Jeff Wysaski
No. I’m sorry Jean Jacques, but this painting still isn’t right. I appreciate the addition of the roaring tiger to this newest iteration, but I’m afraid there still isn’t enough danger in this painting.
If you recall, when I first asked you to do this painting for me, my initial instructions were to simply have you create a painting with the title, “In the Garden of Good and Evil.”
For your first draft, you returned to me with a portrait of Adam and Eve taking a bite from the forbidden fruit. Forgive me for asking you this, but are you retarded? What kind of moron hears the phrase “In the Garden of Good and Evil,” and goes off and paints a picture of Adam and Eve?
Any REAL artist knows that all the greatest paintings in the world are a metaphor for something else! You can’t just go around doing literal visual depictions of what you are actually trying to paint! Classic example – Georgia O’Keefe didn’t just paint flowers – she painted vaginas!
More importantly, art is supposed to stir the senses. And what’s the most immediate and impactful emotion? FEAR! And what causes fear? DANGER!
Which is why I was much more pleased when you came back to me with a picture of a modern man wrestling with a snake. “Yes, now we are on the right track,” I thought to myself. Unfortunately, this made me think of train tracks and how there wasn’t a train in the painting.
To me, the absence of a train bearing down on our modern-day “Adam” seemed like an obvious omission. After hours of debate, you eventually agreed with me. A similar path was taken to get you to incorporate the tiger into the painting.
After all, the modern “dangers” of evil in this world encompass far more than a simple serpent. The train does an excellent job of indicating the man-made evils that cause danger to us humans. Similarly, the tiger represents Tony the Tiger, and how sugary breakfast cereals can lead to childhood obesity and diabetes.
But there are still many other fears in this world – none of which are presently represented in your latest draft. For example, for some reason our hero is not wrestling the tiger and snake on the edge of a massive cliff. That seems like a missed opportunity to me. I mean, do I really need to remind you that a fear of heights is one of the most common fears in the world.
On a similar note, why not put a bunch of notecards in the hand of “Adam” and paint an outdoor auditorium of people off to the left there? Why, you ask? Because public speaking is the world’s NUMBER ONE BIGGEST FEAR!
I mean, seriously, could you imagine trying to give an important speech to a giant crowd, all the while wrestling a tiger and snake on the edge of a cliff while a train was barreling down on you? Put the hero’s head in a guillotine and have him asking a girl he likes out on a date, and now we’re getting somewhere!
So no, Jean Jacques. I’m afraid this painting isn’t good enough to warrant a passing grade for 7th grade art class. If you don’t learn to give 100 percent, then I’m afraid you’re not going to get very far in life at all. So take back this piece of crap on a canvas that you call a painting and go back to the drawing board!
The semester ends tomorrow. I look forward to seeing your masterpiece by the end of the school day.
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