The Massachusetts Review, Inc.
The Art of Romare Bearden
Author(s): Ralph Ellison
Source: The Massachusetts Review, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Winter, 1977), pp. 673-680
Published by: The Massachusetts Review, Inc.
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THE ART OF ROMARE BEARDEN
RALPH ELLISON
I
as
to objects
given
In painting,
it is clear
less a "canvas,*'
and
a stake
some
to
discovery,
left
. . .
a restless
has passed
genius
the weakening
the importance
regard
of
art.
the capital
transformation
of Western
that a painting
is less and
of Picasso's
more
indicate
and
more
the place
the mark
through
of
which
THIS SERIES OF COLLAGES AND PROJECTIONS BY ROMARE BEARDEN
from a dedicated
represent a triumph of a special order. Springing
to
master
efforts
the
of illusion and
painter's unending
techniques
to the craft of painting,
revelation which are so important
they are
to explore the
also the result of Bearden's
search for fresh methods
of Negro American
is special
plastic possibilities
experience. What
about Bearden's
in
the manner
achievement
is, it seems to me,
serve one another,
which he has made
his dual explorations
the
and trans
way in which his technique has been used to discover
in keeping with
the special nature
of his
figure its object. For
search and by the self-imposed
"rules of the game," it was necessary
that the methods
arrived at be such as would
allow him to express
the tragic predicament
of his people without
violating his passionate
to art as a fundamental
dedication
and transcendent
for
agency
and revealing the world.
confronting
To have done this successfully
is not only to have added a dimen
our
sion to the technical resourcefulness
of art, but to have modified
successful
way of experiencing
reality. It is also to have had a most
a troublesome
encounter
with
social anachronism
while
which,
its
in areas lying beyond
existence
the special providence
finding
of the artist, has nevertheless
caused great confusion
among many
I say social, for although
social background.
painters of Bearden's
no less than by public
is by self-affirmation
Bearden
identification
a Negro American,
the quality of his artistic culture can by no means
to an exhibition
This essay is reprinted
of Paintings
from the catalogue
introduction
at the Art Gallery
& Projections
of the State University
Bearden
of New
by Romare
?
York at Albany, November
25 through December
22, 1968.
Ralph Ellison.
Copyright
673
The Massachusetts
Review
be conveyed by that term. Nor does it help to apply the designation
a sense of cultural
"black" (even more
for conveying
amorphous
and since such terms tell us little about
the unique
complexity)
individuality of the artist or anyone else, it is well to have them out
in the open where they can cause the least confusion.
I refer to that imbalance
What,
then, do I mean by anachronism?
a
in American
to
which
leads
of social
distorted
society
perception
to the creative possibilities
of cultural
reality, to a stubborn blindness
to the prevalence
of negative myths,
racial stereotypes
and
diversity,
illusions about art, humanity and society. Arising
from an
dangerous
initial failure of social justice, this anachronism
divides social groups
lines that are no longer tenable while
along
fostering
hostility,
anxiety and fear; and in the area to which we now address ourselves
it has had the damaging
effect of alienating
artists
many Negro
from the traditions,
and theories
to the arts
techniques
indigenous
through which they aspire to achieve themselves.
Thus in the field of culture, where their freedom of self-definition
is at a maximum,
and where the techniques of artistic self-expression
are most abundantly
available,
they are so fascinated
by the power
as to limit their efforts to
of their anachronistic
social imbalance
its manifold
and its apparent
dimensions
describing
invincibility
as
a major
it
take
theme and focus for
Indeed,
against change.
they
their attention;
their thinking about them
they allow it to dominate
selves, their people, their country and their art. And while many are
that simply to recognize
to
convinced
social imbalance
is enough
like artistic mastery,
and most
put it to riot, few achieve anything
fail miserably
effort to "tell it like it is."
through a single-minded
the
for
the
plastic artist is not one of
problem
Sadly however,
has been concealed
at
that
which
but
of
all,
by
revealing
"telling"
the truth.
