Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey

Summary

Romare Bearden, a pivotal African American artist, is renowned for his innovative collage work, which vividly portrays both the African American narrative and the broader human saga. In his series inspired by Homer’s "Odyssey," Bearden reimagines the epic through an African American lens, creating a uniquely powerful narrative that resonates universally. His art captures the timeless quest for home, embedding these themes within the context of Black experience. Featuring rich, evocative colors and innovative techniques, Bearden’s work transcends traditional storytelling, intersecting cultural, historical, and personal narratives.

Highlights

• Romare Bearden's 'Odyssey' series reinterprets the epic as an African American narrative, offering new cultural insights. 🏛️
• His collage technique uses colors and textures to create dynamic, storytelling artworks that captivate viewers. 🎨
• Bearden's work challenges traditional narratives, emphasizing the universality of the Black experience in classic tales. 🌎
• The artist's innovative use of collage juxtaposes fragments of culture and history, forming a cohesive story. 🖼️
• Bearden's depiction of strong, multifaceted Black characters redefines traditional roles, offering fresh perspectives. 🦸‍♂️

Key Takeaways

• Romare Bearden reimagined Homer's 'Odyssey' with an African American perspective, blending classical and Black narratives. 🖼️
• His innovative collage work offers a vibrant, colorful, and transformative storytelling experience. 🎨
• Bearden's art explores universal themes of seeking home, identity, and belonging, resonating with diverse audiences. 🌍
• The artist's approach connects mythological tales and African American experiences, creating a unique cultural synthesis. 📚
• Using collage, Bearden highlights the richness of Black culture, encouraging a deeper appreciation of American and world art. 🌟

Overview

Romare Bearden, a pioneering figure in modern art, masterfully utilized the medium of collage to tell expansive stories that resonate deeply with audiences. His interpretation of Homer's 'Odyssey' is not just a retelling but a reimagining that places African American experience at the forefront of this timeless epic. By using vibrant colors and intricate designs, Bearden transforms the tale into a vivid exploration of identity and belonging.

In Bearden’s 'Odyssey' series, the narrative of Odysseus’s journey becomes a metaphor for the African American quest for home and identity. His characters, depicted with rich, evocative tones, embody the struggles and triumphs of a people navigating a landscape of love, temptation, and hardship. Bearden’s work stands not only as art but as a cultural declaration, bridging myth with real-world narratives.

Through his masterful collage techniques, Bearden challenges viewers to see classical texts through a modern lens, enriching them with African and African American cultural elements. His art invites the audience into a dialogue about history, culture, and personal narrative, making his work both a visual feast and a profound commentary on the universal human experience.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 03:00: Introduction and Bearden's Background The chapter titled 'Introduction and Bearden's Background' appears to open with repeated phrases accompanied by music, such as 'hone hone where you been' and 'world going again'. Although these repetitions suggest an abstract or artistic entry, the chapter's main focus is likely to set the stage for exploring Bearden’s background or to evoke a particular mood or theme relevant to Bearden’s story or artistic influence.
• 03:00 - 07:00: The Odyssey and African-American Experience This chapter explores the intersection of the classical myth of 'The Odyssey' and the African-American experience. It discusses an interpretation of 'The Odyssey' set in Africa and highlights the influential work of African American artist Romare Bearden, who is renowned for his innovative collage art.
• 07:00 - 13:00: Artistic Techniques and Perspectives The chapter titled 'Artistic Techniques and Perspectives' discusses the life and work of an individual referred to as Rome Beon. Born in 1911 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and passing away in 1988, he witnessed significant changes both in the United States and globally. Beon, an African-American, was committed to telling the epic story of African America while also embracing the broader narrative of mankind. His long life was marked by the transitions and events that shaped the 20th century.
• 13:00 - 17:00: Collage Method and Cultural Significance The chapter titled 'Collage Method and Cultural Significance' mainly discusses the work of a poet from Harlem who had a notable ability to tell stories through his poetry. He was recognized not only for his literary prowess but also for his skills as a Southern landscape painter. His works intricately depicted both northern and southern interiors, bringing to life the everyday aspects of southern life such as breakfast tables, passageways, and domestic activities like bathing and cooking, thereby offering a profound reflection on culture and humanity.
• 17:00 - 20:00: Conclusion and Universal Themes The chapter emphasizes universal themes that resonate across cultures and time, focusing on the idea of 'home' as a central, lasting value. The narrative evokes familiar scenes significant to both Northern and Southern Americans, particularly black Americans, highlighting a nostalgia-free reflection on universal quests and values. These include the search for belonging, identity, and enduring principles that guide individuals throughout their lives, as seen in the allegorical journey home.

Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hone hone where you been H H where you the world and I'm going again world going again world going [Music] again well [Music]
• 00:30 - 01:00 I did a show a couple of years ago on the Odyssey in which I interpreted as a myth happening possibly in Africa RAR Bearden was an American artist of the greatest importance whose Innovations were many but who's best known for his incredible collage work he was an African American who through his art
• 01:00 - 01:30 told the Epic story of African America at the same time that he was so committed to telling the story of mankind in general Rome beon was born in 1911 in Charlotte North Carolina and um he died in 1988 so he went through a long life of changes in the United States a lot of changes in the world um he saw a lot he was an African-American
• 01:30 - 02:00 who looked white to many people and so I think he also learned a lot about Humanity he was a poet of Harlem who told that story uh he was also a Great Southern landscape painter he gave you the Interiors of of spaces north and south and when it came to the South he made you think again about those breakfast tables and uh passageways upstairs and places where you'd bathe and cook and so on
• 02:00 - 02:30 and so without any Nostalgia he evokes scenes that people knew North and South especially black Americans I feel that what stuck me about the odyy is that all of us from the time we begin to think on a hesty in this case home looking for the values that are kind of everlasting you know our home or Telus the Sun SE for
• 02:30 - 03:00 the father and and this is applicable to everyone RAR Bearden first created the odyssia series for a show that appeared in 1977 at cordier and exam gallery on the East Side in Manhattan he'd been reading Homer for many years because he'd done The Iliad Series in the' 40s
• 03:00 - 03:30 and so he had been meditating on this for quite some time I think he turned to the Odyssey because it was just like a glove it just was such a clear metaphor for the experience of African-Americans and maybe his own experience Homer's Odyssey is is described as great Greek epic that is a foundation of Western literature it's the story of odyss and his trip back
• 03:30 - 04:00 home after the wars on his way back home uh odyusa series of gods and goddesses especially goddesses some of whom direct him on his way back home and rescue him others fall in love with this beautiful man and want him for [Music] themselves this is series when he asked me to come in to photograph him um and I
• 04:00 - 04:30 saw him in his Studio I couldn't believe that a man did these I thought maybe a machine had done them or they had been offset letho or something the pieces themselves were so different than anything I had seen before so uh you know it took me a little while to understand that he had actually done these and I attended that show and you walk inside and you get a jolt uh that here are these remarkable colors leaping
• 04:30 - 05:00 out at you the thing is he did the watercolors afterwards so in these photographs in the images that I took he's at the table in St Martin upstairs in his studio and he's working on the odsa series and uh he's already traced the outline and he's just adding the colors to it he's got the book from uh the catalog from the show that he
• 05:00 - 05:30 did so uh I'm sure he's looking to see what colors went into each piece and he's got his palet here and he's got his uh his inks his watercolor and he's just filling it in Bearden makes the characters in odyss as black as he can make them here's an African-American artist telling a black story story and making it unequivocally
• 05:30 - 06:00 our story purchasing the story as one for Black America we too are seeking home we too have been through love and trouble and Temptation and death and terrible suffering and somehow we are the heroes of this story as for my own work what I've tried to do is to take the Elements of afroamerican Life in this country as I see it that is to uh place it in the universal uh
• 06:00 - 06:30 framework when he tells you this is the Odyssey I saying yeah but these characters are black he say yeah so so you know it dawn on me and then you know it sinks in that oh okay so he's uh universalize in a particular here all right beardon was a modern reader of the odsy so he approaches Homer as John col train approach which is Miles Davis toe-to-toe we're going to
• 06:30 - 07:00 make music together let's see what we make of it I know we both know the score but we're going to do different things with it he's trying to tell us that there's something about that basic story of humanity that can be um that has an affinity with urban life Rural Life Greek life black life These are there there are essential stories about Humanity that need to be retold in different ways
• 07:00 - 07:30 so that different people with different eyes can see them I pain out of the tradition now the blues the tradition of the Blues and a call and recall I you know you start a theme and you call call when I was a little boy uh living in 131st Street in Harlem and going uh to the Lafayette Theater
• 07:30 - 08:00 I might hear Duke Ellington and a Blues singer and she would sing a song like I woke up this morning and I my man had left a letter and he was said he was going to leave me and if I feel like I do now I'm going jump in the river well this is a terrible as detentional thing is a woman who man has left her she's going to possibly commit suicide but what was happening behind it uh somebody was
