Artistic and Literary Sources |
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ChangingLike many of his contemporaries, Bearden was profoundly aware of the invisibility of blacks in mainstream American society and culture. Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man (1947) expresses this frustrating dilemma in its opening line: "I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me...."Bearden's work transforms the world of art and its archetypes into a culture that embraces black folk, black life, black culture, and black ritual. In doing so, he mediates the gulf between ancient and modern, white and blackness, Africa and the African diaspora. Let's see exactly how this happens in our two works… First, Bearden's Odysseus watercolor
Romare Bearden, Odysseus Enters at the Door
Disguised as an Old Man, c. 1977, Evelyn N. Boulware
By integrating a different pictorial structure—flattened, patterned, and high-colored—into the format of Pintoricchio's composition, Bearden sped time forward. Homer's ancient story becomes a contemporary tale. Making visual references to Egyptian and black southern culture, he also transformed the story's meaning. Odysseus, Penelope—in fact all of the figures—are black. By this singular transposition, Bearden creates not just a black version of The Odyssey—part of the white, Western canon—but comments on its historical pervasiveness and its racial exclusivity. |
The suitors' African-inspired headgear,
and the southern dresses and headscarves of Penelope and her servant
contribute a final cross-over. Stand-ins for the artist's memory of
rural North Carolina, they imprint American blackness upon both Homer's
ancient tale of a man's journey home and its successive white-based
depictions.And now let's consider Bearden's Baptism
Romare Bearden, The Prevalence of Ritual:
Baptism, 1964, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, gift of
Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1966
Your goal: understanding the many levels on which Bearden adapted elements and strategies from diverse art forms so that this image, rooted in autobiography, bears the shared imprint of universal experience across centuries and continents—an experience that also expands our understanding of Bearden’s sources themselves. His collage echoes the many depictions of St. John baptizing Jesus in the River Jordan—just as the ritual itself echoes that original rite. "Wade in the water…" 
As Bearden was growing up, river baptism was common in southern Protestant
churches, particularly among rural black congregations. It continues
to be practiced today. A number of traditional African religions also
use immersion to cleanse both body and soul. These rituals embody
desires for renewal and freedom that resonate deeply in the African-American
experience. The connectedness to African traditions was felt by the
faithful who "gathered at the river." Southern River Baptism, c. 1905, Library of Congress |
"What I've attempted
to do is establish a world through art in which the validity of
my Negro experience could live and make its own logic."
As we discovered, the faces of many of Bearden's faithful—deacons, initiates, church members on the shore—are composed from fragments of African masks. We saw faces and hands that brought to mind the scarification rituals of several African cultures. Bearden admired the formal beauty and stylized form of these African elements. He also understood their role in African rituals and rites of passage. It is surely no accident that Bearden selected a water spirit mask for this baptism scene.  Another
tradition in forming this work is the religious painting of the
West—not
a single work, but an entire corpus of paintings depicting the Baptism
of Christ. Bearden’s work invokes these paintings of Jesus
and Saint John in the River Jordan, just as the river baptism itself
echoes
that original act of anointing. Bearden's
transformation goes beyond a one-way recasting of Western forms
in
black American guise. He also transforms our visual expectations
of archetypes. His Visitation and iconic images of
Mother
(read: Madonna) and Child establish a multicultural standard for
the depiction of such figures as the archangel Gabriel, the Virgin
Mary,
Jesus, and the saints. Bearden thus made them still more powerful
in their ability to touch the human spirit. Master of the Life of John the Baptist, The Baptism of
Christ, probably 1330/1340, National Gallery of Art, Washington,
DC, Samuel H. Kress Collection
Romare Bearden, The Visitation, 1941, Estate of Romare Bearden, courtesy of the Romare Bearden Foundation, New York
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