Category: Brooklyn Museum Assignment–Soul of a Nation

Brooklyn Museum Visit: Soul of a Nation

Soul of a nation is a very breathtaking exhibit. It takes up two floors on one side of the museum, and it is filled with artwork that sends a strong message about african american lives in America. One painting that really struck out to me in the exhibit had to be Archibald Motley’s “The First One Hundred Years: He amongst You Who Is without Sin Shall Cast the First stone; forgive Them Father for They Know Not What They Do, circa 1963-72.“My first reaction when I saw this painting was complete horror but as I started to really analyze it deeper I realized that as horryfing as this is, it really is a representation of the reality of America in years of 1963-1972.

From the start, I felt as though my eye didn’t know where to start because of the fact that there is just so much going on in the painting. This painting is a medium sized oil paint on canvas and the painting has very dark hues of blue but the blue also makes the small hints of red really pop out. My eye immedietly goes to the only part that is light blue, in the painting which is where the tree is. When the eye follows the branches, it can immediately find the haunting faces of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King that are hung on the train. Right under the face of John F I see something that reminds me of stained glass that usually belongs in a church. However, a part of the glass has been shattered right where a figures head is at. My guess is that the figure is Jesus. As the eye follows the branches downwards, we also see a disturbing image of a lynched body next to the statue of liberty. The eye keeps on being guided towards the bottom and this is where we see the blue color becomes darker. The red color becomes more striking when we see the red in the KKK member, in the burning cross, the fireman hat, and as our eye moves to the right we see striking red confederate flag, the blood coming out of the pipe of the house, and the devil that is standing next to the dove. The lines of this painting are fairly straight when we focus on the tree and the house but they become rounder once we focus on the figures ofthe painting and faces that are shown. It’s interesting to see how the darker colors on the left are brought forward with the light color in the background and on the right we see the darker color in the background with aspects of light color in the forefront. Something that I also noticed was the brushwork. The brushwork is precise in the tree and house but it becomes the opposite in the rest of the painting making me feel like everything is in motion and happening simultaneously.

The subject matter seems to be pretty obvious. It shows the vicious crimes that were done in the name of racism. We have the subject of murder come about in just the tree by itself. The faces of two significant figures who were brutally murdered because of the positive impact they had on race issues during the 60’s. We also see the KKK being represented by a member being in the front of the painting and the burning of the cross. The painting also has the representation of the marches that were done. The signs that are shown say “we want to vote,” “we shall overcome,” “freedom,” “we want to vote,”and “black power.” In contrast, we have messages that many white people had for  black people which were “go home niggers and get yourrelief check,” “America for whites. Africa for blacks.” On the right, we see a lot more symbolism. We see a skull which can represent all the death along with the blood coming out of the house, we see the devil next to a dove which can represent how evil was always alongside the peace that African Americans wanted, and we also see slavery being represented by having the women on the far right picking cotton. All these things represent what hundred years of racism looked like. 

This was Archibald Motley’s last painting after five decades of being an artist. Motley was known for painting pictures of black social life. With this painting in particular, it’s almost as if he went out with a bang. This painting is so chaotic and has so much going on and it really does capture the horrors of American history. 

Brooklyn Museum Assignment Part 1 and 2

 

 

 

 

For the first part of the Assignment, I decided to enter the Ancient Korean Exhibit. I fell in love with these art pieces. This was my 3rd time into the museum. Everytime I go to the museum I check on this section because everything seems so expensive. From what I noticed about each art piece, one thing that all stood out about all of them were there sizes. They were all small and in my mind this means something of a decoration or tool. A figure such as the mini Buddha was considered to be both a religious piece. you can tell it was a religious piece by the position it was in. It was in a position of meditating and you can also make it out as religious because the hands are clasp together in a way that shows prayer. Like a divine being. it also looks decorative because it was made of gold, either owned by a wealthy family or an Emperor. The snail art piece looks to be a kettle. This kettle was a special kettle because of the designs it held that had drawings and other symbols. The museum didn’t provide any information on the kettle, but like the Egyptian makeup tool we discussed in class, this was probably just an everyday item that is considered a work of Art in today’s world. One thing I can say about it is that it seems to be representing someone because of the braided hair roped down it’s back. Finally my favorite piece of all, the Dragon holding what I think is a bucket. This Dragon was most likely a decorative piece because it doesn’t have any sign showing that it would mean anything more than just a Dragon holding a vase. It was most likely owned by someone wealthy because it’s made up of gold. In my opinion and best guess, I would say that the winding of the Dragon serves a purpose of showing immense strength by holding up the vase. Korean history is very rich. One important thing I must point out is the feeling I felt in this exhibit. These different pieces all brings out a tranquil mood because everything looks peaceful and clean. It just doesn’t show a history of battles. It shows a history of peace and tranquility.

