FINAL EXAM

Selection #1 Jacob Lawrence: American, 1917 - 2000

Daybreak - A Time to Rest, 1967 Tempera on Hardboard
National Gallery of Art, Washington

Selection #2 Jasper Johns: American, 1930 -
Perilous Night, 1982, Encaustic On Canvas With Objects

National Gallery of Art, Washington

This paper will evaluate the similarities and differences of a selected art work of twentieth century American artists, Jacob Lawrence and Jasper Johns. The selected piece from Lawrence is Daybreak – A Time to Rest; it was created in 1967 on a tempura medium, which is an aqueous medium like watercolor. Perilous Night is the piece selected from Jasper Johns collection. Perilous Night was created in 1982 and is an encaustic on canvas with objects. Both artists, Lawrence and Johns are from the postmodernism period. “Postmodernism is used to describe art that emerged after modernism, and contradicts the purity and form of modernism. Postmodernism is characterized by clean lines, geometric shapes, futuristic design, and the placement of items and objects in unusual areas”, (Getlein, p. 552). For example, Johns places objects in the shape of human arms in the right side of the painting Perilous Night that creates intrigue and hunger in the viewer for elucidation. On the contrary, Lawrence’s Daybreak takes on a form of expressionism. “Expressionism is when the artist’s subjective feelings take over the objective observation” (Getlein, p. 522). “The art piece Daybreak is representative of work produced during the Harlem Renaissance movement where the experiences and tragedies of African Americans in the United States was mixed with the heritage of Africa to produce vibrant pieces filled with geometric symbolism” (Getlein, pp. 534-535).

I found that all of Lawrence works focus on African American life and he often times creates pieces in series. Daybreak - A Time to Rest is one in a series of works that tell the story of Harriet Tubman. Harriet Tubman was a slave who formed the Underground Railroad, an escape path for African American slaves to escape from the captivity of slavery in the South to free states in the North and Canada. Although, this art work is about a time of struggle and sadness in the history of African Americans in the United States, Lawrence use of intense primary and secondary colors removes the sadness from the art work. Jasper Johns brings fantasy to his art work. John’s works begin with a simple object, such as a number, a flag, or a rectangular and utilizes the one object over and over to give flight to the viewer imagination. In Perilous Night, Johns uses rectangles in different angles of the painting and divides the piece into a right and left panel. Unlike Lawrence, John palette selections vary from portrait to portrait and John does not use a high saturation of color. In Perilous Nights, John employs only tertiary colors.

Both of the selected pieces, Daybreak and Perilous Nights are asymmetrical. The foliage and the angle for which the shore is recessing into the night creates more weight to the right of the piece in Daybreak. Likewise, with Perilous Nights the arms, organic shape, and additional squares, puts the visual weight to the right side of the piece. John also uses a combination of tertiary colors to the right of the piece as oppose to monochromatic tertiary color on the left. The colors and shapes that Lawrence makes use of gives a visual unity to his work (Getlein, p. 123). There is a rhythm created by the repeated geometric shape of the triangles (Getlein, p.141). There are three triangular shapes, two implied and one in the foreground. The first implied triangle is the slant of the foliage, and the second implied triangle is the vanishing point of the parallel lines of the shore. The complementary color relationship of the purple and orange colors brings oneness to the piece.

Lawrence’s form, that is, the visual aspects such as shapes, lines and colors used in this composition are consistent with several art movements of the 20th Century. The movements are fauvism, expressionism, and cubism. Perilous Night exhibits influences from cubism, dadaism, and surrealism. Cubism, which was made popular by Pablo Picasso and George Braque is detected in both pieces, however there is much more cubism inspiration in Perilous Night than in Daybreak. In Perilous Night, the color palette is restricted to basically three colors and the patterns in which the portrait is created is characteristic of cubism, in that the paint strokes appear short and blended in some areas. Thus, Perilous Night is representational of the cubism movement with its palette, technique, and its utilization of geometric shapes. Whereas, only slight influences of cubism can be detected in Lawrence work with the representation of the visible world that Lawrence creates with the geometric shapes that are drawn together to make a whole image with its’ own logic”, (Getlein, pp. 522-524). “Typical of dadaism, Perilous Night reveals the creativity, spontaneity and relentless of the artist not to be categorized. Surrealism which combines touches of collages, cubism, and dadaism, all precursors, allows the artist to release all inhibitions, and create from the subconscious, which is definitely what Jasper Johns does in his works” (Getlein, pp. 527-529).

To maintain the clarity and radiance of the bright, vibrant colors that are characteristic of Lawrence pieces, Lawrence medium of choice is a tempura, which is similar to watercolor. Tempura however dries to a tough and insoluble firm surface, similar to oil paintings. The advantage of tempura is the preservation of its original brilliance and lucidity” (Getlein, p 171-172). Jasper Johns, medium of choice is an “encaustic canvas in which powered color (pigment) is mixed with wax and resin. The wax when heated eases the tasks of spreading the pigments for the Artist. This technique originated in Ancient Greece and is not a popular method for contemporary artists. The advantage of using an encaustic canvas is that the wax overtime is more durable than oil paintings,” (Getlein, p 169). The encaustic canvas gives the painting more visual texture, that is, the paint appears to be thick, but the thickness of the paint provides a totally different affect than the thickness of the paint in a Tempura piece, in which the thickness provides vibrancy. In an encaustic the thickness almost gives off a roughness to the piece, it provides a visual texture.

The content of Daybreak – A Time to Rest is representational in that it is capturing life in “the visible world, in a likeness in which we recognize” (Getlein, p. 29), Jacobs however, represents these moments in life in an abstract manner. Jacob approaches abstract in a recognizable manner. That is a viewer of his pieces for the most part can look at Jacobs work and decipher the artist intent. With Daybreak, it obvious that this is a human figure taking a nap, a “break” possibly concealing himself/herself within the surrounding foliage. Perilous Nights by Jasper Johns is also abstract in style. However, Johns piece is at the other end of the spectrum for abstractness, in that the artist starting point in unrecognizable. The piece is so nonrepresentational that it gives the viewer no definite point for which to begin interpretation. This art form “nonrepresentational or nonobjective takes abstraction to another level, that almost removes it from the visible world”, (Getlein, p. 33).

Although the pieces are from the same period, are balanced similarly, and share abstract characteristics their style, technique and mood are totally independent. If art truly imitates life, then the independence may quite possibly be explained by the difference experiences encountered in the life of the artists. Jacob Lawrence was born in the New Jersey and Jasper Johns born and reared in the south, South Carolina. In addition Jacob Lawrence is thirteen years the senior of Jasper Johns. Other factors of possible influence on the artists works is race and the political atmosphere during their years of creativity. The single factor that drew my attention to both artists was the mystery in their pieces, with Jacob Lawrence, the faceless characters and the uncertainty of the intent in Jasper Johns works. I like the fact that with John the interpretation is open to the viewer, which stimulates creativity and inner reflection. I am also intrigued by the cultural aspects and vibrancy of Lawrence pieces.

REFERENCES:
Getlein, Mark. Living With Art. 8th. Ed. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 2008.