Customer Reviews

Clown Paintings

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With Clown Paintings (2002), idiosyncratic actor, author, and director Diane Keaton has produced the kind of offbeat creative work that is sorely lacking in American culture today. Clown Paintings is just what is appears to be: a slim compendium of presumably amatuer clown paintings which were happily discovered at swap meets, jumble sales, bargain bins, and thrift stores. What makes Clown Paintings surprising is that Keaton treats the sixty - six paintings as oddball if serious pieces of work, and pointedly avoids treating them as banal, ironic objects of kitsch or high or low camp. Created roughly over a period of thirty years, all of the paintings were made by unknown artists, and many are unsigned, further obscuring their etiology.

Keaton and Los Angeles gallery owner Robert Berman each contribute a brief but fascinating essay. Keaton, a well - known comedian herself, perceives clowns as perpetually bright - eyed innocents and eternally hopeful beings that are easily wounded but fundamentally incapable of learning from negative experience or their own mistakes. Noting that clowns were acceptable enough subjects for Picasso, Beckmann, and Matisse, Keaton believes that clowns images "expose the human experience at its most transcendent on one hand, and on the other, its most tragic." Berman, who thinks "one clown painting alone may look like a silly indulgence," dreams "of a gallery full of clowns, floor to ceiling, walls of clowns - so powerful that the viewers would be overwhelmed."

Keaton has asked a broad range of mostly - American comedians to comment on the subject, including Woody Allen, Don Knotts, Phyllis Diller, Carol Burnett, Ben Stiller, Chevy Chase, Sandra Bernhard, and Jerry Lewis. Not surprisingly, most of those solicited find both clowns and their painted images appalling, frightening, repulsive, or subtle metaphors for psychopathology. With few exceptions, these short commentaries are insightful and touching rather than merely glib or clever. Based on the written selections, it appears clowns are rarely if ever a neutral subject. Like garden gnomes, clowns seem to be "loved by millions, and loathed by millions more."

What Clown Paintings only barely touches upon is the clown as an archetypal trickster figure, a psychopomp, a mythical straddler of at least two conflicting states, a figure perpetually at the crossroads, a subversive, borderland creature who manifests in dreams, childhood memories, literature, popular entertainment, consumerism, world history, and in the gray area of symbol and metaphor. Clowns are and have been everywhere and nowhere at once throughout history, like witches. As with all numinous images, they both reveal and conceal simultaneously. Are clowns predominantly good or predominantly evil? Trustworthy or innately figures of suspicion? Well - intended or conspicuously devious? Social outcasts or masters of their fates? Where does the man end, and the clown artifice begin? Are clowns partially transvestite figures? Or gussied - up memento moris? Like glamorized, inverted modern Medusas, clowns and clown images are capable of eliciting at least a brief fit of paralysis in their audience or viewer.

Despite their apparent obviousness and bluntness, these paintings, which underscore several American traditions, proudly maintain their mystery, even when their dignity seems to be faltering. Regardless of the viewer's discipline or angle of approach, their secrets remain inscrutable and thus safe forever. Curious readers willing to give these pieces their time will be adequately rewarded, for, ultimately, Clown Paintings is an eccentric, funhouse - mirror meditation on the strangeness of being human.

I love this book. I'm always looking for clown or circus books. As a Clown lover, I share the same passion as Diane Keaton. This book is a great addition to my personal Clown collection. It feels like this book was published just for me. Being a Clown myself and a Clown artist of fine paintings and sculptures,(www.clownartist.com), I appreciate the works by the different artists and what they communicated. These Clowns evoke a myriad of emotional feelings.
I agree with Diane Keaton about how much we have in common with a clown. We have all felt the emotions that we see on a Clowns face.....CLOWN'S EYES SEE TRUST AND ACCEPTANCE. A WORLD OF FRIENDSHIP...GIVEN AND RECEIVED. A CLOWN'S VIEW IS DIRECT...LIFE IS SIMPLE, UNENCUMBERED...SOMETHING HURTS, HE CRIES, SOMETHING PLEASES HIM, HE LAUGHTS, SOMETHING PUZZLES HIM, HE FROWNS, SOMETHING TOUCHES HIM, HE RESPONDS. LIFE CAN BE THAT SIMPLE...FOR A MOMENT.

This book has changed my life for the better! For many years I have had a fear of clowns, in itself an emotional wall put up to deal with my inability to embrace the inner child. My girlfriend on the other hand loves clowns and has been begging me to come to terms with my emotional problems. I used to hide behind the hunstmans rifle in a misplaced attempt to deal with my emotional shortcomings but now things are getting better, and in no small part thanks to this book.

Diane Keaton is familiar to all as a talented Hollywood actress but few will know that she is also a patron of the arts. This book showcases her collection of clown paintings and they are accompanied by the comments and stories from many famous celebrities. The pictures distressed me at first but somehow the warm words of Diane Keaton and the humourous comments of the celebs made me keep coming back. Before long I recognised these paintings for what they truly are, an insight into the very essence of the clown. I see that often behind the greasepaint and oversized shoes there often lies a fragile and passionate soul. In particular a picture in the book entitled 'Let Down' moved me and provided my breakthru moment. It features a clown with his unicycle backstage, just about ready to enter the big top. But his wheel is flat and he cannot go on. A small tear gently rolls down his cheek, making the white and red makeup run a little, as he casts a heartfelt glance at his clown comrades running into the arena. A beautiful, poignant picture which the famous director Alan Smithee summed up as 'moving beyond belief'.

Buy this book and you will not regret it. Beautiful pictures appreciated by beautiful people.

I am a clown lover. Clowns have always amazed me and grabbed my attention. I love them not because they are funny or clumsy, but by their beauty, pureness, and happiness/sadness contrast. And this is what this book shows, the esthetic and humane sides of the art of clowning. Lovely colorful crying/laughing clowns!

'Clown Paintings' is a very extensive and interesting collection of clown paintings. Diane Keaton is crazy about clowns and many of the paintings are from her private collection. The book also presents a very rich collection of personal beliefs (short texts) about clowns from various famous authors, directors, writers...

The quality of the printing is very very good, the hardcover is really wonderful (without the paper covering), and the price is insignificant for such a piece of art.

I was regifted this book by someone who got it as a gift and thought it was strange. I am a clown and a fan of clowns and am always wondering what other people feel about clowns - the lovers and the haters all... I love this book, the concept, the images, and the commentaries! The humor and honesty. There are funny and sad essays here. People who we see as our high priests and priestesses of comedy don't always have good clown memories and feelings - I was surprised - and love every bit of this book. Well done to Diane Keaton!

This is scary stuff and should be kept out of the hands of innocents. It is corruptive, corrosive and full of "CLOWN PAINTINGS", people. Clowns I tell you, clowns!

Need I say more?

I'm off in my jalopy now, away and away and away from those dastardly, red-nosed purveyors of horror.

L.A.E.