The art world is very thin, emotional,expressive. For many it is no longer a secret that the picture is able to convey not only the artistic intent of the creator, but also his mental state, inner world at the time of creation of the work. One of the most striking illustrations of this statement is Bill Stoneham's The Hands Resist Him.
About the author of the picture very little is known, thatgives the ground for imagination and dorisovyvaniya image of the creator. American artist Bill Stoneham was born in 1947. After birth, his mother named Miller (this is the only thing that is known about her) left the boy in the shelter, where he spent the first nine months of his life. Then he was adopted by the average American family of Stoneham.
How was Bill's relationship with his parents,how his school years passed and the emergence as an artist began - a mystery covered in darkness. And the darkness in the history of Stoneham and his paintings abound. Who is he, the real Bill Stoneham, whose paintings are painted in the spirit of surrealism - a man trying to express his pain or just a showman?
The artist became really famous afterthe creation of the picture The Hands Resist Him, which translates as "Hands resist him." The painting was written in 1972. And in the same year is represented at the exhibition. Cloth in the visitors caused tears, especially sensitive even fainted.
The first owner of the picture was the owner of the editionLos Angeles Time. After a while after buying the canvas, he suddenly died. The eerie picture of Bill Stoneham passed to the next owner, actor John Marley. Two months later he died. The actor's family blames the canvas for the death of Marley and throws it onto the dump.
In the same place, in a dump, it is found by an American family,and brings it to his house. The same night the youngest daughter begins to see nightmares and assert that the children in the picture are fighting. This went on for a while, and the family father decides to install a video camera in the room with the picture, which reacts to the movement. The camera turns off several times, but motion is not visible on the recording. The family expose The Hands Resist Him for sale in the online auction eBay. The description of the lot is accompanied by his questionable history and a warning to the future buyer about the potential danger.
The story of Bill Stoneham's painting acquiresterrible glory and overgrown with legends. Administrators of the site receive letters with complaints about ill health and nightmares after contact with the picture. It becomes so raspiarennoy that the number of page views with this lot reaches thirty thousand. In the end, the picture of Bill Stoneham was sold to Kim Smith. He placed it in his picture gallery.
Идеей для создания полотна послужила фотография the very same artist, where he was sealed at the age of five next to his sister. Having discovered this photo in the parent's house, Stoneham complements it with surreal details. The picture is painted in the spirit of the forties. The paint creates the impression of a yellowed photo.
The author depicted on it looks notchild, but a fifty-year-old man. The doll standing next to him makes us think with empty orbits. She looks alive, but the articulations on her hands give out artificiality. With a bright sunny day that gives shadows on the faces of the heroes of the picture, the darkness behind the door contrasts. What is there, inside the house, the viewer can only guess. But we can clearly see children's palms stretching and resting against the glass doors.
Sam Bill Stoneham describes the content of the pictureso: "A doll is a guide to the world of dreams. The glass door divides the real world from the fantasy world. Children's palms are unrealized opportunities and lives. " We can only guess what it is - the world of dreams and fantasies of a five-year-old baby.
If you look at the artist's life story throughprism of this canvas, it is possible to interpret its content. For the person the most important, fundamental for later life are the first months after birth. Bill Stoneham, whose pictures amaze with his abstraction from the real world, spent this time at the orphanage. When the child was supposed to be in the hands of his mother, he lay alone in his crib. This is the deepest trauma of a lonely baby, which the artist gave excellent. Having a family, he feels alienated. Sister for him as if lifeless, because he is not taught close relationships in the first months of life. Surrealism is an attempt to escape from the real world, cold and not accepting, into a world of fantasy - also not the most iridescent.
If we look at the picture without taking into accountattention to its eerie aura, then you can see just a canvas that conveys the pain of a little man. The reaction of sensitive people to the plot of the picture is simply explained - he has resonated with their childish trauma. The second owner of The Hands Resist Him died at the age of 77 years. Description of the lot on the online auction allowed to sell the picture is not for the starting 199, but for $ 1025.
Years later, Bill Stoneham created paintings thatcontinued in the dynamics of the plot of the work "Hands resist him." In each subsequent canvas the author grew older, and the doll more and more acquired the features of a lively girl. Analyzing these facts, the picture seems less and less mystical and more and more like a successful PR move.
To date, the canvas is still ingallery of Kim Smith. Apparently, in anticipation of the moment when the scandalous picture of Bill Stoneham will reach the maximum in the price. The artist himself continues to live in California and write surrealistic canvases, as well as digital images for editions.
Bill Stoneham, whose paintings have gained popularity thanks to The Hands Resist Him, became in some way a legend and secured a comfortable old age.
