"Young Life" Bo Bartlett

Claims and Facts

Ways of life are passed down through generations. The boy is holding a stick in a similar way that the father is holding his gun, which suggests that the boy aspires to be like his father.

The deer represents what supports the family. The deer is above the heads of the people and is curved like a roof. This could be because the deer protects and provides for the family.

The child doesn't want to be like the father. The boy is facing away from the father. is standing far away from the father, and is dressed very differently from the father. This suggests that the boy is trying to reject his father.

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The entire painting is a representation of a house and what supports this family. The most important and supportive aspects of the family are in the center of the painting. At the top is the deer that we can assume the father has just killed. This deer is curved in a way that represents a roof, and the positioning of the deer over the heads of the family stresses this symbol. Directly below the deer is the father, who is holding a gun. The father's head partially covers the deer, and this positioning establishes the central support for the family because he is supporting the symbolic roof. Supporting the father is his female companion. We do not know if she is he wife of his girlfriend because she is not wearing a ring, but we know the she has intense emotional connections with the father because of the way she is clutching him. In this house analogy, the placement of the mother/girlfriend implies that she emotionally supports the father because she is firmly clutching him, but she has no connection to the deer above them. The father is holding his gun in a interesting manner. If the line the deer makes is continued, the gun would be protruding out of the roof of this house. This suggests that the gun is the chimney of the house. The purpose of the chimney is to remove the potentially toxic waste from the fireplace in a house. Fire is one of the most essential components of life, especially when cooking a deer, and the chimney expels these necessary toxins. Similarly, the gun expels necessary evils (bullets are designed for the sole purpose of killing other living creatures) at a target to provide protection or a source of food. Both structures expel evil for the benefit of people, and in this way the gun and the chimney are similar. Even though the father is symbolically supporting the deer, the muddy green truck behind him is what is actually supporting it. In this house analogy, the truck would represent the walls of the house that are just as necessary as the father for the support of the roof. If the father did not have this car, he could kill a hundred deer, but he could not get them back to his house. The child is the last major object in this painting, and he is the farthest away from the center, which represents his minimal contribution to the family. However, his clothing color is bright and eye-catching, and this tells us that he is not entirely insignificant. The child is standing where the door of this house would be, and this could mean that the child will go out into the world and make and support his own house. He is also holding a stick that could be symbolic for the door itself.