It was only a few months ago that we found, here at the University Art Museum, a letter written by American novelist, literary critic, and scholar Ralph Ellison (1914-1994). In our pre-quarantine world, we all crowded around in excitement at this amazing discovery. For those who are not familiar with his work, Ralph Ellison was best known for his 1952 debut novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award, and was one of the most widely read books in the years following World War II. Ellison had been asked to write an introduction for American artist, author, and songwriter Romare Bearden (1911-1988), whose collages were being shown in our Romare Bearden Paintings and Projections exhibit in 1968.
Similar to Ellison, when I was first asked to write this piece, I was hesitant. I didn’t admit it at first, but I didn’t understand the excitement and the emotion the letter brought out from those around me. In his letter to the museum, Ellison shared his feelings, and said he almost refused. He wrote, “I’d never written on painting before and for all my long interest in Bearden’s work I feared that I’d be intruding into an area where, as a commentator, I had no legitimate business.” This, however, didn’t stop Ellison from writing an incredible introduction on Bearden’s behalf.
That being said, the duality and many issues that one has to face as an African American artist in society doesn’t make it easy to always push boundaries and break down stereotypes, especially during the time Ellison, Bearden, and other contemporary artists were trying to achieve this—a postwar era. The sociologist and writer W.E.B. Du Bois, perfectly described this as the “double consciousness” of African Americans, who have, he said, more than one social identity, being both parts of this hyphenated label and having to find ourselves within the realms and worlds of both, but also showing the world how we deserve to be recognized. African Americans should be fully accepted for their ideas, and society should be open to the new ways in which it can be pushed to its highest ideals, where all are actually seen as created equal, because those truths are self-evident. As Ellison claims, Bearden had to come to terms with this, as did many artists. He wrote, “Fortunately for them and for us, Romare Bearden has faced these questions for himself, and since he is an artist whose social conscious-ness is no less intense than his dedication to art, his example is of utmost importance for all who are concerned with grasping something of the complex interrelations between race, culture and the individual artist as they exist in the United States.”
The truth is that the beautiful possibility of a world that could be, greatly outweighs the struggles at hand. This is the job of an artist, a visionary, and all positive creative minds. Granted, reconstructing your own mind and beliefs in order to envision your own beautiful world through art is a draining, but rewarding experience. Many of the artists during that time felt limited by the label society had assigned them, because being African American had been so heavily condemned, it didn’t seem like giving a voice to ideas of an equal world and fighting this bigger anachronism was worthwhile. Ellison states that many failed to tell it like it is because they had no point of reference. Artists had to break from those mental chains after breaking from the physical ones. Bearden was one of many who were representing a new world through their work and imagery without having earlier examples of those in the same position as him to look to.
Both Bearden and Ellison were influenced by jazz, a genre filled with bursts of creativity, anxiety, uneasiness, but also beauty, which mirrored the emotions and experiences of African Americans. All of this emotion was funneled into their imagery, as captured by Ellison, “For as Bearden demonstrated here so powerfully, it is of the true artist’s nature and mode of action to dominate all the world and time through technique and vision. His vision is to bring a new visual order into the world, and through his art he seeks to reset society’s clock by imposing his own method of defining the times”. Ellison makes it clear: We must define the times and reset society’s clock.
Although it is unfortunate that the accounts and experiences of these thinkers and artists from history still provoke emotion and bring individuals to recount the experiences they may have had just a few years, months, days, or seconds ago, we now have a point of reference. We have Bearden and Ellison. We as individuals, still working to reset society’s clock and point those living, and those to follow, in the right direction are not working alone, we are working together with past generations, marching, discussing, and dreaming along with those before us. With careful technique, we move in strides to create the world in our own vision, to use each of our metaphorical paintbrushes, our tools, our words, and our actions to create the greatest world we can imagine. On that note, it is important that we continue to find the positivity in the accounts of those before us and gain insight into ways we can drive society forward.
With that I think it is perfect to end with another point so beautifully articulated by Ellison. “Bearden is aware that for Negro Americans these are the times of eloquent protests and intense struggle, times of rejection and redefinition - but he also knows that all of 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 street are to find effective statement on canvas they must undergo a metamorphosis. For in painting, Bearden has recently observed that there is little room for lachrymose, for self-pity or raw complaint; and if they are to find a place in painting this can only be accomplished by infusing them with the freshest sensibility of the times as it finds existence in the elements of painting.”
What we must do with our voices is ever-changing and constantly evolving. As we move through a new phase in history, we must take all that is happening right now and funnel it into our work and all our efforts. Each conversation, each expression of art and shared vision is a step toward a greater world and way of life. By and large, we must reset society’s clock as we see fit because society is merely something waiting to be reshaped. Keep talking, keep creating and keep sharing. The greatest world imaginable is waiting for us.