• 08:00 - 08:30 riffing that is uh playing something on the trombone and what has what was ostensibly a very terrible thing was becoming a farce and it's the same so in that sense uh what was happening at the Lafayette Theater uh has a linkage to ancient Greece because you had these ceremonies
• 08:30 - 09:00 of the Vestal virgins and the satas would come in and start snatching them and running off to the woods with them uh something that was very tragic and solemn would turn into a farce so this is Art is celebrating its own kind of Victory I think he decided that there were certain things about the Epic that he wanted changed he revises the tale of the Cyclops in a way that is most
• 09:00 - 09:30 dramatic we expect a hovering Beast uh Mountain size uh to be standing there uh dangerously threatening odius and his men but how interesting it is to decide that this Cyclops is not a big Burly monster but a big Burly baby maybe the aysus would have been wiser just to keep on sailing let him go he's revising home women to make them a little bit more
• 09:30 - 10:00 like the women that he grew up knowing these Powerhouse women like his mother and so I think we we come away from the the Epic Bearden Style with a whole new definition of the Modern Woman as much more than the home body weaving and unweaving she's an intellectual she's a strategist she does what she has to do to hold her family together but she'll kill you to in the cases of the Cersei and others if that's what it takes to to achieve what she want [Music]
• 10:00 - 10:30 I have always uh been interested in the concepts of myth and a ritual because it gives an extension uh to a literature to Art and to a life itself for instance I have a baptism scene and I've tried to relate the people in my painting of the baptism to uh of a myth even back in Africa I've
• 10:30 - 11:00 used certain mask to try to show uh the Heritage that relates these people in my painting are back to a certain past Romey was a great Storyteller and he likeed to tell stories and he liked to hear about stories and in the South when you grow up you know they have a thing called a liar's bench and it's usually in small towns or it could be in big towns but it's in a community and you go there and you would listen to the
• 11:00 - 11:30 old men tell stories and you know what they would do is called swapping lies so yeah all of that played into his work that storytelling anyone who knows him or knew him would tell you that he was a great Storyteller and he loved to bring people together but also um he had a great Library so I knew that anything he was putting in his paintings came from being a reader Bearden insisted that art
• 11:30 - 12:00 comes from other art and so that while you're seeing ideas that are absolutely his you also the more you know see matis in the background you see the Dutch Masters in the background you see Chinese calligraphers in the background West and Central African and Egyptian artists in in the background and so the dynamism of of this virtuoso work is that you not only hear The Echoes of all these other voices from literature and from painting but he says to his viewer
• 12:00 - 12:30 you and I too are going to make meaning come on in through the through this blank color door and you and I are going to going to make poetry together to me the art of painting is the artart of putting something over something else uhhuh you see so that the planes would overlap and the things that I wanted High instead of of Monae making it say in the blue or to recess I would just make it put it higher he tells one
• 12:30 - 13:00 interviewer that he decided not to use color till he could use color that would walk around like big men the way said and his colors walk around like big men you look at that image of of the the siren song and the colors there are so startling and so wonderful that you think if nothing else this is a master colorist and I love that quality of his work where um you can take a little corner of it and it's so tightly
• 13:00 - 13:30 constructed that you can have like a beautiful little abstract painting anywhere um and then it all works together wait a minute he cut these things out with his scissors and you realize that he's come to the point where he can do anything with those scissors where he's a virtuoso who can cut in a curve who can cut a line as straight as a line can be cut I use papers often that I paint myself others I buy colored I use uh
• 13:30 - 14:00 some photograph often from magazines pieces of cloth and other material in many ways it's like uh a putting a uh a symphony together or a piece of music a certain Melody going of colors and then certain contrapuntal elements that play against this I think he chose collage because it's a method with that breaks um what we normally see or how we normally see and um deconstructs it and
• 14:00 - 14:30 puts it back together in a way that makes new meaning he found a way to work in that he found a way to talk about diversity and to talk about fractured cultures all in in collage at the end of the story of course he does make it home home to ramar Bearden was uh the the universe he was a uh like diogenes he was a citizen of the world so when you arrived as as
• 14:30 - 15:00 um adus arrives you're arriving in ancient Greece you're arriving in the cariban you're arriving at home with part of the message being that you're at home wherever you are if you equate lot of the things that happened in Nigro life you see this um it's a continuity with many of the Great classical things that have happened before and uh this is what I tried to find in my work this connotation of many of the things that
• 15:00 - 15:30 have happened to me with the great classical things that have [Music] pass the world and I'm going again the world and I'm going again for