This art piece was at the entrance of all the exhibits. I don’t know what exhibit it belongs to. But one thing to point out is the obvious symbolism of what innocence is. This picture uses a clear sky to symbolize freedom and uses the white clothing to symbolize innocence. One look at this image and it creates a warm and nice feeling to accommodate the innocence and beauty of the women in the picture. The 3 women all look away to make you feel and ask what are they looking at in the distance. The way the lighting is in the picture create the women to look like angelic figures.

MD: Soul of a Nation

Michael DeGennaro

When entering the Brooklyn Museum’s soul of a nation exhibit, I was strikingly hit with emotion rooted in the history in the artwork surrounding me.  This exhibit celebrates the work of Black American artists from 1963 to 1983. During this period the dreams of the Civil Rights Movement were formed and black artists across America worked to create a range of art in response to the moment.  The Flag is Bleeding, 1967 by Faith Ringgold particularly spoke to me.  This painting is a questioning of the reality of what the American flag symbolizes.  It is interesting because a flag is intended to represent unity of a nation, yet here, it is blood shed and as a symbol for racial inequality and violence.  A black man is putting his hand over his heart, which is an American symbolization of unity when reciting the national anthem, yet his heart is wounded, yet he is holding a knife, preparing defense for future attacks.  The white male figure‘s dominating stance demonstrates his power in society, implying racial status and hierarchy. He is unwounded and standing with his arms to his hips, dressed in a suit which connotes as highly authoritative.  The female in the middle attaches both males at either ends and interlocks them, showing they are all connected under this unjust system, yet they are all unequal. The artists choice to have a flag oozing deep red blood, in a manner that is very blotchy and scattered depicts the reality of this long drawn battle.  

 

Brooklyn Museum Assignment: Soul of a Nation

In the Soul of a Nation Exhibit,  I came across so many great pieces of artwork from the Angela Davis and Malcolm X piece to the Wall of Respect mural. One of the pieces that crossed my eye was the “Blackboard” painting. The artist uses a variety of warm and cool colors from green and white to represent an actual blackboard to red and orange in the clothing of the two subjects in the middle. The lines are smooth and continuous. The artist used just the amount of scale to show both the writing and the subjects. In this painting, it seems as the two subjects are teacher and student. The painting reminds me of a  school setting. It could be Black History Month and for class the teacher is showing the student an alphabet acronym of African countries, African American pioneers, and words that come to mind when one thinks of black people and all that we’ve been through.

I chose this painting because we need more teachers teaching students about black history. Black people have endure so much for years and are still enduring a lot. I know that there are many educators and parents who teach their students/kids about black history and its culture. There are many people who are unaware of the many people who helped us as a race to come together with other races as a society. This painting relates to the rest of the exhibition because it has aspects that relates to black history. The painting showed names of those who helped us from education to living in society with one another (such as Dubois, Malcolm X, Sojourner Truth, Toussaint L’oeuvre, and more). This painting also had empowering words such as “victory, justice, freedom, black power…” which showed how far we’ve come as a race and as a community.

Blog Post 7: Brooklyn Museum-Soul of a Nation

In the Soul of a Nation exhibit, I saw the “Dan Johnson’s Surprise” piece of art. I chose this one because it stood out to me right from the beginning. Being that it is mostly an off-white color, with faded blue-ish gray circular figures, it stuck out as unique to me. The circular figures resemble stretched out human heads, so it makes me think that they are ghosts of some sort. The figure on the far right almost seems to have a body as well. This eerie element is why I chose it; it jumps out at my eyes, almost in the same way that the figures seem to jump out at the viewer. In fact, this aspect reminds me of those silhouette images of people reaching for help (view image below to see what I mean by this). The difference is these people are so twisted and morphed, they are almost beyond recognition of a representation of a person.

