The Hero in the Face of God: An Interview with Noah Buchanan

Hi John,

Noah Buchanan is a figurative artist whose work focuses on multi-figure compositions that bring the ethos of classical myth into the modern age. Currently based in California, he studied classical drawing and painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts as well as at the New York Academy of Art, with a strong focus in figure and anatomy. He has exhibited extensively both in the US and abroad, and teaches painting and drawing at several colleges and universities in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Noah was the recent recipient of the Salmagundi Club's Library Door commission, which was installed in the historic NYC Salmagundi Club in November of 2021. He joined BoldBrush for a conversation about this commission and the themes of mythic symbolism that run through it. In his artist's statement, Noah states that he is primarily interested in depicting the human figure as a vessel which confronts and grapples with the Divine. In this interview he explores that concept and how it is related to this recently completed commission, which, unlike much modern figurative art, is directly allegorical.

Enjoy,

BoldBrush Studio Team

Noah started his explanation of the symbolic role of the figure grappling with the divine by going all the way back to his first childhood influences. "My roots as a young artist were the classic hero-stories of American culture. The visual influences that I grew up with included lots of superhero books like Spider-Man and Batman. I had a Spider-Man coloring book that I would not only color in, but also copy the drawings from. I remember being really fascinated by the anatomy, intrigued by the repeating patterns of light and dark that occurred over and over again. The interesting thing is, although of course I wasn't aware of it at the time, that the idea of chiaroscuro was picked up by the comic book artists from classical art. Later, I would see these same concepts, on a more sophisticated level, in classical Greek sculpture, and connect with them on a visceral level because of that early influence. The first Star Wars movie came out a year after I was born, and those films also had a tremendous impact on my visual imagination as a child. But what resonated most deeply, even more than the exciting visuals, was Joseph Cambell's idea of the hero's journey, of which Luke Skywalker is the perfect example. That idea really appealed to me. Around the same time The Raiders of the Lost Ark came out, and that had a similar effect. The scene where Indiana Jones is in the map room, and he has the staff and the medallion that will catch the light at just the right angle and reveal the secret location of the Ark of the Covenant, really struck a chord with me as a little kid. It was a delicious feeling to me that this little human being, just an ant on the globe of the earth, somehow had the tools to reveal the voice of God. Also, I grew up going to Sunday school, so I was taught a lot of Bible stories and had lots of picture books about old testament Biblical narratives. They also had that idea, that a mortal could interact and communicate with God, and that appealed to me. I was also steeped early on in a lot of Classical Greek myths, and those really enchanted me too. It was the same theme, the idea of a little mortal being being confronted or guided or thwarted by these divine beings. All of these things wove a theme that would stay with me for the rest of my life; whether it's explicitly or implicitly implied, I think the idea of the hero in the face of God often comes through my paintings."

"In high school I became fascinated by Da Vinci's anatomical drawings. My parents and grandparents were of the generation that were enamored by modernism; at that point I already knew I wanted to be a painter, so they gave me a lot of books about modernist and impressionist painters. Funnily enough, it was always the little black-and-white thumbnails in the book introductions, of paintings by the masters who inspired the modernists - like Rembrandt and Velazquez - that really interested me. I remember seeing aNational Geographicarticle on the cleaning of the Sistine chapel, and I could not get enough of those figures. Particularly the figure of the Libyan Sibyl, I copied the heck out of that one! I had a love affair with Michelangelo, with Leonardo daVinci, all the Renaissance masters of anatomy and chiaroscuro. At the same time I became intrigued with Durer's work, the laborious hatching and detail. When I was about sixteen my mom brought a book on José de Ribera home from the library and said "Here, I think you're going to like this." I cracked it open and it was a gut-wrenching feeling of recognition on so many levels: both the intense chiaroscuro he used and the narratives and meanings behind the images. I'm thinking specifically of Ribera's painting ofSaint Jerome and the Angel, where the angel is coming out of the sky while St. Jerome is translating the Bible and the angel is speaking to him. Here again was the idea that the fabric of our reality can be ripped open and God, or an angel, comes and gives us some direction. This painting has always been seared in my brain, not only for its realism but for the poetic use of the chiaroscuro to represent the balance of good and evil, the idea that in the light there is God and in the shadow is the absence of God. This poetic idea that in the light we are watched by God but in the shadow we doubt that and think that maybe we are alone. And acknowledging that there's the possibility that that's true - the grappling with that concept is distinctly human. We hope that we are observed and cared for and guided by a higher power, but maybe we're not, and I like the tension created by that. We don't really know, and as human beings we're stuck with that. I think that comes through in my work, the notions both that we are being confronted by the divine presence in the light and also confronting the shadow of the absence of God."

Those are the themes that Noah has incorporated into his Library drawings. "The moment I saw the call for submissions for this commission, I immediately wanted to go for it. I love the idea of allegorical figures - as a figurative artist, to get to use the figure symbolically is one of the most delicious ideas. Not painting a literal individual, but the human form as representative of some aspect of the human drama. That's exciting to me, so I had to try for this commission. I loved the idea so much that I made a promise to myself that even if I didn't win - and I didn't think I would, really, what were the odds - I would make these paintings anyways. So that very night I sat down to scribble out some initial concepts, very loose sketches dreaming about what could possibly be. At that stage it really just comes out of your unconscious, and the gestures of the poses came first. To surprise and maybe set my submission apart from other entries, I decided to do two figures per door, and realized that if I had two concepts together there had to be some kind of narrative, some kind of conversation between them. And I thought, Conversation! That's what I do, I try to depict the conversation between the divine and the mortal. So the concept grew from that idea of conversation."