time, by custom, and by our trained incapacity to perceive
it is a matter
of destroying
moribund
Thus
images of reality and
from the top of
creating the new. Further, for the true artist, working
concern with the most
his times and out of a conscious
challenging
the unassimilated
and anachronistic?
of his form,
possibilities
an
in the shape of motif,
whether
abhorrent,
technique or image?is
un
evidence of conceptual
technical
failure, of challenges
and/or
met. And although he may ignore the anachronistic
through a pre
can
never
with
other
he
be satisfied
details,
pressing
occupation
the
simply by placing it within a frame. For once there, it becomes
of his powers of creation.
symbol of all that is not art and a mockery
element from his
So at best he struggles to banish the anachronistic
canvas by converting
it into an element of style, a device of his
personal vision.
it is of the true
For as Bearden demonstrated
here so powerfully,
674
The Art of Romare
Bearden
all the world and time
artist's nature and mode of action to dominate
is to bring a new visual
through technique and vision. His mission
order into the world, and through his art he seeks to reset society's
it his own method
clock by imposing upon
of defining
the times.
The urge to do <his determines
the form and character of his social
it spurs his restless exploration
for plastic possibilities,
responsibility,
and it accounts to a large extent for his creative aggressiveness.
so often
But it is here precisely
that the aspiring Negro
painter
to a
of his social predicament
falters. Trained by the circumstances
such an attitude
habit (no matter how reluctant) of accommodation,
seems quite quixotic.
toward the world
He is, he feels, only one
are of such
which
and
thwart
the
conditions
his freedom
man,
enormous dimensions
as to appear unconquerable
by purely plastic
means?even
at the hands of the most
trained, gifted and
highly
arrogant
artist.
"Turn Picasso
into a Negro
and then let me see how far he can
conflict be
go," he will tell you, because he feels an irremediable
tween his identity as a member
of an embattled
social minority
and
his freedom as an artist. He cannot avoid?nor
should he wish to
but he flounders
avoid?his
the question
of
before
group-identity,
how his group's experience might be given statement
the
through
of a non-verbal
form of art which has been consciously
categories
its own unique possibilities
for many decades
before he
exploring
on the scene; a self-assertive
and irreverent art which
appeared
to photography
abandoned
long ago the task of mere representation
to the masters
and the role of story-telling
of the comic strip and
the cinema. Nor can he draw upon his folk tradition
for a simple
answer. For here, beginning
with the Bible and proceeding
all the
way through the spirituals and blues, novel, poem and the dance,
have depended
for
upon the element of narrative
Negro Americans
both entertainment
and group
identification.
it has been
Further,
those who have offered an answer to the question?ever
in
crucial
the lives of a repressed minority?of
who and what they are in the
most
terms who
and graphic
have won
their highest
simplified
And unfortunately
there seems to be (the
praise and admiration.
no specifically Negro American
African
tra
past notwithstanding)
dition of plastic design to offer him support.
How then, he asks himself, does even an artist steeped in the most
advanced
lore of his craft and most
concerned
with
passionately
address
solving the more advanced problems of painting as painting
himself to the perplexing
of bringing his art to bear upon
question
the task (never so urgent as now) of defining Negro
American
of
its
for
claims
and
for
identity,
pressing
recognition
justice? He
conflict between his urge to leave
feels, in brief, a near-unresolvable
675
The Massachusetts
his mark upon the world
its claims upon him.
through
Review
art and his
ties to his group
and
for them and for us, Romare Bearden has faced these
Fortunately
for himself, and since he is an artist whose
social con
questions
is no less intense than his dedication
to art, his example
is
sciousness
some
of utmost importance for all who are concerned with grasping
between
interrelations
race, culture and the
thing of the complex
in the United
is
States.
individual
artist as they exist
Bearden
aware that for Negro Americans
these are times of eloquent protest
and intense struggle, times of rejection and redefinition?but
he also
knows that all this does little to make the question of the relation of
the Negro
artist to painting any less difficult. And if the cries in the
on canvas they must undergo
street are to find effective
statement
a metamorphosis.
