BOB ROSS: MODERN PROPHET

By Yuhao Chen

Nearly as much as the average person shrinks from the experience of being requested to complete an impossible task, he will wallow in the pleasure of choosing not to engage when shown how to do something in a step-by-step process. The popularity of the do-it-yourself home improvement show, the home economics show, the cooking show, etc., is a testament to the pleasure that must be derived from being very clearly shown how to do something and having the freedom to choose not to do it. But are the personalities on such shows aware of this? Would their awareness alter anything in contemporary television? Would they care? Perhaps they depend on it; perhaps they know of this; and yet, one must still occupy the role of a legitimate instructor in order for the charade to work.

A favorite example comes in the form of the beloved Bob Ross. Via his television program The Joy of Painting, which aired on PBS from 1983-1994, Bob Ross reached thousands, if not millions, of viewers – supposedly as a private in-home painting instructor. Ross primarily painted pastoral settings with specific seasonal themes. All of Ross’ scenes were created with the same ‘wet-on-wet’ painting technique, the same collection of brushes, and various combinations of a set color scheme. Over the course of the show, Ross discussed the importance of nature, his genuine happiness about being able to paint with everyone, and even invited the occasional guest (albeit many of these were small animals like chipmunks or baby squirrels). Viewers were eventually taken through various techniques for depicting trees, clouds, snow, sunlight, etc., encouraging them to improvise and take risks.

At this point, one must consider the criteria for a legitimate painting instructor. For the show to function with any legitimacy, Ross must be defined so. But it must also be considered if Ross’ activities beyond the context of the show compile into an adequate form. After a troubled career in the military, the gentle, nature-loving Ross decided to dedicate his career to spreading the joy of painting by teaching others how to appreciate this activity as much as himself. Although he did do some work as a traditional, non-televised painting instructor, it was not until the development of his long running PBS series that his talents were popularly appreciated. Appreciated, though, for something other than his ability as an artistic educator. As has been suggested, the show was primarily attractive for its ability to provide the viewers the opportunity to participate in passive observation. Most importantly, no one was actually learning.

When a teacher of any sort, a master craftsman, chef, or artist, finds an apprentice or group of apprentices, the activity of the craft metamorphoses into the activity of demonstration. The objective is no longer towards personal innovation or for the benefit of any audience. Now, the master’s objective is to produce something exemplary and within the apprentice’s ability to reproduce. As soon as the apprentice is acknowledged by the artist, the latter becomes a teacher. When the apprentice is no longer present, the basis of the teacher’s identity is removed, and he is now a fraud or has-been. This progression may seem harsh, but it is not a matter of personal development or an assessment of the artist’s skill; instead, this demotion is strictly a result of the human incapacity to define his meandering lack of function as anything else. In the same way, the artist will continue to be respected as such in every phase of his existence despite his humiliating endgame status.  

 

For the average watcher, The Joy of Painting may be a joy to watch, but it is hardly a pedagogical experience. Just as the average cooking show is observed from the couch and not the counter, there is little reason to believe that many, if any, of Bob Ross’ viewers had any intention of actually setting up an easel, filling their pallets, and preparing their brushes in order to follow along with his gradual and encouraging instructions. At best, there might have been a lonely artist among the PBS viewers, bereft of original techniques and helplessly without personal inspiration, who might have privately tested some of the displayed techniques at a later time, but even this is a far cry from apprenticeship. Most likely, viewers are completely passive – watching along as Ross guises them in a wadi of meaningless encouragement and whole-hearted absolutions for technical errors that will never have any chance of being made.

Television, after all, is a mechanism for pleasure. Pedagogy is something very different. Bob Ross was a joy to watch because viewers are seduced by his soothing presence, entertained by the effectively arbitrary painting displays, and addicted to the super-natural phenomenon of receiving and neglecting instruction without the faintest sign of consequence. Just as Ross fed nuts to baby squirrels while they patiently perched on his shoulder and looked into the camera, the pleasure comes from a certain part of the sequence and not the process as a whole.  The Joy of Painting was very successful. Its viewers were doing it right. Pleasant experiences were produced and experienced in a regular cycle, and so there was no reason to complain. There are certain points of the learning process that are indeed pleasurable, but they do not come without others that can only be described otherwise. No baby squirrel will conveniently wait on a shoulder to be fed a nut before the prerequisite scratches, bites, and escapes have been endured. Therefore, the viewers’ abbreviated pleasure circuit – though appropriate for television – has no place in a legitimate pedagogical experience.  For the viewers to choose an interpretation of The Joy of Painting is undeniably a concession that must be made for personal discretion, But what does this mean for the status of Bob Ross?

Consider a televised news broadcast. Perhaps a politician will appear at some point; he may even speak; he may even recognize the fact that he will eventually be broadcast on television. The same might happen for a doctor, a random local resident, or even an artist. But these personalities are not defined by the program that they are included in. The news program is merely employing them in excerpted form in order to represent a specific theme or topic, to support a more significant constituent of the program itself. Ultimately, the doctor is still a doctor, the politician a politician, etc. Simply being broadcast on television does not, by itself, distinguish an entertainer. The matter has more to do with a person’s function on television. One would like to think of Bob Ross as a genuine artist. In all likelihood, that is how he thought of himself. A native Floridian with a distinguished military career and scenic post in Alaska doesn’t abandon the legacy of the last forty years of his life to spend the final ten as a penniless painter in Indiana if not for true passion. And to continue his life cycle as an artist, he became a master in search of apprentices. But it is at this point in his development when something baffling occurred. His ‘apprentices’ on the other side of the television set did appreciate him, but for pleasure and not pedagogy. Therefore, the Bob Ross of PBS was no artist.

Throughout the course of his years on television, Bob Ross completed 381 paintings. All of these paintings depicted pastoral settings. Nearly all of them included at least one mountain, primarily pine forests, a ‘warm’ sky, and evidence of recently passed ‘happy little critters.’ Each painting occupied precisely 30 minutes from inception to completion, and each one required a distinct set of painting skills – typically displayed while painting “happy clouds,” “lonely trees,” etc. Also included in Ross’ skill sets were other painterly techniques like brush cleaning, canvas preparation, and discussions about palette preparation. Certainly, these were not ventures of artistic passion. These were pedagogical tools. But if no one was following their example, if there were never any true apprentices, was Bob Ross any sort of a master? Did he skip straight to an artist has-been? Or did he cease to be an artist?

Just as puzzling as the condition of Bob Ross and his television show, are all do-it-yourself shows. Their identity belies their function, and their function dismantles their identity, and yet viewers from around the world love them. Not only is it possible to ignore the contradiction and appreciate the remaining substance, but the simultaneous existence of two incompatible experiences is a source of pleasure on its own. If one would ever like to find the source of this pleasure, he could simply attend a lesson. Imagine being told to attempt a specific brush-stroke, to season a chicken breast, to remove all the nails from a picture frame. Then imagine not doing it… Suddenly, one’s underarms begin to perspire, and there is a hiccup in the heart. But then this jolt of anxiety is met with an encouraging smile: the teacher moves on to the next step, and again extends an invitation to follow along.