Children Of The Corn; Photos
Haystacks by Martin Johnson Heade
~~~
Our headlights slide
over a scarecrow
made of tumbleweeds
standing by the road.
He’s wearing a kimono,
a dark-blue stovepipe hat,
his shoulders cloaked
in a wreath of chrysanthemums.
We pull over,
back up,
and he disappears
into the pale-
grey darkness.
“Of the hundreds of artists who have represented hay in their work, the one who has depicted hay most often is the nineteenth century American Luminist painter, Martin Johnson Heade (1819-1904 ). Our virtual collection now includes about 120 (roughly twice as many as those produced by the second most prolific hay painter, Camille Pissarro). Most of these 120 can be reductively summarized to variations on the same motif cluster: several haystacks, usually one large and others diminishing in size to draw the eye into and across the landscape; a sinuous tidal waterway serving both as another perspectival device and a mirror to amplify the presence of the stacks; flat marshland, sometimes framed by willows or low fluvial terraces; sunlight and sky in the process of imminent rapid change, either at dusk or under the influence of passing storms or the filtering of transient fogs; and a barely conspicuous human presence, wagons being loaded, ruined wagons or staddles collapsing into the marsh, and tiny workers or hunters or fishermen, investing the omnipresent stacks with even more monumentality.” Hay In Art
The plaque next to the painting Haystacks states this red spot is a worker returning from the field; I think it is rather scarecrowish?
Have you noticed scarecrows “cropping up” on every block on the street? Every state, every town. I wondered if some if Target or Walmart were running a sale on them. Hay Zombies, I think… Children of the Corn.
You round the corner and there is one, your height, staring you right in the eye. Disturbing!
LA -> SF. Bright ribbons of tinfoil border the edges of the corn fields.
What a wonderful, Autumn post and perfect for our return to Indian Summer. Hope you have been well these last weeks. Take care
I’m loving your corn!
That made me smirk, no other word for it. I now have visions of armies of those scarecrows marching out of stores and staking themselves into the ground in front of people’s homes….
I enjoyed this autumn post so much. I saw below you were playing with a new header. I like the one you put up.
princess; have missed seeing you around here; where have you been?
sandy, carver, thanks so much!
deb; i think so too! i think they are so popular because they can stay up for more then just october – but clear through thanksgiving as well.
what a beautifully woven post of beauty and suspense!
I always love my visits here ~ elk
children of the corn would make me so happy except for the horrible 1970 (s) (?) movie i’m thinking of…..your photos are great and made me giggle for “hay zombies” are popping up in my neighborhood as we speak….aaaaggghhhhhhh
ooo yah, there’s the link….creepy eepy movie…
lovely paintings, hay does look good in art….
I like the corn zombies,,,, in parts of germany they have a lot of quite large corn sculptures in the autumn, corn tractors and figures, wish I had some photos of them….
elk; thanks so much – i always appreciate your return visits!
jean; yes – what an awful movie that was… the movie that would not end; the pointlessness of it. i think hay zombies”hey zombies” would be a great site! thanks for the movie link – am going to check it out now
crafty green – oh that would be great fun; sculptures. we have a maze here by half moon bay; keep thinking of taking photos; but I am not a maze kind of gal. Too stephen king for me!
A corn retrospective….and I especially love the corn field in the last photo…
stephanie… thanks so much. i liked that one too. I may start creating more of my photos that way. your corn is under snow right now from what i understand?