Hood Museum of Art

Ordinary to Extraordinary

by Justin Dormitzer

“The Grand Artificer, Young and Old”, takes an ordinary scene and makes it extraordinary. In this piece there are two canvases that make up the painting. James McGarrell painted it as homage to James Joyce. Joyce is shown as a young man strumming a guitar in the left-hand panel and as an older man juggling canes on the right. Old Joyce is on the shore of a river and young Joyce is on a stool in the river itself.

What makes the painting stand out is its unique color scheme. It has all sorts of blues and greens mixed in with yellows and oranges. It even has purple and pink in it. The two canvases have different skies even though the rest of the scene flows together. On the right the sky is black and very dark blue with stars. On the left canvas, oranges and yellows of a sunrise complement the blues of the night sky.  

There are two mirrors on the canvases, each one reflecting the opposite canvas’s sky. The amount of detail that went into every piece of the painting is incredible. From a distance the guitar that the young Joyce is strumming looks regular but a closer look reveals an entire spectrum of color.

Another thing that makes the painting so appealing to look at is that it’s dreamlike nature and attention to detail. If you look closely you can notice things that you wouldn’t be able to notice from afar such as a house in the background and a wheelbarrow. Overall, this painting gives a sense of mystery and surrealism and is executed with the utmost attension to detail.