Sand Drawing #9, David Ligare

David Ligare proved himself a deft draftsman capable of remarkable illusionism in his early Sand Drawings, a series of hyper-realist images of an abstract scrawl in the sand. The carefully plotted recession to the watery horizon, the accuracy of granular detail in the scored plane of sand, and the faithful rendering of an abstract pattern all suggest a devoté of a resurgent Realist movement that was prominent in the 1960s and ‘70s. By the late 1970s, Ligare’s goals and images had changed. He explained that for him, “it would be more of a challenge to embrace a truly radical approach and pursue Greco Roman narrative . . . not as a parody, a pastiche or an empty vessel but as a newly excavated treasure trove of useful subjects abstracted by time.” Still lifes of symbolic fruits and vessels are set in niches against distant Aegean horizons; beautiful figures, draped or nude, assemble on sandy shores or in green pastures. The illusionism of the early Sand Drawings is not lost, but the recent works resonate in new and ancient ways. “Using history,” Ligare wrote, “allows us . . . to focus on the extraordinary achievement of the ancients and to hold them as examples of how to think deeply, how to act using rational judgment and to instill an excitement to excel. This is now the job of culture: to make us want to be educated, to ignite our passion for knowledge and to inspire us to think as deeply and as creatively as the ancients.” CCE