Essay on Art History: Beauty Examined From Kerry James Marshall

Art is a discipline that is always in resonance with aspects of beauty because it looks to pursue aesthetics. As a disciplined art has never shied away from the proud aspirations of Mastry. On the other hand, beauty is a necessary aspect of any work of art because it naturally makes audiences to appreciate art according to their tastes; in other words, beauty happens to be at the center of any key exploration of art. This paper is going to give invaluable insights regarding the relationship between art and beauty with a special focus on works by Kerry James Marshall.

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Beauty has never been synonymous with art but is continuously connected to it. There happens to be some manner of symbiotic, even mutual link that exists between the two. It proves to be very much of a challenge to imagine art neither minus beauty nor even minus its antithesis which is unattractiveness. Art emanates from the soul of the human being that is the artist and is appropriately categorized in the same place with the rest of the humanities. All the same in as much as art and beauty have a connection that is intertwined, beauty happens to be of an origin that is rather divine, graceful from the very temperament of the human divinity. Considering the true definition of beauty, art happens to be the response of man to embrace beauty (Hoover, 55).

An example of Kerry James Marshalls painting that has proven to be an epic symbol of beauty is the piece Our Town." This picture communicates a lot concerning art, beauty, African American history and way of life. As such, the piece is epic and is a proponent to beauty and a level of narrative that unfurls all through the wide pictorial composition that Kerry James Marshall saw befitting to create. In essence, for an artist like Kerry James Marshall, the artful and artistic know-how of beauty is a result of a one-sided, but widespread, human truth. This particular painting brings about a depiction of life in a beautiful American countryside with two black people; one riding a bicycle and the other following at a close range. Through this piece, art presents itself through color, the flowers by the roadside, and the portrait that is the two African American individual. On a similar note, beauty presents itself using humanity that is, the people, nature (the flowers on all sides of the road) and the technology that is the bicycle.

Beauty is a lot of things, and as an idea, it is very relative as it exemplifies itself through the machinations of art and other disciplines studied under the sun. For Kerry James Marshall, art and beauty have helped him present an aspect of humanity that resonates with the lives of African American people. In paintings such as the mansion which was created in the year 1994, the artist not only presents the history of art but also presents what it has been like and what it is to be black in the United States of America. For the very reason, the artists use a monochrome black to depict the subjects in his paintings and not brown is reason enough to show the intentions and the message of the work that make up this artist's portfolio. On "The Mansion," beauty is represented by the garden upon which several young African American men are working on, the work ethic presented by said men, and the mode of dressing that is, black pants, a white shirt, and a black Italian tie. It is worth noting that the same shade of black used on the pants and tie is the same shade of black used on the skin tone of the subjects (that is, black men) in the picture.

The origin of beauty as is the origin of the beautiful black people in Kerry James Marshalls paintings is not of this particular world; all the same, art is an endeavor that is very human, as human as Kerry James Marshall and all the other modern day artists. Target audiences are impressed by art because it helps in creating a link to the divine through drawing attention to the beautiful; the pleasure that comes forth is unmatched. Despite the many redefinitions that art and beauty have received over time, beauty usually calls upon the entirety of its audiences to account as and bear witness (Mann, 29).

Kerry James Marshall was born in the year 1955 and pretty much witnessed the civil rights movement in its entirety. For instance, in the year 1963 when he was nine years of age he witnessed a scene where White extremists dynamited a Black Baptist church and killed four young girls. Whats more, it was during his time that Mississippi and the rest of the south bore the brunt of the Ku Klux Clan and myriad other white extremists. Such impressions as Marshall had as a kid never disappear that easily. Perhaps his experiences in America are the reason why this Black artist has chosen only to include African American subjects in his paintings. Kerry is out to prove that black is indeed beautiful. It is as though through the paintings of the artist any observer can relieve the period in America that defined the civil rights movement. Worth mentioning is the fact that a second, less pronounced civil rights movement are here with us through proponents like Kerry James Marshall; the fact that all of the artist's works have African American men in them and not even a single white man speaks volumes. For that matter, it can be rightfully said that for Kerry James Marshall all that is black and African American is beautiful. According to the artist who has spent the entirety of his career portraying the lives of African American people on canvas inclusion in the world of art need not be pegged on whether a particular person likes you or likes whatever it is that you are drawing. In addition to that, it need not be dependent on whether an individual is generous to you". This statement the artist made during the presentation of an artwork of his titled "Club Couple"; here, in what seems to be a date, an African American man and woman are all smiles and having a good time within a club setting.

The relativity of the phenomenon that beauty is inspiring different perceptions by different artists. Perception is illustrated using art pieces. In the same way, as philosophy is with matters of deductions and premises, an artists perception of beauty can only be rebutted but cannot be deemed to be completely wrong; this is because with art and beauty neither is any presentation or expression 100% right or 100% wrong. With such a disposition artists like Kerry James Marshall are very much correct concerning the way in which they perceive beauty. The thing with art, as is with writing or any other form of creative creation is the fact that human some audiences are bound to perceive a work as beautiful while others are bound to regard a work completely different. With such a disposition it is only fair that an artist is comfortable in his or her skin (Sayre, 45).

The ideology and school of thought that art is an appreciation of beauty best defines the relationship between art and beauty. It is rather obvious that beauty is bigger than art and art can only be deemed to be a vessel or a machination through which beauty presents itself to audiences all over the world. In many ways than one art is a way in which artists express their perception and articulate their feelings; as such what artists truly seek is the freedom that comes with the discipline. Freedom in the art may come in the way an individual expresses history because artists like Kerry James Marshall speak through pictures regarding the manner in which life has been in America irrespective of what the history books are saying. The artists use a monochrome black to depict the subjects in his paintings and not brown is reason enough to show the intentions and the message of the work that make up this artist's portfolio.

Works Cited

Hoover, Paul. "Pair of Figures for Eshu: Doubling of Consciousness in the Work of Kerry James Marshall and Nathaniel Mackey." Callaloo 23.2 (2000): 728-748.

Mann, Nicola. The Death and Resurrection of Chicagos. Diss. University of Rochester, 2011.

Sayre, Henry M. "AWorld of Art." (2013).