Flowing Up The Stream Of Migrants Art is constantly evolving, drifting through different movements and eras. American art around the 1940’s began to see a shift from social realism to abstract expressionism. The “Migration Of A Negro” series by Jacob Lawrence was created at the pivotal point between art movements between 1940-1941. Lawrence’s carefully calculated artistic risk taking while he went backwards against the progression of art. His panels were a narrative opposed to the more prevalent abstract expressionism. As the wonderful Mrs. Robbins explained, his panels tell a story. A meticulously created story with poetic rhythm flowing through the sixty panels. The flow of the panels are the utter most importance. You can’t fully understand any one panel until you examine them all as a whole.…show more content… This is a series, just as the people of the migration do not have an individual identity neither do the panels. Symbolic and expressive in limiting the panels’ identity. Lawrence’s representation of the masses emulates the way the people of color were viewed as they migrated out of the south. The people of color embarking on the migration were exactly that, just the masses with no identity.
There is one concept keeps bouncing around my head. I keep going back and thinking about the flow between the panels. The flow and poetic rhythm between the panels gives me the impression that Laurence listened to and was influenced by the rhythm and flow of the Blues. The rhythm and flow of the panels is poetic in the same way that blues “captures the feel and the poetry of the place and represents it through rhythm, lyric and sliding blues notes” (The Birthplace Intheblues.com). Both the panels and the Blues
