Prodigal Son

There are many artworks that are religious in nature and are specifically trying to depict a likeness that has not been seen for a long time. An example of this is Warner Sallman’s painting of Jesus the Christ’s head. Many people have had spiritual connections with the painting and talked about the sense of comfort that Sallman’s painting of Jesus the Christ’s head gave. In Colleen McDannell’s book there was a section about the significance images played in the home of Christians. Families would hang photos of loved ones next to the photos of prominent religious figures to show status as well as guidance for their loved one.  

In the photo above is a graduation present that one of my cousins gave me. The photo is of a painting of the prodigal son. The Parable of the Prodigal Son is found in the Gospel of Luke and is a story about an impatient young man that wants his inheritance from his father before the father has passed. The young man squanders the inheritance, ends up working as the equivalent of a farmhand, and returns home to his father to beg for forgiveness. The father celebrates the young man’s homecoming as depicted in the painting above. The painting is very vibrant using many colors of royalty such as purple, gold, and white. The artist behind this painting, Alan Hicks, is not trying to paint a portrait of detail like Sallman but Hicks is making a statement by making the characters black. The Characters of the Bible, as demonstrated by Sallman’s Head of Christ, are not typically thought to be black. By making the characters black, Hicks is doing what Ewen, Clement, and Broch said should not be done which is sentimentalize the artwork.   

Since the artwork is a mechanized reprint of an original the question of kitsch, from McDannell’s book, can also be applied to the painting. The painting is however a sentimental piece that tells a story of abandonment and affection for what was lost. The painting can be found on the internet for $31.97 so whoever buys the painting knows that they are not getting a Picasso or a Vincent Van Gogh. But the artist is not what makes the painting valuable. On the contrary, in this case the background knowledge about the prodigal son and knowledge about my cousin gives value to the painting. The downside is that kitsch has the bad reputation of demoralizing and devaluing the great works of art in order to position the lower class with the upper class. For the upper class there is certainly a diminishing effect on the original work when someone mass produces the work to lower the cost but for the consumer the artwork becomes affordable and also heightens the status and esteem of the lower class individual.   

1 S. Colleen McDannell, Material Religion (New Haven: Connecticut, 1995), 32-35.