Romare Bearden
The collage artist I chose was Romare Bearden. He is known mostly for his collage work. The artistic periods he was apart of was cubism, social realism, and the Harlem Renaissance. What I really like about his work is the color. There is just so much color in each of his collages and I feel like they all contribute to an overall earthy tone of all of his pieces. The shapes in his pieces are also very fascinating. The Calm Sea (the first image), exhibits the shape of a woman and an overall massive shape representing the ocean, and then the shape of the sky. All of these shapes standout because there are stark outlines and color contrast between each shape. This gives the piece an overall vibe of a collage, but yet it all still comes together so smoothly and still seems to tell a story. In the ocean part of that piece, you can see shapes resembling a human face, and even a bird. These shapes reveal an underlying meaning that Bearden was trying to convey to the viewer. The second image is a piece called Roots. Again, I love the geometry of this piece. It makes it very visually appealing. The colors and shapes are so simple on their own, yet Bearden makes them all come together in this collage to have a very powerful meaning of what one’s roots mean in the context of slavery. The third piece is called The Return of Odysseus and the color scheme is very striking. There is a lot going on in this piece, but the clutter-ness contributes to its overall message of struggle.
From Bearden’s pieces, one take away that I would like to include in my piece is the importance he places on geometric shapes. I will try to purposefully choose different shapes for each element of my collage so that it all fits together nicely.
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