Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975), Swampland

Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975)
Swampland, 1941
Lithograph on paper, 17 ¾ x 12 ¾ inches

Gift of Ursula and R. Stanley Johnson in Honor of the Reverend Richard L. Hillstrom Benton’s moody lithograph is based on drawings he made in southern Louisiana. It is one of six the Missouri-born Regionalist made in conjunction with Jean Renoir’s film Swamp Water, which was based on Vereen Bell’s novel of the same name (both, like the print, dating to 1941). The story deals with life near the notorious Okefenokee Swamp in southeastern Georgia and northeastern Florida. The other five prints in the series depict the main characters, including young Ben Ragan, who dares to venture out on the Swamp even though it is reputed to be populated by spirits. This haunting image features a dark swamp full of cypress trees and Spanish moss, with an empty boat floating near the middle. Just behind the boat is a weathered, bare tree trunk, highlighted stark white. In his 1951 autobiography, An Artist in America, Benton commented on the “forbidding beauty” of cypress swamps, noting in particular the strong visual effect of dead trees. Here, the tree has the appearance of a bone, while actual bone, in the form of a skull propped on a crudely formed cross, is found in the lower left of the print. The skull is a motif that Benton used again in his 1945 painting After Many Springs, in which it and a rusted revolver are shown overgrown with vegetation, while in the background a farmer struggles to plow his land. In that work, the skull indicates past troubles, whereas in Swampland, it adds to the mystery and sense of foreboding.

Text from the catalogue for the exhibition The Eight, The Ashcan School, and The American Scene in the Hillstrom Collection, presented in the Hillstrom Museum of Art February 25 through April 21, 2013.