Mother_Child by Romare Bearden
Painted On Canvas
We are like children
We’re painted on canvases
Picking up shades as we go
We start off with gesso
brushed on by people we know
Watch your technique as you go
Step back and admire my view
Can I use the colors I choose?
Do I have some say what you use?
can I get some greens and some blues?
We’re made by the pigment of paint that is put upon
Our stories are told by our hues
Like Motley and Bearden
These masters of peace and life
Layers of color and time
Step back and admire my view
Can I use the colors I choose?
Do I have some say what you use?
Can I get some greens with my blues?
{My second best loved song by Gregory Porter from his album Be Good.}
-> But! I didn’t know the artists Motley and Bearden, who are mentioned in this song and I looked them up.
Romare Bearden (1911-1988) was an African American artist and writer who grew up in Harlem and became best known for his collage works. His subjects are civil rights, lack of humanity in society and the African-American community. (and this is very short for an impressive body of work!)
Archibald John Motley Jr (1891-1981) was also of African-American origins, born in New Orleans. He studied painting in Chicago during the 1910s, graduating in 1918. He is most famous for his colorful chronicling of the African-American experience during the 1920s and 1930s, and is considered one of the major contributors to the Harlem Renaissance, or the New Negro Movement, a time in which African American art reached new heights not just in New York but across America. He specialized in portraiture and saw it “as a means of affirming racial respect and race pride.”
Thanks for the research. This song is even prettier now.