Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination by Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore

Author:Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Romare Bearden, Projections: The Prevalence of Ritual: Evening, 9:10, 461 Lenox Avenue, 1964. Collage of various papers with paint, ink, and graphite on cardboard, photochemical reproduction, synthetic polymer, and pencil on paperboard, 8½ × 11½ in. Courtesy of the Van Every/Smith Galleries, Davidson College. Art©Romare Bearden Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artist Rights Society (ARS), NY.

Four of the photostats were in a series that Bearden called The Prevalence of Ritual: Tidings, Baptism, Conjure Woman, and The Conjure Woman as an Angel. Baptism measures nine and a half by twelve inches; the others are larger. Bearden has made a photostat of the original collage and then used watercolor, gouache, and pencil on board.

In Baptism, the chaos inherent in the religious ritual of total immersion baptism takes over the work. This scene is anything but the sprinkling of babies with holy water. Southern Baptists, Black and white, must reach an age to experience actively a conversion from sinner to believer. Once you have “seen the light,” the preacher will agree to your baptism. The ritual begins with the preacher using his hands to support the penitent, who bends back above the water; then the preacher vigorously dunks the penitent’s head and upper body, briefly holding the person down underwater. People come up sputtering and exclaiming, but cleansed of their sins. In wealthy churches, baptismal tanks are part of the altar. But in many Black churches, it was common until the 1990s to baptize multiple congregants at once in a river, muck, fish, and all.

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