Alexandre Hogue's Passion: Ecology and Agribusiness in the Crucified Land

University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for 2006 Alexandre Hogue's Passion: Ecology and Agribusiness in The Crucified Land Mark Andrew White Oklahoma State University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons White, Mark Andrew, "Alexandre Hogue's Passion: Ecology and Agribusiness in The Crucified Land" (2006). Great Plains Quarterly. 132. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/132 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Published in GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY 26:2 (Spring 2006). Copyright © 2006 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln. ALEXANDRE HOGUE'S PASSION ECOLOGY AND AGRIBUSINESS IN THE CRUCIFIED LAND MARK ANDREW WHITE In 1939, Texas artist Alexandre Hogue com though brief in his or her assessment of the pleted The Crucified Land (Fig. 1), a striking painting, rightly acknowledged the conflation comparison of water erosion on a Denton, of religious morality and ecological principles Texas, wheat farm to the martyrdom of Jesus in the painting. Despite this observation, there of Nazareth. The Crucified Land was originally has been scant critical examination of Hogue's intended as the final canvas of Hogue's Erosion relationship to ecological thought or his appli series, which the artist began in 1932 as a con cation of religious ideals to the painting. demnation of the careless agricultural practices This is not to say that The Crucified Land has that had produced wind and water erosion been ignored by critics or historians, although in his home state'! When Hogue exhibited it has received less attention than paintings The Crucified Land that year at the Carnegie such as Drouth Stricken Area, 1934 (Fig. 2), and International, the painting's provocative reli Erosion No.2 - Mother Earth Laid Bare, 1936 gious overtones drew the notice of one critic, (Fig. 3). The Crucified Land, like its companions who referred to it as the latest in a "series of ser in the Erosion series, has been interpreted as mons on conservation."z The anonymous critic, Hogue's "condemnation of unwise farming prac tices" and his denigration of "man's ignorance of nature."3 This interpretation has been advanced repeatedly since the 1930s as indicated by Key Words: agribusiness, Frederic Clements, Life magazine's 1937 profile characterizing the ecology, Alexandre Hogue, Pare Lorentz, John Erosion series as a "scathing denunciation of Steinbeck man's persistent mistakes."4 Mark Andrew White is Assistant Professor of Art Although Hogue certainly blamed the History at Oklahoma State University. He is currently extreme erosion and dust storms of the 1930s completing a book on American abstraction during the on indifference and negligent husbandry, the 1930s. visual imagery of The Crucified Land indicates that he shifted his criticism of agriculture [GPQ 26 (Spring 2006): 67-83] to the cultural roots of such abuse through 67 68 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2006 FIG. 1. Alexandre Hogue, The Crucified Land, 1939, oil on canvas, 42 x 60 in. Courtesy of Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma. an ecological sensibility. Hogue developed a and right corners. As the gullies infiltrate the contrast in the painting between the verdant field, they threaten to undercut the cadaverous wheat grass and its implication of abundant scarecrow whose tattered overalls barely dis fecundity with the looming disaster of water guise his cruciform support. Future storms will erosion that slinks in serpentine lines from collapse the embankment and send him and the immediate foreground into the lush fields. his rock foundation into the rut. The farmer has plowed downhill and across Hogue's taut draftsmanship gives the eroded the contours of the land with his tractor, terrain the appearance of jagged, flayed flesh, demonstrating a seeming indifference to the and his inclusion of the wasted, cruciform environment but favoring industrial efficiency scarecrow reinforces the comparison in the and hence profit. His reckless cultivation of the painting's title between the scourging of the soil has produced the ideal terrain for water land and the torture of the Passion. Salvation erosion as departing rains at left wash away from this agricultural sin requires immediate the ruddy topsoil of North Texas and form action before the encroaching evil of erosion gullies that will expand with further erosion undermines the entire area. The sinuous gullies until the acreage's fertile potential is literally that snake back into the field add an additional washed away. The resulting wasteland will lack biblical allusion to the devious serpent and a the essential nutrients to sustain crops but will paradise soon lost to the encroaching wilder provide ample support for the needle grass that ness. These pervasive violent overtones in The has already crept into the field in the lower left Crucified Land, when paired with the religious - ALEXANDRE HOGUE'S PASSION 69 FIG. 2. Alexandre Hogue, Drouth Stricken Area, 1934, oil on canvas, 30 x 421/4 in. (76.2 x 107.31 cm.). Courtesy of Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Art Association Purchase. references, indicate an ecological sympathy closely to contemporary commentators such as for the land as a sacred body and an attack on Pare lorentz, John Steinbeck, and Archibald the aggressive practices of agribusiness. 