Bearden’s Black Odyssey: Homer Revisited, Essay Example

The motif of the journey is one of the oldest in mythology, and very few works encompass that motif more thoroughly than Homer’s Odyssey, the epic tale of the decade-long journey of Odysseus from war-riddled Troy back to his native Ithaca.  Like many other myths of this proportion, it has been retold, revised, and re-interpreted regularly for successive generations in a variety of contexts.  The artist Romare Bearden’s exhibit, A Black Odyssey, is one particularly successful reinterpretation of this powerful story.

Bearden: the art in context of the artist

This particular interpretation of the Odyssey is offered by Romare Bearden, a vibrant 20^th century African American artist who frequently drew from classical mythology as an inspiration for his works.  Bearden was born in North Carolina in   , but his parents moved to Harlem when he was still a child in order to seek greater economic opportunities provided by the industrial – and less segregated – North.   He has also spent time regularly on this island of St. Martin in the Caribbean and the colorful Caribbean influence is obvious in his work (Bearden 1).

Bearden’s interpretation of the odyssey

Bearden’s is not a textual but a visual interpretation of Homer’s Odyssey, a series of vivid paintings depicting scenes from the Homeric texts, including Poseidon, Circe, Odysseus Leaving Nausicaa, Land of the Lotus Eaters, The Sirens Song, Cattle of the Sun God, and The Sea Nymph.  The paintings are all vividly colored and give an Afro-Caribbean feel to the myth: the painting of Circe, for instance, has a lot of the feel of Gaugin, another painter heavily influenced by island life.  Others, like Cattle of the Sun and the Siren’s song have the feel of a Matisse, with the emphasis on bright, primary colors and strong lines. (Bearden 3).  There are several visual similarities with Homer’s text: both the Homeric poem and Bearden’s paintings give a sense of space and distance, and of the exotic places that Odysseus visits on his long journey.  There are also stark differences: the Homeric text is rooted in classical Greece and there is, naturally, a distinctively Hellenic viewpoint to the poem as a whole; Bearden, in his visual interpretation, brings a colorful Afro-Caribbean flavor to the characters in the story, a flavor at once both modern and tribal.

Bearden in political-social context: African American journeys

Bearden states that in his interpretation of the Odyssey, he wanted to “take the elements of African American life….and place it in a universal context” (Bearden 1).    The theme in this paintings, as the theme in the Homeric poem, is the theme of the journey.  Specifically, it deals with different aspects of the African-American journey: the journey of Africans to the New World as slaves; the journey to freedom after the Civil War; the journey to civil rights during the 1960’s.  It thus gives powerful and emotive layers to a myth which is already a powerful one.

Conclusion

The theme of the journey is one of the most powerful motifs in mythology, appearing again and again in many forms across diverse geographical areas and historical times.  Homer’s Odyssey epic and Bearden’s visual interpretation of it are both distinct and powerful interpretation of journeys taken by very different people in human history.  And they are, arguably, equally compelling and beautiful.

Works Cited

Bearden, Romare. “The Black Odyssey.” The Smithsonian Institute Website. 2014. Web. 11 April 2014