J.Manuel Cano in Watchtower Literature

GermanXJW

I have searched the Watchtower Library with no results.

But since Cano was a Bethel Elder serving in Walkill, even being sent abroad as a Watchtower representative there could be a chance that there is a picture of him in the literature or that he was a model for some Bible character.

Would be hard to find but maybe someone has inside information? He has been there for 16years.

Leolaia

15 October 1990 Watchtower, cover.

I have been told that Cano was used as a model for this illustration.

Leolaia

dilaceratus

Whether Mr Cano was an actual model for this picture or not, I don't believe an honest observer could claim to recognize anyone from this amateurish effort.

For instance--Did the model for the man seated on the horse actually lack the the last knuckle on all of the digits of his left hand? Given that Bethel is a work camp, it seems odd that they should hold onto a worker who would be unable to draw, type, operate machinery, or even properly push a broom. Still, with that hammish claw, it seems unlikely he would be a masturbator, so, despite his disability, he may have survived by attrition.

Was the model for the man standing second from the left in truth a little person dressed in the garb of a man of more average proportions? Or did he, in fact, lack an elbow joint in his right arm? And what sort of birth defect caused the proportion between his mouth and chin to be in excess of the distance between his mouth and eyebrows? Again, that Bethel is a mental freakshow is not in dispute-- but that its inhabitants from which their model pool is drawn show such disfigurement is novel to me.

Did the sixth man from the left (in the background) actually have no chin whatsoever, and a neck that was thicker than his head? I once saw a man in the last stages of gnathic cancer who bore a resemblance to this fellow. Are there many at Bethel who are inveterate users of dip?

I cannot believe that the gentleman facing forward, holding the spear, and supposedly Mr Cano, required a model at all. Notice the lack of interesting or even differentiating detail of any sort, and the gross cartooning the artist has resorted to with the left hand, as it so awkwardly and unbelievably grasps its sword. The only real resemblance I see to the photos of Mr Cano is that the face is somewhat mushed up and crooked, but the butchery elsewhere revealed in this painting make that a given.

We might speculate wildly, however, that the artist was a bosom friend of Mr Cano's, and shared his predelictions, as I notice that all of the gentlemen in the painting seem to have remarkably sleek and hairless legs and arms.

Even by the bleak Watchtower standard, this drawing is miserable. That it was used as a cover to a magazine allegedly offered to the public speaks of both its publisher's incompetence and grave disinterest.