For in painting,
has recently observed,
Bearden
there is little room for the lachrymose,
for self-pity or raw com
this can only be
plaint; and if they are to find a place in painting
of the
by infusing them with the freshest sensibility
accomplished
in the elements of painting.
times as it finds existence
the late Thirties when I first became aware of Bearden's
During
scenes of the Depression
in a style strongly
work, he was painting
the
This work was powerful,
muralists.
influenced by the Mexican
scenes grim and brooding,
of unemployed
and through his depiction
in Harlem
he was able, while evoking
the Southern
workingmen
to
of that period
the usual protest painting
past, to move beyond
human
of an abiding
of the universal
elements
reveal something
condition. By striving to depict the times, by reducing scene, charac
of
to a style, he caught both the universality
ter and atmosphere
life and the "harlemness" of the national human predicament.
Harlem
and
I recall that later under the dual influences of Hemingway
a
created
Garcia
Bearden
of
the poetic
Frederico
Lorca,
tragedy
and paintings
series of drawings
voluminous
inspired by Lorca's
in
He had become
interested
Lament for Ignacion Sanchez Mejias.
as
human
for
forms
and
ritual
potent
experience,
ordering
myth
and it would seem that by stepping back from the immediacy of the
and as
he knew both from boyhood
Harlem
experience?which
was freed to give expression
to the essentially
a social worker?he
by
poetic side of his vision. The products of that period were marked
a palette which in contrast with the somber colors of the earlier work
to Chris
allusions
and despite the tragic theme with its underlying
tian rite and mystery, was brightly sensual. And despite their having
of the
influenced by the compositional
been consciously
patterns
these works were also
and the Dutch masters,
Italian primitives,
resolutely abstract.
676
The Art of Romare
Bearden
It was as though Bearden had decided
that in order to possess his
or
it not through propaganda
world artistically
he had to confront
but through the finest techniques
of
and traditions
sentimentality,
to recreate his Harlem
He sought
in the light of his
painting.
painter's vision, and thus he avoided the defeats suffered by many of
the aspiring painters of that period who seemed to have felt that they
had only to reproduce out of a mood
of protest and despair
the
scenes and surfaces of Harlem,
in order to win artistic mastery
and
social transfiguration.
accomplish
seem that for many Negro painters even the possibility
It would
of translating Negro American
into the modes
and con
experience
ventions
of modern
in part,
This was,
painting went unrecognized.
the result of an agonizing
the racial mysteries
and
fixation
upon
social realities dramatized
by color, facial structure, and the texture
of Negro skin and hair. And again, many aspiring artists clung with
to the myth
of the Negro
American's
protective
compulsiveness
total alienation
from the larger American
culture?a
culture which he
in
helped to create in the areas of music and literature, and where
the area of painting he has appeared
from the earliest days of the
nation as a symbolic figure?and
allowed
the realities of their social
to determine
and political
situation
of their role
their conception
and freedom as artists.
To accept this form of the myth was to accept its twin variants,
one of which holds that there is a pure mainstream
of American
cul
ture which is "unpolluted"
by any trace of Negro American
style or
of
idiom, and the other (propagated
by the exponents
currently
art
holds
which
that
Western
thus
is
racist
and
Negritude)
basically
of its techniques
and his
anything more than a cursory knowledge
In other words,
artist irrelevant.
the Negro
tory is to the Negro
who aspired to the title "Artist" was too often restricted
American
notions
of racial separatism,
and these appear not
by sociological
only to have restricted his use of artistic freedom, but to have limited
his curiosity as to the abundant
resources made
to him
available
of the artistic
by those restless and assertive agencies
imagination
which we call technique and conscious
culture.