This is fitting with the theme of the rest of the exhibition. The theme behind the exhibit is the idea of racial violence and how to be empowered and uplifted against this. This image gives the heart of the viewer a pang that makes them want to fight against racial discrimination and violence, so that is how it relates to the entire exhibition. In fact, the idea that they look like ghosts relates to racial violence, in that the violence could have killed and mutilated the figures, leaving them as only what is seen in the image.

silhouette of a man
silhouette of a man

Part II. Merton D. Simpson’s U.S.A. ’65

Seeing the Soul of a Nation exhibit for the first time at the Brooklyn Museum was such an inspiring experience. It was remarkable to see how artists like Merton D. Simpson used the power of art to stand up to the injustices that were happening in America at the time. One of the reasons that I chose Simpson’s piece, U.S.A. ’65 was because it was so dark and monstrous compared to everything else. Not just in the sense of his colors but his overall message of struggle and turmoil shines in his piece. I think his choice in using these dark colors help further his message, his grays and blacks help to distinguish the faces in his painting. Simpson also does a brilliant job of using his space and materials to his advantage, making his piece stand out from everyone else’s. He uses specific newspaper articles and pictures and places them in very specific places. He doesn’t let the articles take away from the main focus, being the emotion portrayed by the faces. I think another important aspect of Simpson’s painting is his use of the color white. He uses just enough so the viewer can make out the faces and be able to see the newspaper articles but doesn’t let it stand out more than the darker colors. Even though Simpson’s aesthetic approach to the issue was different than the rest of the exhibit it was still used to usher in the new political and cultural movement: Black Power.

Brooklyn Museum Assignment Part I & II

Part I

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For Part I of the assignment I chose to dive into the Egyptian Art exhibition at the Museum. As soon as I saw the sculpture showed above I was interested to analyze this particular work of art which is called Pair Statue of Nelson and Never-ta. Using Formal Analysis I immediately noticed that the sitting couple is made out of Limestone. As I looked around I noticed that the bench where they are sitting on has writing all around it and not only in the bench but also in the persons clothing. This makes me think of the art work we saw in class and how sculptures from all other places in the wold also had writing during those times. This means that they all had their own language and similar ideas when it came to language. Their clothing and neckless have an appearance of people who are in high level society which made me think that they are a married couple from the royalty. What makes me come to the conclusion that they are married is that the are both have one arm being each other’s back and not only that but the artist made their arm unnaturally long and if looked closer on the sides they are holding each other with affection. Their body posture is stiff and everything seems alined. There is parallel lines in every section of writing. Furthermore this writing and the limestone is painter with different colors of blue, red, brow, and black. Furthermore the volume of hair in each person is large and it makes their faces look smaller, specially the woman whose face is smaller and has a larger neck. It seems that they both are wearing some sort of make-up in their eyes which makes those look bigger and angled. the size of the Sculpture is a small. I love what it represents and I love looking at it. Using formal made me understand in a deeper way what the sculpture represented in Egyptian times.

 

Part II

For Part II, in Soul of a Nation, after looking around the exhibit I found my attention to be caught under this amazing yet horrifying painting, The First One Hundred Years by Archibald Motley 1891-1981. As you can see in the pictures I took, the painting seems to be oiled based. Also the use of dark and cold colors is very mesmerizing because it helps the viewer feel what is going on. In the painting I feel that the artist wants the viewer to focus on the two faces that hang on the tree (Martin Luther King Jr.- J.F.K) and one from the house (Abraham Lincoln). Those are the faces of important activist and presidents of the United States. The main thing they all have in common is that they were all assassinated.  I chose these particular painting because it summarizes everything bad and wrong that happened during African American slavery and when the confederate flag was wave by the prosecutors and the “pure” white people. All this horrendous events took place under the times of those three individuals’s faces. To me the painting is very sad and scary. When I saw the painting,  it made me feel anger. To the whole exhibition this work of art in particular shows what African Americans had to go through before they obtained freedom. The Exhibition is about the Soul of a Nation, it has work of art that represent the time where Blacks resisted oppression, and the time where people made a difference. Basically the exhibition as a Then and a Now. The painting above is very powerful and meaning full and the way it was painted with different colors, scale and dimensions make the viewer to want to see it. After Motley concluded this work of art, he never painted again.

Brooklyn Museum: Soul of a Nation

I chose the artwork called Revolutionary (Angela Davis) by Wadsworth A. Jarrell. It is from 1971 and is a form of contemporary art. There seems to be a lot of historical context behind the painting. The artist, Jarell, co-founded a movement called COBRA, which later went to be called AfriCOBRA, with his wife. Because he is proudly involved in the black rights movement, he dedicated this piece of art to an activist named Angela Y. Davis. Davis fought for racial, gender, and economic justice so Jarell decided to do something based off her and her work. The image is her face with the incorporation of words that Davis herself said and also Black Power slogans.

