The Landscape of Imagination and Terroir in Winemaking.

This painting is the cover photo for a very civilized item, a book on art, which is normally a calm and reassuring thing. We have them on the coffee tables in our livingrooms after all. However, when one looks at this terrain and then reads the title of the book, What I saw, one can become a bit unnerved. Where on earth does one find anything like this? I know it says Vermont, but really? The artist, Joseph E. Yoakum, says he saw this, but where? My sense is that the artist perhaps felt the energy of the place and represented that symbolically by the energy in his art, which relies heavily on imagination.

Here is a photo of that area mentiond in the name of the painting. We see mountains and forests in grays and the white and blue of the sky. In looking at Yoakum’s work, we get the thrust of mountains, done in his ballpoint pen work in vertical lines, black on gray. The idea of rock having been pushed up from the earth comes to mind. The ridges and ravines in the area give it a hard unwelcoming look. The definite feeling of a natural descent through this rocky landscape is apparent as one sees trails everywhere. The hills in Yoakum’s work exaggerate this barren landscape, which when covered with snow would be great for skiing (hence the only view I found of the area was a ski resort map), but would otherwise be rather desolate. The artist seems to have sensed this, for he shows the hills like giant claws that seem to be grasping and tearing apart the valley that lies between them. The river flows down at a death defying angle, channeled by the striations in the blue land on either side of it. The whole effect is dizzying. Then there is the name, Grizzly Gulch Valley, which evokes the idea of sharp grizzly claws ripping and tearing. With all of this combined, one can actually see what Yoakum saw on a metaphorical level.

Though Yoakum traveled quite a bit in his life, his life in 1970 was confined to his storefront apartment on the south side of Chicago. I doubt that even in his earlier life he saw the scene above. One thinks of the Bay of Naples, with the oddly shaped mountain, which blew its own peak off in 79 A.D., and the huge city that lies at the base of that dangerous mountain. Yoakum, in his mind’s eye, has given us an energy representation of the region. The white strip that flows down and divides into two streams is reminiscent of a lava flow, though not in red. The red is in the shape of a mountain. Notice that the other mountains on the left are green with some in pale yellow. Also on the left is what looks like a purple bridge. It is not clear what the tree-like markings are that one sees through the trellis on that bridge, but one does get the overall feeling of countryside. On the right side are things that look like rock formations.

One can only guess at what Yoakum saw as he envisioned this area, but the striations on those shapes might indicate violent earth movement. Certainly the way this landscape is shaped creates a funnel for a downhill output of lava from the mountains. While this piece has color added, it again can be seen as symbolic: the red for the volcano, the mountains in greens and yellows on the left, and on the other side, the destructive aftermath of any volcanic eruption, represented by oddly shaped, crusty rock formations. However, as always, one must ask, if this is what Yoakum saw, why did it come to him this way?

Needless to say, he did in fact see many things. He returned from his adventures in 1908. In 1918 he joined the U.S. Army and was sent to Quebec and then to France, where he worked on repairing railroads. Once the war was over, he returned to the U.S. and until the 1960s lived what would seem like an ordinary life, married twice, and moved around the country a lot. It is not until 1962 when he was “motivated by a dream that told him to create art” that he began to do so. This was the time after the death of his second wife, when he moved into that storefront on the south side of Chicago. In 1967, a professor of anthropology from Chicaco State College, John Hobgood, stumbled upon Yoakum’s storefront in the windows of which were Yoakum’s drawings. This discovery brought about an art show at the gallery, The Whole, and an article on Yoakum in the Chicago Daily News, “My Drawings Are a Spiritual Unfoldment.”

The 1960s was a time in which there was more emphasis on non-Western art, such as African, Middle Eastern and Native American art. The focus was on the cultural and spiritual imperatives of the artists rather than looking at so-called “primitive objects.” It was also a time of black awareness and the Black Is Beautiful movement. Yoakum, who was African American, probably inherited some Cherokee blood from his father’s side of the family, but veered more to the Native American side. Though supposedly having Cherokee blood, he renamed himself, Nava-Joe and claimed that he was born in Window Rock, Arizona. Though he had obviously lived his life as a Black man, he created this imaginary Native American existence. Some have said that he just thought that Nava-Joe sold art better than “old Black man.” However, Yoakum disassociated himself from African-American culture in favor of Native-American culture or his perception of that culture. In so doing, he stepped outside of the growing interest in African-American art and stepped away from the various artists involved in producing that art. For a fascinating look at this identity issue and Yoakum, see the excellent essay, “Back Where I Were Born: Joseph E. Yoakum and the Imaginary Indian,” by Kathleen Ash-Milby in the book What I Saw.

Yoakum’s “exciting to ponder, difficult to describe art” ( quote of Jim Nutt, an artist and client of Yoakum) became very popular among the artists involved in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), many of whom bought his drawings. Artist and SAIC professor, Whitney Halstead, became particularly close to Yoakum and strives to place Yoakum into an art historical context (see reference below). However, Yoakum is hard to peg. His imaginary landscapes are more sophisticated than “naive” art, and they did not fit into the category of African-American art traditions of social issues and history that the work of Jacob Lawrence spearheaded. Rather like Norman Lewis, who became an Abstract Expressionist, something completely outside the box that African-American art was place in, Yoakum dived deep into the imagination to do these landscapes of the places he saw in his mind.

