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Home The Stone Touchers I, Ruby and Amber In The Gardens of their old Empire history-dressed men.

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The Stone Touchers I, Ruby and Amber In The Gardens of their old Empire history-dressed men.

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Larger Image	Larger image may be viewed by UofL faculty, staff, and students only (log-in required using ULink username/password) at: http://echo.louisville.edu/login?url=http://vrc-web.louisville.edu/Jpegs/820/826-48.jpg
Title	The Stone Touchers I, Ruby and Amber In The Gardens of their old Empire history-dressed men.
Alternative Title	The Stone Touchers 1.
Creator	Atkinson, Terry (British conceptual artist, born 1939)
Date	1984-1985
Cultural Context	British English European
Style/Period	Conceptual Contemporary Postmodern
Theme	Paintings (visual works) Acrylic paintings (visual works) Histories Ideology Social conflict Social issues Social classes Apartheid Empires (sovereign states) Wars Armed conflicts Graveyards Graves Tombstones Ceremonial structures Crosses (motifs) Cemeteries Military cemeteries (veteran cemeteries) War cemeteries War memorials Memorials Soldiers Vacations Photographs Families Figurative art Figures (representations) Front views Children (people by age group) Youth Girls Youth Sisters Siblings Double portraits Portraits Costume (mode of fashion) Dresses (garments) Underwear Nudity Hairstyles Trees Plants (vegetation) Vegetation Eye-level views
Subject	Paintings Acrylic paintings History Political issues Apartheid Imperialism Social classes War War casualties Graves Tombs & sepulchral monuments Crosses Cemeteries Monuments & memorials Soldiers Vacations Photographs Families Portraits Portrait paintings Children Girls Youth Posing Clothing & dress Dresses Underwear Hairstyles Trees Plants
Description	"Terry Atkinson, like David Hockney, came from a working-class background in Yorkshire, England. However, his affiliations when he eventually moved to London were with Conceptualism rather than Pop. Whilst Conceptualism had been international in orientation, his 1980s output, which dealt with subjects such as class identity and English attitudes to Northern Ireland, seemed to represent a deliberate return to 'local' issues." (Caption, p.221); "Having parted company with the British Art & Language group in the early 1970s, Terry Atkinson had, by the mid-1970s, moved away from their stringent Conceptualism to explore his working-class heritage in a set of 'history paintings'. In his First World War series (c.1974-81) he reinterpreted photographs of troops taken during the Great War, using a strategically 'botched' drawing style and satirical captions. He thereby encoded a critique of the way working-class labor was mobilized for capitalist warfare. By 1984-5 such explorations of ideological undercurrents were brought to bear on family photographs. The Stone Touchers I (1984-5) incorporates an ironically diligent 'copy' of a photograph of Atkinson's children taken during a holiday in northern France. Intrigued by the rows of war graves, they are shown flanking a stone dedicated, according to the 'key' beneath the image [shown in Hopkins, p.220], to a South African infantryman. In a mock-poetic caption Atkinson asks them: 'Do you think God is a person? If he is, is he a he? If he is, is he black or white… is he a South African, or an Argentinian …?' Britain's faded imperialism had recently been rekindled by the Falklands War, and South African apartheid was a pressing issue. Atkinson thus presented his suntanned children as inextricably (if unknowingly) implicated in such events." (Excerpt, pp. 219, 221); The full "mock-poetic caption" to this painting, as indicated on p.220 of Hopkins, reads: "Ruby and Amber in The Gardens of their old Empire history-dressed men. Dear Ruby and Amber, Do you think God is a person? If he is, is he a he? If he is, is he black or white, or brown or yellow, or pink or orange or blue or red, or green or purple….? Do you think God is a dissident? Or is he a South African, Or an Argentinian, or an Anglo-Saxon, etc.? Do you think he's the best knower? If he is a she do you think all the he's would admit she's the best knower?"
Location Depicted	France France, Northern
Material	Acrylic on canvas Acrylic paint Paint Canvas
Measurements	213 x 152 cm
Technique	Painting (image-making) Acrylic painting (technique)
Work Type	Paintings Acrylic paintings
Repository	Private collection (Vancouver, Canada)
Source	Hopkins, David. After Modern Art: 1945-2000. Oxford History of Art. Oxford; New York: Oxford UP, 2000. (p.220, fig.114)
Rights	Photograph reproduced in Hopkins courtesy: Gimpel Fils.
Digital Publisher	University of Louisville Department of Fine Arts/Allen R. Hite Art Institute Visual Resources Center
Format	image/jpeg
Digital File Name	VRC 826-48.jpg
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The Stone Touchers I, Ruby and Amber In The Gardens of their old Empire history-dressed men.

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