'Braves'
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Notes : Primarily a figurative painter, Hodgins is best known for his satirical depictions of stock characters. Pin-striped businessmen, military generals and other figures of authority have all been subject to his scrutiny. The braves of the current lot are a less common trope. The landscape has been stripped down to its essentials; two lonely tepees to the right and a rising smoke signal to the left are all that remain. The two braves in the foreground have been simplified almost to the point of abstraction. The ability of these figures to survive in this inhospitable landscape suggests that 'brave' is an epithet for these men, not merely a social indicator. Titles were of great importance to Hodgins, as Brenda Atkinson observes: "[He] is not of that generation of artists who title their work Untitled: if words can add one or more possible layers of signification to a painting, he uses them to do so...image and text function powerfully as mutually invested identities." Bibliography B. Atkinson, Robert Hodgins, (Cape Town, 2002) p.14.
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