The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name
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Commentary
In one of his most lyric works, AK takes on pastoral love. The poor fish speaks/sings his love out to his loving bird, as they perch on a very interestingly abstracted tree. The gentle upward arch of their perching branch recalls a smile. The fish, lacking any opposable limbs or appendages, is held up surely by the power of his own feelings. While the hearts flow, his lover appears to remain silent, and her face is certainly less expressive than his. Is she perhaps reticent about giving her heart to such a gilly suitor? She is turned away from him contemplatively. Or perhaps she is merely fearful of the outrage and ostracism that is sure to follow if they are discovered. Then again, perhaps the two creatures share the same gender, and AK is punning on the taboo the ignorant have for homosexuality (although genetics in this case would seem to preclude any consummation of any physical relationship for these two). However, this critic believes too much analysis can spoil this image. It has a simple elegance and purity that would suggest the same of the material and intent. AK has created a simple Ode to Joy for these two happy creatures, whom nature and environment would keep asunder. Even the tree dissolves into a lovely architectural form under AK’s gaze. The whole of the earth seems to have been reduced to a simple green mound, as it must appear to anyone as lost in love as these two. This image has a lot in common with the work of Marc Chagall, who created elegant, positive images such as this one
in the face of world wars and the movement of the art of the time towards cubism, abstraction, intellectual detachment, and general coldness.
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Image and title "The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name" copyright 2000 by the artist