Art, Style, & Humor

    An artist’s style speaks to many things: her experiences, her likes and dislikes, her intentions and points, and, sometimes, her sense of humor. Maira Kalman’s style is no different. Kalman can paint well, as she proves, yet she mostly seems to fall into more juvenile mistakes and stylistic choices. Why? Because she is showing us how she wants us to see the world she’s describing: through a childlike sense of simplicity and wonder, as she explains to us just why it’s so silly to make things serious.

    Her artistic chops are revealed in the occasional painting (for example, her portrait of Abe Lincoln on page 111), and yet others (such as the box on page 104, which has no sense of perspective whatsoever) are warped by rookie errors. But as her expert brushstrokes and color selection, as well as the occasional proof of classical skills and her ability to be less realistic and yet not jarringly incorrect, display, Kalman is a capable artist in the traditional sense. So, much like with comic artists and cartoonists, one can see that her style is not based off of not being able to draw realism, but a conscious choice not to.

    A good example of her stylistic choices is the portrait of Nietzsche on page 133. While much more realistic than many other persons she draws, the image is much more caricatured than the photograph it is based off of. His eyes are less crazy, hair less detailed – in fact, it seems that Kalman paid little attention in her painting on anything but the mustache, which she exaggerated to emphasize her comments in the written section. It is difficult for the reader to disagree with her statements while seeing that, and the ridiculousness of his appearance highlights her joke at his philosophy’s expense. This shows how her art choices are made to emphasize her wit and intentions.