Falling Short but Aiming High

         Frederick Douglass said, “Poets, prophets, and reformers are all picture-makers – and this ability is the secret of their power and of their achievements.  They see what ought to be by the reflection of what is, and endeavor to remove the contradiction.”  Artists are, of course, also picture-makers, and on Juneteenth it seems to me appropriate to share a linocut by Elmer William Brown (USA, 1909-1971).  Its carving is full of light and shadow, with dramatic dark-clouded sky and double outlines, both black and white, at the edges of many shapes.  I particularly like the pattern of the ground radiating out from the shovel, and the little cliff and tree to the left.  Its subject is a white overseer and a black chain gang, with all-too-many similarities to the abolished system of chattel slavery in the south.  The overseer looks scrawny and mean, the conditions rough, and an air of oppressive drama hangs over it.  Apparently the artist Brown had been incarcerated himself, for riding a freight chain illegally as a hobo, so he presumably had very personal emotions about the scene.

        This piece is showing “the reflection of what is,” in Douglass’s words, in order to get us to hold it up beside our ideals and see where we need to remove the contradiction.  Juneteenth is a commemoration simultaneously of celebration of the end of slavery, but also frustration and mourning that the promised freedom did not reach everyone as quickly or as completely as it should.  I believe it’s always important both to see the failures that exist but also to continue to hold up the ideals of what is possible without giving in to cynicism.

        (One final note.  A number of sources attribute the quotation from Douglass to a lecture he gave at Boston Tremont Temple in 1861.  However, I cannot actually confirm it in any primary source, which makes me uncomfortable.  Well, I’ve already spent enough time trying to track it down, so I just give you the caveat and leave it at that.  And of course if anyone can point me to the source, I’d be happy to see it!)

[Picture: Ol’ Peckerwood, linocut by Elmer William Brown, 1939 (Image from The Cleveland Museum of Art).]