<< Back 9/11/02 On the edge Exhibit explores the realm of faith and change By Gary Carden If there is significant truth in the theory that the world we inhabit shapes and colors our artists, politicians and religious leaders, we can only conclude that men like the Rev. McKendree Robbins Long reflect the most striking flaws and wonders of their time — they are what the economic, social, ethical and religious issues of their era have made them. Born in 1888 in Statesville, Long spent his early years in the serene, moralistic certainty of the Victorian Period. The son of a wealthy and respected Presbyterian family, this intelligent and talented young man attended art schools in London, Amsterdam and Madrid, preparing himself for a future as a painter. However, despite the glowing critical response to his early work, Long began to have doubts about his vocation. By the 1920s he had told associates that he felt “called” to the ministry — a summons that he believed had come from God. For a brief time, he continued to paint and preach, exhibiting his work at revivals. However, he eventually abandoned art (1930) and became an itinerate minister. In time, he would become as well-known as the noted revivalists, Sam Jones and Billy Sunday. Since Long’s life is well-documented — he kept diaries and maintained an astonishing correspondence with friends and family — we know something of the issues which prompted him to become a revivalist. In effect, this young, devout Southerner came to feel that the world was disintegrating. Faith was being undermined and startling changes were rampant. Darwin, the Scopes trial in Tennessee, the advent of the automobile, the coming of the Great Depression, consumer culture and the cataclysms attending World War II — each event seemed a portent, a harbinger of doom. Like a latter-day Billy Graham, Long concluded that the world was approaching Apocalypse. The dropping of the atomic bomb and the awesome potential for destruction that it represented evoked images of the Book of Revelations. Long perceived his duty as to tell the world to “prepare for the Day of Judgment.” Long was not the only advocate of “the final days.” Suddenly, “prophets of doom” were everywhere. When Billy Graham perceived communism as a satanic doctrine and announced his conviction that Stalin was the Antichrist, the Rev. McKendree Robbins Long echoed the same message.Throughout the Southeast and much of the United States, road signs, gospel quartets and revivalists urged the world to “get right with God.” A wave of millennialism swept the country and church attendance soared. Hundreds of artists painted works filled with biblical beasts, devils and quotes from prophetic books. The “New Jerusalem” was at hand. At this point, Long decided to begin painting again. What better way to stress the reality of “the final days” than to give them tangible form. Long felt compelled to give John’s terrible images in Revelations a tangible form. So began an epic undertaking — to create John’s images -— the heavens riven, the world torn asunder, rains of fire and blood, the coming of judgment, demons and torment. Long had always stressed the point that he was “a minister who painted” rather than “a painter who preached.” The astonishing series of works were meant to amplify — to give a gripping reality to his message. Now, in this “post-atomic era,” Long’s paintings may appear grotesque and dated. Time has passed and the world seems to have made an uneasy alliance with nuclear destruction. Communism has ceased to be a satanic doctrine and Stalin has been replaced by other contenders for the role of the Antichrist. Long’s lost souls writhing in lakes of fire — the women tastefully clothed in bathing suits or bikinis — may seem quaint, even humorous. Yet, beneath these superficial aspects, Long compares favorably with Hieronymus Bosch, Hans Memling or Luca Signorelli — visionary artists who looked unflinchingly at “end-time” and the Apocalypse and recorded what they saw. Long painted other topics, of course. Like other artists of Revelations, he showed a definite preference for the torments of hell as opposed to the bliss of heaven, but he also has numerous works that depicted the eternal peace of heaven, replete with muscular angels, ample-bosomed women, (all properly clothed) serene lakes, verdant parks and docile creatures. Although there are few “earthly” subjects in his collected works, one is certainly worth mentioning. Scattered here and there in Long’s personal papers, are tantalizing references to an unknown woman (researchers call her The Woman in Red) who apparently inspired something akin to sexual love in the painter. She is the subject of a number of romantic poems and appears in a number of paintings and etchings. There are cryptic references to a possible love affair, a child and a kind of wistful yearning for a reunion (here or in heaven). Is she real, or merely an “idealized love“ that Long never found? Whatever the truth may be, her presence (and ample charms) give Long a much-needed touch of the “earthly.” It is impossible to look at Long’s gigantic works of divine damned? Indeed, the lurid, subterranean vaults of hell look like a gallery of noted historic figures. While Stalin, Hitler and Castro baste in the Devil’s molten lake, such notables as Darwin, Marx, Freud and Einstein docilely wait their turn. A bevy of voluptuous women bedecked in negligees, bathing suits and revealing dresses, wait in cringing terror (Marlene Dietrich is among them). High on a cliff overlooking this three-ring circus of torment, stand the good Rev. McKendree Robbins Long and Dante, the author of “The Divine Comedy.” The two men are delighted by the vistas of suffering, and Long is pointing out interesting aspects of the scene to his companion. When questioned about this scene in a personal interview, Long once jokingly replied that he may be the only man “to make Dante laugh.”