Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Painting by Archibald J. Motley Jr. : "Saturday night" (1935)

     This painting, Saturday Night" by Archibald L. Motley is about how swing dancing made people happy. As you can see by the expressions on everyones face it was very entertaining. Also the woman that is dancing is in such a soulful positioning you can just see how much the dancing means to her individually.

     This image relates to the themes, pride and desire to reconstruct meaning of "negro". The way that this artwork shows pride is because you can tell that the dancers in the picture have full pride and are really showing it to everyone with no doubt in their mind. the way that this image displays the desire to reconstruct the meaning of "negro" is because lots of people just looked at the negative things in black people and didn't see any good. In this picture you can tell that they didn't care black or white, they just wanted to dance from their soul within.

     The reason this picture stood out to me, out of all the artwork i saw was because of the mood the picture gave off. It is a very happy picture and it lets off a lot of good energy. I also chose this image because i thought it was a very good depiction of the entertainment and just the straight up fun they had. The colors were also very bright so my eyes just liked the picture.

     I like this picture because i think the style of painting is really creative with all the different colors and shapes. I like the way the artist made it so the picture looks as though everything is spiraling in the direction the woman dancer is dancing. I think it is a beautiful painting and that is why i chose it.

http://blog.newsok.com/bamsblog/2009/02/03/harlem-renaissance-exhibit-opens-this-week-at-oklahoma-city-museum-of-art/

5 comments:

  1. haha hey i used that same picture for my blog! i really like it! great minds think alike, huh?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I really like how in depth you analyzed the piece. Also, it was cool how you gave the girl dancing a kind of personality with "you can just see how much the dancing means to her individually."

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love this picture you chose, its somewhat realistic because its smooth strokes but also somewhat surrealistic. Its quite exciting.

    ReplyDelete
  4. incredible picture, brings a lot of energy and colorful life.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This was a really great contest and hopefully I can attend the next one. It was alot of fun and I really enjoyed myself.. https://pixelsensteken.nl/

    ReplyDelete