"The left panel fell into place fairly quickly; since this was geared toward a public commission, I was thinking about serving my audience and what would suit both the place and the artists who go there. Trying to think of things that connect to the Salmagundi tradition itself. It's a club of artists, who are visual people, and while it includes other disciplines, it's predominantly a group of painters. So I knew I wanted a painter in the work as the hero of the story, which goes back to the idea of the 'hero's journey'. And then vision is essential to painters, so one of the figures had to be visual perception. Here was a great opportunity to bring in the recurring theme of the divine communicating with the mortal: the second allegorical figure could be light. Our eyes are designed to work through light coming in, and a consistent thing I hear from my new students is "art is really all about learning how to see!" I love the moment when that clicks. Art is all about how you see and understand your vision, so this was a beautiful opportunity to incorporate light as a divine thing and a teacher of the painter. And of course I love Caravaggio, who always has these angels tumbling out of the sky. My son who's fifteen looks just one of those angels right now, so I asked him to pose as the angel descending out of the clouds. I wanted him to be in the pose of instructing the painter how light works; he's holding up a prism demonstrating white light being broken into its colors. That concept came together quickly, basically in that one evening. I added the palette because I thought it was such a great opportunity to tie the panels in with Salmagundi's wonderful collection of palettes there in the library, it makes reference to the library's tradition and it's such fun to have palettes above the door and then have one in the door as well."

"But then I had to come up with something for the other door; that one took more thought. I returned to the idea that I needed to serve the library first and foremost - what would its visitors appreciate? But also I was thinking about the fact that if I didn't win I needed to make something I would be excited about painting anyways. I settled on education, with intelligence in the background, since it's in a library. Again there's that human-divine conversation going on, between the idea of an external intelligence that informs us and the person who absorbs it. So there's the allegorical figure of intelligence in the background holding up a mythological celestial globe with illustrations of the constellations. The idea of the library as a symbol worked into that really well, because in ancient literature the library is the symbol of the universe as we know it, and intelligence is holding aloft this connection to the universe."

"The serendipity of the symbolism is one of the things I love about this project; before I started researching much, I decided I would clothe the figure of intelligence in gold, because knowledge is precious and gold is our most precious resource, and to have him holding up the celestial globe as a symbol of the universality of knowledge. The other figure, of education, I thought should be a child who's reading, because that just pictures education so well. Then I decided I should look into an old text that one of my mentors used to love,Iconologiaby Cesare Ripa, an Italian scholar. He wrote this text in the 17th century, breaking down all the symbols of ideas like 'goodness', 'wealth', 'rage' et cetera, and he drew little illustrations of what each figure should depict, as well as a written account of what must be included for the allegory to embody that virtue. And the written account for 'Intelligence' literally said 'a figure cloaked in gold - holding aloft a globe.' It gave me chills, it shows the universality of these images and how well they can embody these ideas. Whether we know it in our conscious mind or in our unconscious, these concepts are there inside all of us. One thing Ripa added that I hadn't thought of was that the figure of intelligence is holding a serpent. 'The serpent crawls on the earth and delves into the earth the way the human mind investigates the sciences.' I liked that, and added the serpent as a nod to Ripa. And then when I looked up the figure of 'Education' inIconologia, it said 'a child deeply engrossed in a book.' I was so excited that I hit upon the same images as Ripa had so many years ago.

"I knew who the models would be right away - I wanted my wife to pose as the painter, she's absolutely my muse, and the angel would be my son, and the girl on the globe would be my daughter. The figure ofIntelligenceis a dear old long-time friend and model who lives near me and we've been close friends for ages. All of these people are close to me and I've had good fortune in the past with painting them, so I hoped some of that luck would spill over into this project. And it did! I hope it will connect to everyone that visits, that it will inspire them and they will see something of themselves in these paintings. I love the idea of connecting people visually - every piece of artwork is a communication to the viewer on some level, even if it's just an academic study where it's a matter of communicating to your viewer where the light is and where the shadow is. When you add a narrative in addition to the formal aspects, you're juggling with multiple levels of communication. It's a challenge but a beautiful thing when it's accomplished well."

As the finale to this project, Noah gave an in-person presentation during the celebratory event for the unveiling of the completed doors at the Salmagundi Club, where he received the award for the completion of the library commission. It was the first time he got to see his paintings installed in the library. "It was so much fun, I felt completely honored. I'm so excited to be a part of the history of the club and a small part of the fiber of New York City, a place that I love so intensely. I spent a lot of time there as a student and later returned to teach, and having my work in a building which is a part of the history of New York City is incredible. Going all the way back to my childhood inspiration, it might seem embarrassing that I was inspired by something as ordinary as Batman. But I would encourage each one of you to check in with your own childhood inspirations and, if it was something you were moved by, it doesn't matter at what age, check in with those things. They might be embarrassing, like a cartoon or an album cover, but even if you don't feel like they hold meaning for you now, you need to return to them and ask what it was in that piece of work that moved you. And if it's something that you're avoiding or hiding from, you need to figure it out because the part of you that liked that is still with you and it's going to come out of your unconscious into your work somehow. As an artist you have to look at all the things that inspire you, even if it's a comic book, because those things form your visual identity. That Batman artist was looking at the masters too! It all comes around full circle."
Many thanks to Noah for this interview! You can see more of his work on hiswebsiteor keep up with the latest updates on hisInstagram.

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