Indeed, it has been said that these disturbing works of Bearden's
(which virtually erupted during a tranquil period of abstract paint
to a group of Negro
ing) began quite innocently as a demonstration
was
He
some
of
the
painters.
suggesting
possibilities
through
which commonplace
materials
could be forced to undergo a creative
when manipulated
metamorphosis
by some of the non-representa
to the resourceful
tional techniques
available
craftsman.
The step
to projection
from collage
followed
since Bearden
had
naturally
used it during the early Forties as a means of studying the works of
677
The Massachusetts
Review
as Giotto
such early masters
and de Hooch.
That he went on to
become fascinated with the possibilities
lying in such "found" ma
terials is both an important
illustrative
instance for younger painters
and a source for our delight and wonder.
Bearden knows that regardless of the individual painter's personal
taste or point of view, he must, nevertheless,
pay his ma
history,
terials the respect of approaching
them through a highly conscious
awareness of the resources and limitations
of the form to which he
has dedicated
his creative energies. One suspects also that as an
a marked gift for pedagogy,
artist possessing
he has sought here to
reveal a world
the
of
and rendered
hidden
cliches
long
by
sociology
im
of newsprint
and the false continuity
cloudy by the distortions
of Negro
life by television
and much
posed upon our conception
as he delights
us with
the
Therefore,
documentary
photography.
of design and teaches us the ambiguity
of vision, Bearden
magic
insists that we see and that we see in depth and by the fresh light
of the creative vision. Bearden knows that the true complexity
of the
slum dweller
and the tenant farmer
require a release from the
in forms
and a reassembling
prison of our media-dulled
perception
which would
of the
of
the
and
wonder
convey
something
depth
stubborn humanity.
Negro American's
the accepted world
Being aware that the true artist destroys
by
and creating
that which
is new and
way of revealing the unseen,
to his own
uniquely his own, Bearden has used cubist techniques
and tenant farmers set
Harlemites
ingenious effect. His mask-faced
scenes are
in their mysterious,
abstract,
familiar, but emphatically
com
resonant of artistic and social history. Without
nevertheless
in plastic
his
their integrity as elements
promising
compositions
a
are
frames.
of
their
reality lying beyond
eloquent
complex
figures
as integral elements of design they serve simul
While
functioning
taneously as signs and symbols of a humanity which has struggled
to survive the decimating
and fragmentizing
effects of American
social processes. Here faces which draw upon the abstract character
are made
to focus our
of African
sculpture for their composition
a
of
attention upon the far from abstract
reality
people. Here ab
stract interiors are presented
concrete
in which
life is acted out
is
under repressive conditions.
too, the poetry of the blues
Here,
are
in
themselves
forms
which, visually,
projected
through synthetic
and eloquently
tragi-comic
poetic. A harsh poetry this, but poetry
as
with the nostalgic
nevertheless;
imagery of the blues conceived
the familiar trains
visual form, image, pattern and symbol?including
and the conjur women
(who
(evoking partings and reconciliations),
appear in these works with the ubiquity of the witches who haunt the
of the enigmatic
drawing of Goya) who evoke the abiding mystery
678
The Art of Romare Bearden
women who people the blues. And here, too, are renderings of those
and sorcery which
rituals of rebirth and dying, of baptism
give
to the Negro American
ceremonial
community.
continuity
to us all Bearden
By imposing his vision upon scenes familiar
human which
reveals much of the universally
they conceal. Through
comments
his creative assemblage
he makes
upon history,
complex
upon society and upon the nature of art. Indeed, his Harlem becomes
a place inhabited by people who have in fact been resurrected,
re
created by art, a place composed
of visual puns and artistic allusions
and where the sacred and profane,
reality and dream are ambigu
in the guise of fragmented
And
resurrected
with
them
ously mingled.
ancestral figures and forgotten
of the instincts,
gods (really masks
and dreams) are those powers that now
hopes, emotions,
aspirations
force which
destructive
surge in our land with a potentially
springs
from the very fact of their having for so long gone unrecognized,
unseen.
