dead shortly and long dead

Horace Pippin. John Brown Going to His Hanging. 42. Oil on canvas, 24 1/8" X 30 1/4". The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia.

Meta Warrick Fuller. Talking Skull. 1937. Bronze, 28 X 40 X 15". Museum of Afro American History, Boston.

John Brown Going to His Hanging and Talking Skull both speak of death, but in rather different manners. Both works were created by artists of African descent and during similar time periods, but that's where the similarities stop. 

Pippin's painting holds great agony. The subject will be dead shortly. The dormant trees hold few brown leaves that will soon lose the connection to their own life source. The is day is bitter and cold. Guns and whips procure emotions of violence and hatred. The white jail house with black barred windows symbolize the power and control the white had over the imprisoned and confined blacks during the time period. The white horses draw John to his demise. The white men casually smoke pipes as "justice is served." The lone black woman seems to turn away in disgust. The many vertical lines remind the viewer of what is to come. The white crowd goers are already dressed for the funeral before the death occurs. John is bound and will soon be hanging. This is a grave painting of a grave event for a man that is being sent to the grave.

Fuller's sculpture is also sorrowful. The boy kneels naked and vulnerable before the skull of one long gone and gone forever. He pleads and longs for something he will never have. The barren earth beneath him offers no hope either. But in the magic of the moment that is the sculpture he can have this conversation with the talking skull. His questions can be answered. His concerns can be consoled. His comments can be appreciated. His nostalgia can be eased. Only in that moment.