Rauschenbergs Canyon
Robert Rauschenberg’s combine-painting, Canyon, from 1959, is an 81 3/4 x 70 x 20 inch assemblage consisting of oils, pencil, paper, metal, fabric, wood on canvas, buttons, mirror on canvas, cardboard box, printed reproductions, photograph, paint tube, stuffed bald eagle, string, and a pillow. ... Canyon in particular has been compared to Rembrandts, Rape of Ganymede, because of the possible reference to the Greek Myth depicted in Rembrant’s painting. ... ” There are numerous elements in Rauschenbergs Canyon that relate closely to Rembrandt’s painting of the same myth. ... Robert Rauschenberg’s Canyon is just one piece from an immense body of work that continues to expand. ... Rauschenberg’s combine-painting, Canyon, of 1959 has been compared to Rembrandt’s painting, Rape of Ganymede, which depicts a specific event from greek Mythology. If Canyon truly is a reproduction of a scene form the myth, then Rauschenberg’s no-concept concept fails for this piece. I prefer to think that instead it is just the artist dealing with the materials he had available and found appropriate to create what would become Canyon. Rauschenberg’s way of working brings a new meaning not only to canyon, nor to just his body of work, but to art as a whole. ... The images that Rauschenberg uses in Canyon (and his other work), are each very specific and focus on a certain subject: rauschenberg himself as a child, a piano, the Statue of Liberty, a car on a street, a stuffed eagle, a pillow, a box. ... Rauschenberg’s work, and in particular, Canyon, addresses the possibility of no meaning, and no conceptual logic.