By Aaron Douglas (1899-1979), "Harriet Tubman," 1931, oil on canvas, 54 × 72" (137.1 X 182.9 cm), Bennett College, Greensboro, N.C.
#arthistory #blackhistory #blackhistory #blackart #blackartist #art #painting #oilpainting
From the Camden Civil Rights Project: 'Douglas uses modernist imagery to depict the slave era heroine, Harriet Tubman, who was responsible for leading more than three hundred slaves to freedom by way of the Underground Railroad. Douglas wrote that he portrayed Tubman "as a heroic leader breaking the shackles of bondage and pressing on toward a new day." Behind her and stretching back symbolically to Africa are the black men and women who toiled and prayed through three hundred years of servitude. "The group of figures to the right... symbolizes the newly liberated people as laborers and heads of families. The last figure symbolizes the dreamer who looks out towards higher and nobler vistas, the modern city, for his race. He represents the preachers, teachers, artists, and musicians of the group. The beam of light that cuts through the center of the picture symbolizes divine inspiration.”’
