Analysis

Man Ray's intention with creating Endgame, along with the other works in the Human Equation series is to experiment with using multiple mediums. Man Ray chose to photograph mathematical objects before painting them in order to mess around with lighting and composition before putting anything down on paper, and from there could add color to what was once based off of a photo. Since this work is from the 1930s, color photography did not exist yet, so in a sense Man Ray pioneered with adding color to real life images, even though they were replicated through paint.

I believe the meaning of Endgame is to not have a meaning. This is a concept that many Surrealist artists took on, and Man Ray set out to make the audience question the deeper meaning of a this scene. What does two wooden mannequins on a chess board with some three-dimensional wooden pieces have anything thing to do with the title or Shakespeare? In an art review published on February 6th this year, author Philip Kennicott quotes Man Ray as he touches on the titles of his works: “'We would play games trying to get people to guess what play belonged to which picture,' he remembered. 'Sometimes they got it right; sometimes of course, they didn’t, and it was just as well!'”. Here, he pretty much calls himself out on the meaningless titles of his works, which I'm sure applies to Endgame as much as the other paintings in this series.

Endgame is just as successful as the other pieces in Man Ray's collection. This kind of art, using many different mediums as tools to create the final painting and then naming it ironically, is not something that can be pulled off easily without seeming like nonsense. Given the time period when this kind of art was avant-garde and unique, Man Ray was successful in creating interesting art. Endgame contains many of the same characteristics as many his other paintings, and definitely drew in an audience that could appreciate his work in both Paris and Hollywood.

My personal preference of this piece is that it would be a more exciting painting had Man Ray spruced up the color and separated from the boring brown and black color palette. The Phillip's Collection contained other pieces from the Human Equations series such as As You Like It II (Hands Free) and Twelfth Night have a broader color palette, making the work more aesthetically pleasing, to me. Overall, I find the composition to be nice and the subject interesting, which is why I chose it.

Context

Man Ray's art was accomplished through combining many different mediums; the original physical object or sculpture, a photograph of it, and his painted rendition or replica. Ray saw these three mediums equally important, with no hierarchy, yet it is his painting that draw the most attention. He used these models to confuse the viewer between animate and inanimate objects, and was said to "humanize inanimate objects and objectify the human body" which is best seen in his painting in which a collection of three-dimensional cones are placed together the make up an image of a woman sitting while holding her legs. His photograph Le Violon d'Ingres does the opposite. Here, Ray takes a woman's bare back and dehumanizes it by placing the violin decoration marks, making the image no longer of the woman, but in a sense of an abstraction of a violin.

 Man Ray spent time in both Paris and Hollywood making art. While in Paris, Ray appealed to Surrealists, such as poet André Breton, and had his work displayed in the Surrealist Paris Copley Galleries. After his move to Hollywood, his work which was once seen as very avant-garde was now appealing to celebrities, artists, composers, writers and filmmakers throughout the 1930s.  Aside from sculpture, camera photography and painting, Man Ray found interest in one other medium in which he self-titled the "Rayograph"also known as Photograms, in which he would place objects onto light sensitive paper to create a "camera-less photo".

What makes Man Ray's work so clever is the ambiguous titles. All of the pieces in Man Ray’s Human Equation series are visually non objective to Shakespeare’s plays, yet they are related to them aside from just the title. Ray’s Shakespearean Equation, King Lear  is a paradox that combines representations from the play, such as pigment dripping to represent tears, geometry and playful artistic vision that Ray and Shakespeare share.

Throughout the Sophomore Seminar course, we've studied mostly more contemporary artists, beside a few including our week ten study questions on Man Ray. He fits in with our discussions because he incorporates many different mediums, which appeals to people in the class on different tracks.

Description

The piece I selected from Man Ray's Human Equations series was Endgame from 1946.  This

watercolor and oil painting was based upon a photograph taken in 1942 in which Man Ray set up two wooden mannequins facing each other, with the one on the right sitting completely. Behind them is just two sculpted pyramids, a curved object and a few spheres. In the photograph, the checkerboard is nonexistent; Ray creates the checkerboard to act as a stage for the mannequins, which represent the queen and king chess pieces as they prepare to make their last moves in a game of chess. The three-dimensional objects behind them also transform when Ray paints them, adding more objects in the foreground and making them give off the impression of chess pieces by positioning them onto the board. The figure on the right who appeared to be sitting in the photo now seems to be in motion, holding itself up by its' hands. Also there is a sense that the figure on the right is a woman, the Queen piece and the figure on the left is a man, or the King piece.

The emotive response I get from this painting is very claustrophobic and hectic. The audience is able to feel the tension as the  King and Queen pieces stare each other down right before the make their last moves. The entire frame is filled and in motion, giving off the tension that is held within the last few moves of a chess game. The narrow color palette consisting of only browns and black gives off an eerie feeling.

Endgame can be associated with chess both conceptually and symbolically. This painting was said to "engage his lifelong fascination with chess and geometric forms," in which as seen in Aline Et Valcour, another painting in Ray's Human Equations series that also includes a wooden mannequin, sphere and pyramid and is based off of a photograph as well. Endgame can also be associated with the Surrealism movement because the scene doesn't quite make sense, and gives off a dreamlike that common in Surrealist work. This piece leaves the audience with a lot of questions. Why does Man Ray represent the King and Queen through wooden mannequins and the other pieces remain as geometric forms rather than mimicking the appearance of actual chess pieces? The wall label suggests that Ray "adopted his own chess designs as players in the background and created a theatrical tableau…"a very Surreal characteristic. Mannequins were a very popular subject among Surrealists. They were fascinated with the "in-between" whether it was dreams that leak into the in between on consciousness or the fake-realness of a mannequin.