Peter Blume
American, 1906­1992
The Rock
1943	
Oil on canvas
146.4 x 189 cm
Gift of Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., 1956.338

The Rock, painted during World War II, is a painting of opposites. In the center is an enormous rock, scarred and blasted, but still present and resting on an enormous base, perhaps an altar. A skeleton and its opposite, a blooming flower, lie before the mysterious form. To the right, smoke rises from a scene of destruction, but on the left a new building rises. Men and women express hope by laboring to rebuild civilization out of its own ruins.