Week #8, Feathered Friends IV

Dusti Bongé, Untitled (Surrealist Rooster Man), c. 1945, charcoal on paper, 16 ¾” x 14”.

And you thought those other birds were funky! By far the weirdest one of them all, this week’s feathered friend is in a class of its own. In this drawing, Dusti Bongé heaps on a dose of uncanny imagination that rivals that of any surrealist. One of the things surrealists would do is present highly unlikely objects and beings in unexpected juxtapositions or in hybridized forms. Human-beast creatures figure prominently in this trend, in ways that are very different from the mythological characters of the past. Dusti here contributes her own fantastical being, in the form of a Rooster Man.

In Dusti’s case, this brings us back to what I mentioned earlier, namely that these drawings of gallinaceous fowl were created around the time that Dusti’s’ surrealism was subtly transitioning from her circus-inspired works to her fantastical menagerie of beings in her Keyhole People. What Dusti has done in this work is perhaps one of the unconscious steps in this direction.

Unlike the previous hens, this bird is not just depicted in a surreal manner and an unusual setting but instead has itself morphed into a fantastical hybrid being, part bird, part human. Rooster Man has the body of a rooster, as the plumage of the tail, the proud chest, and the tell-tale feet suggest, but he has the face of a man, with eyes, brows, nose and mouth. Interestingly, its head is neither obviously bird nor obviously human shaped, with the two bulges on either side of his forehead (almost like burgeoning horns).

Rooster Man also does not appear to have the happy disposition of his mates. Rather, he looks menacing with his grimace, furrowed brow, and his feet, like talons clutching balls, planted in an aggressive stance. In fact, he sets the mood for the whole composition, which does not have any of the whimsical loose patterning, stippling or waves that the other hens are surrounded with. Gone too are the funny little clouds in the sky…