth and when you think you have reached its bottom there is nothing there, and when you give yourself up to one current you are suddenly possessed by another.”
Jess embraced collage for its ability to create new meanings for objects that once had significance in other contexts. He was particularly drawn to imagery “corroded with sentiment,” responding to the viewer’s natural inclination to assign meaning by creating juxtapositions of competing events that refuse to reveal a clear narrative.
His bizarre and often humorous additions create worlds built from fantasy, mythology, outer space, and the psyche. For Bridal Spell he placed three-dimensional found objects—puzzle pieces and autumn leaves—among photographic material that included reproductions of artworks. The man pouring wine into jugs, the bagpiper, and the two figures carrying a cart with plates of food come from reproductions of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s painting The Peasant Wedding (1567).
ProvenanceBradley C. Higgins, Worcester, MAOn View
Not on view