Here is Yoakum dealing with something he must surely have known in physical reality growing up as a child in Missouri: tornadoes. We see how he has lined the earth to represent perhaps the furrows of planted crops. We see that the tornado had ripped a wide space in the middle of the picture, disrupting the continuous horizontal furrows of the field. Here and there are strange objects, perhaps ones that had been sucked into the vortex of the tornado and spun out of the top to land as debris scattered over the area.

Whatever one thinks of Yoakum’s life and his artistic works, his vision of landscape takes the viewer on a far journey into the imagination. His art was originally considered Outsider Art, which is art produced by those who do not come through the normal avenues into the art world. However, he is someone who strove to do what he could with the materials he had, often working on buff colored letter paper called “Fifth Avenue,” which he purchased from his local F.W. Woolworth store. He used simple pen and ink, and sometimes Weber Costello pastels, which he preferred to watercolor as the latter was harder to control. From those simple inexpensive materials and his grand imagination, which is what probably led him to run off with the circus back in 1901, he left us a treasure trove of mind-scapes to enjoy and to ponder.

One final note: the beauty of his work has been noticed in Europe where the company Lemaire has a line of clothing featuring Yoakum’s art work. It is called “Ssense,” and I leave you with pictures of some very expensive pieces printed on silk. The company refers to Yoakum as Native American, so it seems that he has finally gotten the ethnic identity he imagined himself to be. flaunt.com

Images of Yoakum’s work are used in accordance with Fair Use Policy for purposes of review and critique.

Resources used in preparation for this article are as follows:

Joseph E. Yoakum What I Saw by Yale University Press with the help of The Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Menil Collection, Houston. The book is a collection of essays, including to one mentioned above by Kathleen Ash-Milby and the art history one by Whitney Halstead.

For more on Yoakum’s work try these links:

www.outsiderartfair.com; newyorker.com; and artforum.com.

Marjorie Vernelle is an artist, writer, college professor, and traveler. For more see the Pages at ofartandwine.com or her author page at amazon.com and her art at Vernelle Art Boutique vernellestudio.com and original art goods at etsy.com.

Terroir, a word with one meaning but many different attributes.

As in Joseph Yoakum’s landscape paintings, land is variable, and that isn’t just a matter of terrain, but of terroir. Terroir (pronounced tare – WAHr) loosely refers to “a sense of place.” That seems rather vague, but if we break it down a bit, a sense of place involves more than location. It would involve an overall feeling of environment. One would consider the climate, the people who live there, the type of vegetation and animal life of that area, and certainly any special products. When it comes to wine, the idea of special types of wine that are grown on certain types of soil which affect their flavor adds dimension to the term terroir. Since this is a French word, best that we go to French wines to talk about it and compare its effects.

Vinevest.com describes terroir this way: “‘Terroir’ is a French word that signifies the natural conditions of a vineyard like soil composition, elevation, sun exposure, climate, and other unique characteristics.”  Some of the other characteristics often have to do with the winemaking culture of the area. In countries with a long tradition of winemaking, regional traditions involve the blending of grapes in certain precise quantities, as well as which grapes are aged in oak and which remain in stainless steel tanks.

grapes, which are only 5% of this blend, are added in to soften the taste. The whole fermentation process takes a short time, and the wine is meant to be drunk young. (See Of Art and Wine, The Painter of “Indecisive Colors and Côte de Provence Wine.)

As opposed to Sancerre, which has a flinty, citrus-tinged taste, that sometimes has a smoked flavor, Muscadet has a saline taste as though touched by salty sea air. In the case of Muscadet, its grape which came originally from Bourgogne (Burgundy), was a grape which in the middle ages the Burgundians banned from their soil. The grape wound up in the Loire Atlantic, where it found a good home as its salt was great with briney seafood. (See OfArtandWine.com post “Botticelli on the Half Shell with Sancerre or Muscadet).

The article “Terroir: What Is It, and How Does It Affect Your Wine?” (click link above) names four basic physical characteristics of terroir: climate, soil, terrain or topography, and organisms in the soil. (Please note that I am not alone in my addition of local winemaking culture, as Winefolly.com also includes tradition as one of the elements in the definition of terroir.) These elements of terroir play a role in the pricing of wine and whether or not it is granted a defined appellation of origin (AOC Appellation d’Origine Controlée). This AOC qualification indicates quality and with that a higher price per bottle.

Unfortunately, when it comes to wines grown in the New World and other places where the original cultures were not winemaking cultures, there is no baseline by which to measure the qualities of terroir needed to go into defining specific ones. However, we do see some distinctions, for instance, in the winemaking regions of the Pacific Coast. California produces a variety of wines in regions throughout the state, while Oregon is known as a mono-grape culture since it focuses on the production of fine Pinot Noir. Washington has concentrated on red wines, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Syrah, and Merlot. Hopefully, as those winemaking regions develop more history with cultural winemaking knowledge particular to each region, along with the climate and soil requirements, terroir will begin to have meaning there, too.

So the shape of landscape takes on a variety of meanings, whether in the imaginative art of someone like Joseph Yoakum or in the complex elements contained in the definition of terroir. Both of these complex items give us the benefit of their “exciting to ponder, difficult to describe” essence and allow us to savor the richness that comes from complexity.

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©marjorie vernelle 2022.

Coming Soon: Art History C.S.I.: The Night Watch as a Crime Scene. For the Love of Wine!

This painting has become an emblematic Dutch national treasure, which far from a static portrait of one of the companies or guilds in 17th century Holland, is a portrait with a number of mysteries, including a gun that is being fired. Come explore the mysteries of The Night Watch and look at the world of the Dutch Wine Trade.