com
Bearden
doesn't
impose these powers upon us by explicit
us
unseen
some
to
but
his
manifest
allows
make
the
ment,
ability
insight into the forces which now clash and rage as Negro Americans
in the slums of our cities. There is a beauty here,
seek self-definition
a harsh beauty which asserts itself out of the horrible fragmentation
which Bearden's
have undergone.
subjects and their environment
these forces have been
But, as I have said, there is no preaching;
to eye by formal art. These works
take us from Harlem
brought
trains to
through the south of tenant farms and northward-bound
tribal Africa; our mode of conveyance
consists of every device which
has claimed Bearden's
from the oversimplified
artistic attention,
and scanty images of Negroes
that appear
in our ads and photo
to the discoveries
of the School of Paris and the Bauhaus.
journalism,
no less
He has used the discoveries
of Giotto
and Pieter de Hooch
than those of Juan Gris, Picasso,
Schwitters
and Mondrian
(who
was no less fascinated by the visual possibilities
of jazz than by the
and has dis
compositional
rhythms of the early Dutch masters),
covered his own uses for the metaphysical
richness of African
sculp
tural forms. In brief, Bearden has used (and most playfully) all of his
artistic knowledge
and skill to create a curve of plastic vision which
reveals to us something
of the mysterious
of those who
complexity
dwell in our urban slums. But his is the eye of a painter, not that of
a sociologist
and here the elegant architectural
details which
exist
in a setting of gracious but neglected
streets and the buildings
in
which the hopeful and the hopeless
live cheek by jowl, where failed
human wrecks
and the confidently
of the
expectant
explorers
are crowded
as incongru
frontiers of human possibility
together
679
The Massachusetts
Review
in a Bearden
details
canvas?all
this comes
ously as the explosive
across plastically
and with a freshness of impact that is impossible
for sociological
cliche or raw protest.
Where any number of painters have tried to project the "prose" of
more
task performed
Harlem?a
successfully
by photographers?
its poetry,
its abiding
has concentrated
Bearden
upon
releasing
a surreal poetry com
rituals and ceremonies
of affirmation?creating
of vitality and powerlessness,
destructive
impulse and the
pounded
and enduring
faith in their own style of American
all-pervading
humanity. Through his faith in the powers of art to reveal the unseen
their immaculateness
through the seen his collages have transcended
as plastic
to put it another
constructions.?Or
Bearden's
way,
of technique
His combination
is identical with his method.
meaning
is in itself eloquent
of the sharp breaks,
leaps in consciousness,
of time and surreal
reversals,
distortions,
paradoxes,
telescoping
of styles, values,
and dreams which
characterize
blending
hopes
an act of creative will,
much of Negro American
history. Through
out of the shrill, indigenous
he has blended strange visual harmonies
so reflected
the irre
life and in doing
of American
dichotomies
a
to
of
and
thrust
endure
keep its intimate sense
pressible
people
of its own identity.
seems to have told himself
the
that in order to possess
Bearden
that
Northern
of
his
childhood
and
Southern
upbringing,
meaning
in order to keep his memories,
he would
dreams and values whole,
have to recreate them, humanize
them by reducing them to artistic
sense these works give plastic expression
in the poetic
style. Thus
to a vision in which
the socially grotesque
conceals a tragic beauty,
of the empirical values of
and they embody Bearden's
interrogation
a society which mocks
induced
its own ideals through a blindness
at
by its myth of race. All this, ironically,
by a man who visually
than 'black' in
least (he is light-skinned
and perhaps more Russian
to the social
limita
need never have been restricted
appearance)
art is thus
Bearden's
tions imposed upon easily identified Negroes.
as an
not only an affirmation
of his own freedom and responsibility
of the irrelevance of the
individual and artist, it is an affirmation
notion of race as a limiting force in the arts. These are works of a
a rare lucidity of vision.
man possessing
680