Other People Are Looking at Us: Visual Commentaries on Social Change - paintings

Visual Commentaries upon Social Change

After last year's OJ Simpson trial and upon into the Million Man March, relations between whites and blacks in offices and upon college campuses across the geographical division were strained. While the strain ,,vas disturbing upon the surface, below it lay an impetus for change--and possibly understanding. America was be opposite toed with scenes of racial strife and disturbed through the polarity that resulted; there lay a basis for discussion and debate. in what manner can there be change until the sum of two units forces, black and white, draw near together and seek to understand each other?

Art is an effective medium, and the traveling exhibit "In the organ of sight of the Storm: An Art of Conscience, 1930-1970--Selections From the Collection of Philip J and Suzanne Schiller" crashes into your psyche in plenteous the same way that last year's sum of two units polarizing events did. Both black and white artists make riveting, passionate statements upon social issues that have stand in front ofed our country since the Great Depression, including destitution McCarthyism, antiwar movements, civil rights, segregation and African-American spirituality.

In a particularly poignant section titled "Prayer Meetings and Lynchings: African-American Straggles for Self-Definition and Survival," black artists Joseph Delaney and Jacob Lawrence draw from pageants from their childhood; white artists George Biddle, Palmer Schoppe Louis Lozowick and Joe Jone gaze at black religious life and racism. Below each of the artworks and captions that come [i]or[/i] go after [i]or[/i] behind all of which are from the "Prayer Meetings and Lynchings" section, Lawrence shares his views of the works. Lawrence is the solitary black artist in this exhibition who is still alive to annotate on its significance.

"Other family are looking at us," he says. "This is the way they diocese us, and this is the way they portray us. It doesn't make a difference in my intelligence of the works, but I find it interesting that many of the statements advance from nonblack artists--that this is the way that they diocese their time, certain people in their time, and certain cultural circumstances taking place in their time.

"The entire exhibit is based upon sensitivity and insight. If we take all the works together, I think they say a fate They have al lot of passion, a destiny of feeling, much sensitivity to the human condition. I also think they move beyond the ethnic in many of the works. It's just not at)out an ethnic thing here; it deals with people

"I think it's a amazing title, by the way: `In the organ of vision of the Storm.' A brilliant title."

"Spirituals," 1937 by means of George Biddle

In this painting individual can see the same mix of Italian Renaissance art and contemporary social regards that marked the Mexican murals Biddle for a like reason admired. The strong profiles and muscled neck of the sum of two units right-hand figures call to mind the sibyls in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel in Rome The meek arc of the singers' heads indicates the rise and fall of the divine revelation music coming from their throats, The range of expressions and skin colors gives each figure an individuality that calculators the racial stereotyping often not away in representations of African Americans. At the same time, their compositional unity call ups a sense of cohesion. The figures are placed not inside a house of god but rather in a rural landscape rising and falling in harmony with the figures' heads.

Jacob Lawrence: "'Spirituals' makes an impact. It's a beneficial work, a very good work, on the contrary it doesn't tell a story in the same way as `White Justice' [see right]. To a individual from another culture, another time, another place, I don't think what Biddle was saying would approach through. I think you'd have to know the history. You'd have to know what spirituals are and what they mean to tribe But I think it's a beautiful painting."

"Street Scene--Restaurant," 1936-38 by the agency of Jacob Lawrence.

This is single of Lawrence's earliest professional works. It is not just any road scene, but one that contains the propositioning of a white man by means of a black woman. She can be identified as a prostitute end her posture, her clothes, and the company she holds (the other two women). The nervous expression upon the man's face, his glance above his shoulder, and his hand in his pants pouch suggest not only that he has approach to pay for the services of these women on the other hand also that he knows he has ventur into potentially hostile territory (both as a white man in an African-American neighborhood and as someone engaged in an illegal activity). The women are there to be under the orders of his sexual needs, but Lawrence, in a seemingly casual and humorous way, invests them with an air of self-confidence and power that indicates that they are the singles with the upper hand in this situation.

RELATED ARTICLE: "Revival," 1940 through Joseph Delaney

Using a fluid and exaggerated phraseology Delaney captures the emotional power of religion for the family in the center of the composition. The gas lamps appear to float above the heads of the figures, a literalization of the "light of Christ." There is also a tension between, upon the one hand, the central male figure's upturn face and expressive gesticulation encompassing the woman and children to his right and, upon the other, the downturned gaze and self-contained attitude of the woman. The figure upon the far right also fence ins the man next to him with his left arm. There is thus press outed in these gestures a faculty of perception of both enclosure and release, of support and enlightenment.