“Justice Defeats Mob Violence”
The encroaching character in the red bandana, named “Vicious Death” by the artist, has his gaze fixed on the fugitive.
But is this skeletal figure a villain, or just the impulse for recourse personified?
His red bandana obscures his identity; in his anonymity, he could represent each of us.
And perhaps the fugitive, a guilty man, will meet death by the court’s gallows instead of the mob’s hands; Death’s unbroken gaze highlights the ubiquity of violence and the digressive nature of institutions in delivering justice.
"Justice Defeats Mob Violence" by John Steuart Curry, 1935-1937
U.S. Department of Justice, Washington D.C.
An anonymizing red bandana takes on new connotations in the violent symbolism of "Vicious Death". The blood-red bandana in this look is a mulberry silk scarf, which pours itself over the wearer's neck, congealing into folds and twists.
The mortality that Death inspires is evoked through the skeletal motif shirt. The shirt is 100% linen, with a grainy texture that breaks into jagged creases and holds close to the body's movements.
The front carries a ribcage motif, with an anatomically correct number of ribs formed from warped wave pleats.
The back is cut as a single piece on the straight-grain and features an inverted smocked panel in the center, providing the wearer movement in lieu of a bias-cut yoke. As the wearer moves, the smocked panel writhes and contorts in response. The smocking falls away into a triad of disintegrating pleats, which form a "spine" down the center back.