Lamar Dodd: From this Earth

On Sunday, October 28, at 12:45, we met as a class at Morris Museum. Lamar Dodd is an artist from the modernism era of the "Isms". The painting that I will get to analyze is from this Era is From this Earth. Initially this painting can be a little hard to see, but as the viewer is able to envision this piece, they are able to see the jarring feeling that this piece has. The setting of this work of art says a lot in its own. It already shows four bodies, well four slaves that are picking cotton. There are many unique features to this painting.

So to sum it up quickly in order to get to the interdisciplinary traits, the viewer can first see the arch in the slave’s backs. It shows that the work the participated in was backbreaking and downtrodden. You also see this “cotton field” which is so rooted and enriched with other cotton plants. As you can see this barren field is provided to the viewer by Dodd to give the appeal of the slave’s life in the field, which showed to be barren, dry, and lifeless. The bright use of red shows the blood that picking the cotton would expel from the slave.

Unique to this era is that it does not have a true start or ending point. As you analyze the work of art, the traits of the modern era are evident. You can see this artist’s will to show the alienation of the black slave as they are treated inhumanely as they work their 12–16 hour days, lowly rationed food. The white mastered would strip them of all their credibility as a human. You can see the alienation within the piece as the viewer can see that barren land, the posture of the slaves and the color of the land, mixed with a sky that isn’t sun shining and pleasant. Also a part of this time was the segregation of America, and dealing with Jim Crow.

This was a severe time for the African American. This was a critcal time and expressing the racial experience was common for men of this time as it was a way to keep stragglers from falling off and remember that the goal is freedom and that they have come a long way for the rights that they have now.

A comparative work of literature that speaks as much volume as the piece by Dodd is the poem that was written and also sung by Billie Holiday was Strange Fruit, by Abel Meeropol. However this poem is somewhat short in its deliver its words span wide and powerful. Alienation is also used in this poem as she say strange fruit, to embody the entombed African American of the South, as you can read in line 4, “Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees”. Its an oxymoronic choice as when we think of fruit, we think of something, sweet, nectar-filled, nutritious, and healthy, not the body of a man hated due to his skin color.

Word Count: 510