Rachel Rozewski
Analyzing Art
COM 232
1 March 2012
Since 1976, every US President has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. This annual celebration of the achievements by black Americans is a time for recognizing the central role of African-Americans in U.S. history. The Tampa Museum of Art recently held an exhibition of Romare Bearden’s Southern Recollections in honor of Black History Month. Romare Bearden was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and moved to New York City when he was a child. The artist’s brief childhood in the South and recurring visits to see his great-grandparents, both of whom were emancipated slaves, had a great impact on his art. One example of this impact appears in the painting titled The Family, circa 1941. The portrait consists of a single family—father, mother, and son. The father sits at a table gazing at a lantern that is placed on the table. He wears a blue suit with a white undershirt, and his hand is up in the air signaling his wife to stop whatever she is doing i.e., “brushing her off.” The woman is standing behind the man, wearing a red dress with an apron over it and holding a child. The woman’s bright white earrings stand out against her dark complexion. The baby she is holding is draped in a white gown and has big white eyes, visibly larger than his parents’. A white cloth hangs behind the baby’s head, and appears to possibly be attached to the wall or around the baby’s back. The piece is visually appealing and communicates a strong message through elements such as color, lines, and geometric shapes.
Romare Bearden uses color and value as strong elements in his work. For example, The Family consists of many different colors, such as blue, red, and white. The most unusual use of color is the blue that is reflected in both the husband’s and wife’s faces. The same blue that is seen in the man’s jacket is covering his entire face. The wife has a darker shade of blue covering the majority of her face; however, the same light tint that is found on her husband is reflected onto her eyebrows, nose, and upper lip. As blue is gendered male, Bearden seems to have chosen this color to convey the dominance and power of the husband has over his wife. Placing blue on the face of the character can also insinuate sickness, depression, even coldness. Looking further into the characters’ facial expressions, their stern lips and small squinted eyes suggest unhappiness. As the husband is strategically placed at the table directly in front of the lantern, the implication seems to be that Bearden chose to paint these characters blue to show that they are cold towards each other.
Red is another strong color that emerges in this painting. Red appears in the wife’s dress; on the husband’s thumb, pointer, and middle finger; as the flame of the lantern; and in the background on the wall. Red often alludes to love, anger, fire, heat, caution or warning, and pain. In this painting, the red seems to represent negative emotions associated with the color. Bearden chose red for the woman’s dress to show the pain she is feeling, conveyed in her face and facial expression and further emphasized by her red dress and lips.
Lastly, the color white is represented throughout this painting on the baby, on the cloth hanging behind the baby’s head, on the fork and salt shaker, and on the lantern. White can be used to represent a bland, boring, plain object that has no meaning, or in this case, it can be an uplifting color representing innocence, angels, opportunity, and neutrality. The baby, a symbol of innocence, is wearing a white gown in his mother’s arms. His bright white eyes and the white cloth hanging behind his head suggest he is an angel. Similar to the white lantern that is heating the cold father, this baby can be the angel that touched down on this family presenting the only opportunity for them to reunite and survive. The combination of the baby and the color white can also represent the neutrality in relationship to the father and mother, who are clearly disconnected.
Lines can be used in many ways, particularly in this portrait to direct the viewer’s eye through the painting. When looking at The Family, the eye is drawn to the husband’s blue face first. After his face, the viewer’s eye follows his arms which are facing the bottom right corner of the painting. If the eye continues to follow the husband’s right arm, it reaches his middle finger which is also directed to the bottom right corner of the painting. However, there is a bright white fork that is strategically placed in a line pointing at the husband’s middle finger, forcing the eye to look at his pointer finger instead of following his middle finger off the page. His pointer finger is directed to his left arm, and up towards his wife’s face. The line from the husband’s left elbow to the wife’s face, from her face to the baby’s behind, and from the baby’s behind back to the husband’s left elbow form a triangle in the painting. This triangle is not only visually appealing because it leads the viewer’s eye throughout the painting; it also reinforces the interpretation of the baby as an angel or neutral object for the husband and wife. The baby, who completes the triangle, forces the viewer’s eye to travel from the husband to the wife to the baby and back to the husband. The triangle that the baby forms suggests the baby will resolve the separation between this husband and wife. This example shows how important lines can be to communicate a message.
A third dominant element in The Family is geometric shapes. The three characters are the main focus of the piece, and there is not a background or sense of negative space. Instead, various geometric shapes, with various colors and positions are placed strategically around the characters almost like pieces of a puzzle. Although this might seem cluttered and messy, the light color that Bearden uses for the geometric shapes prevent a conflict between the background and the focus of the painting, which is the three characters. The puzzle-like background and lack of negative space helps to further enforce the unity that the baby is bringing to this family. This example of geometric shapes being “put back together” in an abstracted way exemplifies Bearden’s connection to cubism, while communicating unity.
Although The Family can be interpreted by the colors, the lines, and the geometric shapes alone, the combination of all three elements strongly enforces the message that Romare Bearden is trying to convey. The colors allow the viewer to sense emotion, while the lines and shapes help to verify the meaning communicated throughout the piece. Overall, this painting is not only engaging to the eye of the viewer, but also conveys Romare Bearden’s interpretation of family.