Archibald Motley's Exhibition Reflection

The Exhibition of Archibald Motley 

at the Cultural Center in Chicago

Barbecue, c. 1934. Oil on canvas, 39 x 44 inches (99.1 x 111.76 cm)

                 When I first entered the exhibition of Archibald Motley, variety of pigments came into my eyes, especially red and blue. Some classmates felt uncomfortable about his painting, because some of them included nudes. But I was amazed by how he arranged colors to create such a dreamlike atmosphere in the paintings. The information provided in the museum told most of his paintings were dealt with racial issues and jazz. The first thing came into my mind, when I saw the word 'racial', was a skin color. This was because skin colors give the very initial impression to drag the idea of people from different countries. Surprisingly, people in his paintings did not really emphasized on showing the differences of skin colors, but emotion and culture. In Gettin' Religion, as an example, one can see the culture and people's social statues at that time.

    Gettin' Religion, c. 1948. Oil on canvas

                     As blue pigment is all over in this painting, the only thing a viewer can recognize is the silhouette of people on the street. And the bright street light seems like the moon in the sky. When you divide the painting into a horizontally half, you can see the upper section is less crowded than the bottom. This is trying to make a viewer focus on the bottom more than the another. When you see the bottom section, you can see street musicians and people enjoying such night entertainments. I liked how he depicted every different motions of people containing their own stories. Moreover, I was impressed by the frame of it. The frame was in red with a wooden texture. Although red and blue are not direct complementary colors, it was enough to give a strong contrast between those two colors.

                     Under the heading of Paris Blues, I learned that Harlem Renaissance which affected Archibald Motley's paintings was come out from the Bohemian lifestyles. From 1929 to 1930, he not only depicted jazz but also expressed "a black cultural uproar." For example, a man playing the saxophone and a man singing on the street create a melancholy impression.

                      His paintings are significant because he well portrayed the atmosphere during the Harlem Renaissance. He tells the African-American history through only paintings, as those truly shows the excitement and the boom of the black culture. Breaking the prejudice of oppressed black culture makes his work even more important.