Stag at Sharkey's

Stag at Sharkey's by George Bellows

When he first joined the art world, George Bellows was a follower of Robert Henri and The Eight ("apostles of ugliness") -- a group Bellows later joined. Henri and The Eight rejected French Impressionism and American painting that glorified the American West and instead sought realism in art, finding inspiration in their hometown, New York City. Henri's circle produced paintings that were dark, dirty, and reflective of life in a changing America. Bellows's Stag at Sharkey's embodies this gritty outlook of life and in doing so perfectly captures the violent, masculine nature of this era in New York's rich history. At the time of completion of this painting, 1909, boxing or prizefighting was illegal. Nevertheless many people came out to places like Sharkey's to see the spectacle and business was booming for underground boxing clubs. Bellow's captures the audience's violent expressions and sick pleasure in the fight but pictures the boxers themselves in an almost graceful light. Sister Wendy Beckett comments on this contrast between the fighters and audience and how Bellows saw them:

"Now, if you look at the kind of people who've come to watch, you can see that Bellows didn't respect them.... If Bellows felt an amazed disgust for the viewers, he didn't feel that for the boxers. He Admires them. "

Bellows also commented on his representation of the fighters in 1910, saying that

"I am not interested in the morality of prize fighting. But let me say that the atmosphere around the fighters is a lot more immoral than the fighters themselves"

The Belvedere Torso

Bellows's verbal critique of the atmosphere surrounding the fight suggests an artist is looking onto the drama of the fight just as all the other spectators are. In the act of painting Stag at Sharkey's, Bellows was thus actively engaging himself in the thrill of the fight as this artist.

 In his composition of the fighters, Bellows uses an extremely dramatic curve to stress the back of the fighter on the right. This curve is reminiscent of The Belvedere Torso, a Graeco-Roman marble sculpture. The fighter's face is shrouded giving him the anonymity of the sculpture. The two also seem to have equally as massive strength given their muscle definition. There is no doubt Bellows was referencing the torso, and yet, very unlike the sculpture, Bellows uses slashing brushstrokes to magnify the violence of boxing and exaggerate this muscular, primal performance.

For more on Stag at Sharkey's and it's themes of "boxing, violence, and male identity" read Robert Haywood's piece from the Chicago Journal (1988): http://matrix.msu.edu/hst/hst324/media/bellows.pdf
and view A Stag at Sharkey's George Bellows.


Sources:
http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2012/bellows
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/sisterwendy/works/sta.html