About the composition of the painting, the colors incorporated in the artwork is very important. The color scheme is made up of mostly of warm colors. There are reds, pinks, purples, and yellows all involved. They are also important because they are the AfriCOBRA’s signature colors. It was blended in a way where all the colors can just pop up at you. Also, the words are written with the same colors so it blends in but it was done so interestingly that you can still read out the words on the painting. The painting is on a canvas made with acrylic and mixed media. The scale of the painting is very big, you can compare it to the size of an adult bike.

Something very interesting about the artwork is that Angela is seen wearing a belt of bullets. These belts were extremely popular symbols of revolutionary thought. This shows Jarell’s dedication into depicting the reality and truth about the black rights movement.

Brooklyn Museum Assignment

For my formal analysis of art from the ancient world, I chose to focus on “Painted  Coffin Interior” 1070-945 BCE.  To begin with what we discussed in class and how this piece relates to our discussions, we can see that this coffin interior uses different registers to section off certain parts. The thick, light blue lines act as the registers divider, and the light blue is the most prominently featured color. Along with the light blue, there is white, dark green, gray, and black used. Also featured is a diamond pattern on  king Osiris’ legs, and semi-circles used for his torso. King Osiris is the central figure, taking up a majority of the coffin’s interior, and the largest in scale in relation to all the other figures depicted. The images of birds is repeated often throughout the registers, some of which have human faces. Next to many of the birds looks to be fruit, specifically grapes or berries. Like many pieces of Ancient Egyptian Art there is an ohm featured on the second register from the bottom. By the King’s feet we see a depiction of Anubis and another animal-type creature supporting the King’s legs. The King is also holding a striped staff or cane, across his chest. A heavily repeated image is the reddish circle with the white outer rim. It is repeated over the king’s head, at the very top of the coffin, and there are four that surround the kings torso. At the very top, it is unclear but it looks like two eyes are painted, perhaps to watch over the deceased in the afterlife.

 

A piece of art that spoke to me instantly from the soul of a nation collection was Wadsworth Jarrell’s Black Prince. It depicts a colorful and powerful image of Malcolm X holding up a finger. What I was immediately drawn to was the intense palette of red the artist used. Next to this painting were several other paintings also using vibrant and passionate reds to “drive” the art. After exploring the entire museum i found the soul of a nation collection to be the most striking and powerful. This piece, like many of the pieces in the museum, seem to represent the ongoing struggle African Americans have had in this country. Malcolm X is one of the most recognizable African American leaders in the past century so to choose him as the subject was very poignant. As mentioned the intensity of reds drew me into this painting but once closer, standing a few feet in front of the art, the painting took an entirely new dimension. The artist used hundreds of recurring “B”s to shape the painting, and repeating B words such as Black, Beautiful, and Bad. Along with all the B’s there is Malcolm’s X famous quote about using any means necessary. The quote hangs around X’s chest almost like a pendant or necklace, worn as a badge of honor. A small detail that I believe to be important is that the colors extend beyond the border of the painting. There are dots and splashes of paint beyond the white border, breaking through frame.

 

 

 

 

 

SN: Brooklyn Museum Part 2

Part 2:

William T. Williams, Trane, is an acrylic painting that is rich in color and geometric abstractions. The colors included are red, grey, lavender, dark pink, yellow, navy, dark red, bright red, orange, light green, dark green, brown, brownish-beige, and black. Thin white lines separated every shape as they intertwined with one another. The geometric abstractions show the tension between the colors and forms and tests the limits of the other colors used during the intensive work process. Each shape ends with sharp points, and the colors make the shapes bolder as they fill up most of the paper. The pink shape in the middle seems almost trapped, surrounded by so many other geometrics pointing in different directions. I chose this artwork because the colors were bold, bright and to me, it is screaming a strong message. I thought it was very creative that I wanted to see the artist’s name. When I saw it was William T. Williams, I was surprised because I learned all about Williams in middle school, but I never saw this piece. Trane relates to the rest of the exhibit because each artist was of color and practiced art during 1963-1983, where those artists were able to individually create different kinds of art that reflect upon the movements of the time period. Each artwork tells a strong story and captivates the viewer to want to learn more about it.