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Artwork of the Week

Artwork of the Week: Halloween 2022

Claude Buck, War Protest, in which an elongated skeleton intertwined with sinew strides among a field of corpses and downed power lines
Claude Buck (1890-1974), 'War Protest,' c.1945, oil on panel, 59 3/4 x 41 3/4 inches. Brigham Young University Museum of Art, gift of Leslie Buck, 1978.

The monstrous, sashaying Death strikes a pose with a suggestion of a gentil pith helmet. Look again. He’s only unfurling sinews, releasing flailing muscles and attenuated tendons--the fashionable calligraphy of demons. While apparitions appear and morph in the night sky, the diminutive remnant of humanity is expiring in a plain of blood. Power lines drape perilously low to the ground. The affected leader presides over this wasteland of human suffering. Very few survive. Orphans cling to anyone. Only the singular cognoscente fellow, lower right, has the possibility to escape this nightmare. And you. You can just close the window. Happy Halloween.