Monday, May 4 Jacob Lawrence The Migration Series

In class: viewing Jacob Lawrence's "The Migration Series"
               vocabulary   quiz Friday...class handout / copy below.

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/art-between-wars/american-art-wwII/v/lawrence-migration-long

Lawrence "Migration Series"

Broad in scope and dramatic in exposition, this depiction of African-Americans moving North to find jobs, better housing, and freedom from oppression was a subject he associated with his parents, who had themselves migrated from South Carolina to Virginia, and finally, to New York.

Lawrence began to research the subject at the 135th Street Library.

 After many months of reading and taking notes, he made sketches or the series. Gwendolyn Knight, a painter who was to become his wife, helped him identify memorable scenes and assisted in gessoing the panels and writing the inscriptions. Enthralled by fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Italian paintings he had seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lawrence used their medium—tempera—with a craftsman's mastery. To keep the colors consistent, he placed the panels side by side and painted each hue onto all the panels before going on to the next color. Perhaps it was this approach that resulted in a sense of collective unity, even though each panel can stand on its own.

Searing in their immediacy, the works show only essential imagery. Flattened, angular forms, strong diagonals, and contrasts of light and shadow contribute to the dynamism of the images. Although Lawrence used a limited palette, he arranged the colors to form focal points to direct the viewer's attention. Some pictures are self-contained; others are more expansive. As the narrative unfolds, from image to image, the vantage point, compositions, and details change—in a manner reminiscent of a film. In some panels, figures dominate; in others, the setting propels the story. The people are not individualized; rather, they represent collective characteristics. However, Lawrence never lost sight of the human drama. In all of his work, the human content is paramount.

Assignment: quickwrite

   On a separate sheet of paper, beginning with an MLA 

heading, respond to the following in a well-written paragraph.

How are the narrative images of Lawrence's "The Migration 

Series" reflective of the African American experience the early 

20th century?

Realism Poetry vocabulary    quiz on Friday, May 8

1.    to efface (verb)- to cause (something) to fade or disappear

2.    bark (noun)- ship

3.    crypt (noun)- a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins, sarcophagi

4.    auspex-(noun)- one who observes birds, soothsayer, diviner

5.    promontory (noun)- a point of high land that juts out into a large body of water; a headland.

6.    filament (noun)- a slender threadlike object or fiber

7.    tulle (noun)- a soft, fine silk, cotton, or nylon material like net, used for making veils and dresses

8.    civility (noun)- formal politeness and courtesy in behavior or speech.

9.    ductile (adjective)- able to be deformed without losing toughness; pliable, not brittle-pliable, pliant, flexible

10.   cornice (noun)- an ornamental molding around the wall of a room just below the ceiling