Both Members of This Club

George Bellows

National Gallery of Art

From a darkened arena around a boxing ring, we look up at two bare chested men, one with pale, white skin and the other with brown skin, who lock arms in a boxing match in this horizontal painting. The brushstrokes are loose and visible throughout, making some details difficult to make out. The boxer to our left wears drooping, forest-green trunks and black shoes. He leans back on his bent right leg, closer to us, and tilts his face up. His mouth gapes open and his nose, chin, and neck are smeared with scarlet red, suggesting blood. His pale skin has a green cast, and his chest, arms, and legs are sinewy and muscular. His right arm is raised or pulled up overhead by the boxer to our right. Wearing dark briefs, the second boxer hunches over with head lowered toward the other man’s shoulder. He surges forward onto his deeply bent left knee, closer to us, pushing powerfully off his back leg. His face is lost in shadow and his body has less detail than his opponent, though light glints off his arching back to create gold highlights against his brown skin along his spine, ribs, and muscles of the shoulder. The men’s bodies nearly span the height of the canvas. The black ropes of the boxing ring pass in front of and behind the boxers, and the space around the ring in the top half of the painting is nearly black. Heads and faces of the spectators in the first few rows are lit by the main event and are crowded into the bottom third of the painting. Two spectators on our far left have climbed up and lean on and through the ropes, their mouths open. The crowd, which appears to be all light-skinned men and boys, are painted loosely but their mouths widen in toothy grins or are agape. The artist signed the work in yellow letters against black in the lower right corner: “Geo Bellows.”