These two Drawings were completed over the Easter weekend. The first is significant to Good Friday and Easter. The second is related to the first through the history they both are a part of. These are both History Paintings, or History Drawings. A genre I hope all my work at least touches on in some way.
The first piece is of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Good Friday arrest in Birmingham. This arrest prompted King’s famous essay Letter From Birmingham Jail. The source of the drawing is news footage used in the documentary Citizen King. A doc covering King’s work from 1963 up to his death in ’68. One thing I really liked about the film was that it didn’t focus too much on King as a greatly remembered martyr or a man of Saintly attributes. Not that he shouldn’t be remembered that way. The movie talks about him as an activist during what can be argued as our nation’s most difficult time, since the Civil War. It shows King’s faults and the dissent he faced, within the movement.
That being said, watching footage of people kneeling while he passes them, leading up to the arrest, is quite moving and does show the unique impact and importance Dr. King held. This is evidence of how fundamental he was to the movement and what he meant to the African American community in the 60′s. Ironically though, and maybe even morbidly(as far as comparisons go), while working on this piece I kept coming back to or thinking off Richter’s Herr Heyde.
The second drawing is of Robert Kennedy towards the end of his time as Attorney General. Next to him is John Lewis. Lewis is now a Congressman from Georgia, in 1964 he was 24 years old and chairman of SNCC. The men are standing in a group behind President Johnson while he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.(Side Note: If you watch video of the signing you can see J. Edger Hoover eagerly waiting to receive one of the bill signing pens. This strikes me as odd based on how relatively racist Hoover was and how much he tried to throw a wrench in the Civil Rights movement or at least the work King was doing.)
To make this drawing I looked at the era that really took hold of History Painting, Neo Classical or Academy painting in the 18th and early 19th centuries. I was especially thinking of Ingres’ The Coronation of Napoleon. I wanted this piece to look like a detail of a grander piece, like The Coronation, but focused on key characters involved in the creation of the event being depicted.
These drawings were fun.
Good Friday. Birmingham, AL, 1963
Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy & Chairman of SNCC John Lewis
Signing of Civil Rights Bill, July 2nd 1964
Both chalk pastel on raw canvas
under clear acrylic, 2011
12x9in & 20x20in
jason@jasonpattersonart.com
Filed under: Civil Rights Project, Other Artists & Influences, Portraits