5 The Macleish, who not only attempted to raise Crucified Land associates the loss of paradise public awareness of the abuses of industrial with capitalist exploitation, suggesting a repu agriculture but also invoked religious meta diation of the dominion over nature that God phors to describe the environmental devasta granted humanity in Genesis 1:28 as a justifica tion of the 1930s. tion for environmental plundering dangerous Despite much of the engaging scholarship to both nature and humanity. on Hogue, critics have largely neglected his As such, The Crucified Land indicates a relationship to ecological thought, his religious reverence for nature as a sacred body, rebukes metaphors in The Crucified Land, or the dia the human dominion, and proposes an eco logue between the two. lea Rossen Delong logical relationship with the environment has noted some ecological content in his work, that emphasizes conservation. Hogue's per recognizing that "Hogue's work often suggests sonification of nature in the painting shares a 'cause-and-effect' relationship which illumi much with Depression-era ecologists such as nates the interconnections in nature, of which Frederic Clements, Aldo leopold, and Paul humanity is a part," but did not investigate fur Sears, who not only characterized nature as a ther.6 Hogue's use of religious rhetoric has been delicately balanced organism but also empha discussed to some extent by historian Brad D. sized a symbiosis with nature. It also compares lookingbill, who associated the artist with 70 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2006 FIG. 3. Alexandre Hogue, American (/889-1994), Erosion No.2 - Mother Earth Laid Bare, 1936, oil on canvas, 44 x 56 in. Courtesy of The Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Museum purchase. Sacvan Bercovitch's concept of the American Hogue's upbringing and its relationship to the jeremiad. According to Lookingbill, Hogue was Erosion series. When Alexandre was only six among those "prophetic voices" who "cried out weeks old, his father, Charles Lehman Hogue, in bewilderment about the fate of civilization accepted a Presbyterian pastorate in Denton, when observing disasters."7 The Erosion series Texas. The son would later distance himself not only attempted to alert Americans to the from the church out of disgust at internal crisis but also offered a form of catharsis for politics, and it is possible that his disdain for those suffering through environmental horrors. church dogma contributed to the criticisms Hogue's interpretation of environmental devas suggested by The Crucified Land.9 This is not tation as a moral failure certainly connects him to say that the artist held all of Christianity with the jeremiad, although The Crucified Land in contempt, but he may have opposed some is conspicuously absent from Lookingbill's nar church doctrines, such as the notion of domin rative. Lookingbill's argument, however, does ion over nature. not entirely explain the Christian references Alexandre's profound respect for nature in The Crucified Land. Hogue's association of would be shaped by his childhood affection agribusiness with religious symbolism ques for the Bishop Ranch, his sister's 50,000-acre tions, as Lynn White would do in the 1960s, sheep and cattle operation near Dalhart in the the "Christian axiom that nature has no reason Texas Panhandle, and by his time spent tend for existence save to serve man."8 ing the family garden with his mother. On the A further examination of the issues posed Bishop Ranch, Hogue developed a deep affinity by The Crucified Land requires a discussion of for what he called "the most luscious grassland ALEXANDRE HOGUE'S PASSION 71 FIG. 4. Alexandre Hogue, Drouth Survivors, 1936, oil on canvas, 30 x 48 in. Formerly Musee National d'Art Moderne (destroyed by fire). in the world" and would later insist that the inference to Hogue's lament for the Dalhart High Plains "never should have been plowed. ranchlands, as DeLong has suggested. Life ran Sad to relate, the grassland is gone forever."l0 the headline "Artist Hogue Feels That Grazing DeLong has noted that it was in Dalhart "that Land Was Destroyed 'First by the Fence, Then Hogue began to recognize the human capacity by Overplowing, Now by Drouth.'" The West to destroy nature's fragile balance.

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