"Be Not Afraid..."

Ernest Mancoba (1904-2004) was the son of a black miner, an ethnic Fingo, in South Africa. His Christian mother instilled in him an abiding faith and a rich prayer life. Mancoba trained at one of the few schools in South Africa that were run for blacks, and eventually took a university education at Fort Hare. In 1938, seeing few opportunities in his home country, he emigrated to Europe on the eve of World War II. In Paris, he joined a group of Danish surrealists, CoBRA. In a 2003 interview, Mancoba evaluated the significance of this representation of Mary, with her Bantu face and gesture:

Ernest Mancoba. Bantu Madonna. Wood Sculpture. [1929]. Johannesburg Art Gallery. https://g.co/arts/a8QQ6AMZdb585L1UA

When in my younger days I made the Bantu Madonna, I worked along certain European or classical canons, which some believers in the conception of ‘progress’ in art will judge outdated. In the ‘Madonna’, I followed a certain canon that was in contradiction with the newest Cubist or abstract ways and forms (which I, at the time, hardly knew) but without ever stopping my struggle with a style that was foreign to me. And the viewer, I hope, if I am lucky enough to have been understood and heard, can feel under the surface of the classical mould an African heartbeat. At times, the inner spirit breaks through, first in the very innovation within the South African context, of taking a black woman to represent the Virgin Mary, and secondly in the warmth of the pulse that, though provisionally contained by the strictness of the style, speaks up, under the skin or surface, and threatens to burst free [1].

1. Hans Ulrich Obrist, “An Interview with Ernest Mancoba” (2003), reprinted in Third Text, 24:3 (2010), 373-384, DOI: 10.1080/09528821003799544

Jacoba van Heemskerck, Composition No. 62, 1917. Oil on canvas. Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, bequest 1936. https://g.co/arts/GPfoLUxHqnqFkXjSA

The spatial divisions characteristic of cubism are more visible in the Dutch Jacoba van Heemskerck’s (1876-1923) expressionist painting. Using the visual meditative practices taught by Frank Champine, you might see in the center of an island of onion-domed cupola, like a great cathedral sinking. The contrasting palette—the yellows of the architecture and the towers contrast with the ominous black and red jutting out of the oceans, or the green that seems to swirl and to close in around some of the forms. Art historians A.H. Huussen jr. and J.F.A. van Paaschen-Louwers describe this as, “an apocalyptic image in which onion-domed towers represent both the divine origins of life and a possible future for the inner being (here symbolised by the sailing ships) after overcoming the adversity of the present.” [2]. I would challenge that reading somewhat. The onion-domed towers speak to the Eastern orthodox tradition at a time of revolution and collapse in Russia. The “sailing ships” look more ominous to me in their 1917 context, more like threatening u-boats, a quite real threat for a Dutch artist and a common motif for Der Sturm (the storm), the expressionist project with which van Heemskerck was associated. Nonetheless, I would see the spires as also suggestive of candles and agree that there is something redemptive in the painting.

2. A.H. Huussen jr. and J.F.A. van Paaschen-Louwerse, Jacoba van Heemskerck van Beest 1876-1923, (Schilderes uit roeping: Zwolle 2005) cited on “Composition No. 62,” Google Cultural Institute.

James Hampton. Fear Not. Detail of The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly, 1950-1964. Discarded oddments, wood, cardboard and metallic paper and foil. Smithsonian.

James Hampton’s great throne project was his artistic response to apocalyptic visions informed by visions of Moses and Mary that he experienced throughout his lifetime. He collected the materials from his job as a night custodian. His experience as an African American who participated in the Great Migration and experienced the trauma of that moment and the racial unrest that increased through the 1950s and his work on the project coincided with the activism of Martin Luther King. The detail here is only one central chair element in the arrangement that is equally inspired by the phrase ”Where There Is No Vision The People Perish.” [3] The form combines Caribbean and African spiritual and ancestry practices with Christian messaging.

3. Leslie Umberger, “The Transformative Vision of James Hampton.” Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences 28, no. 5 (2019): 479. doi:10.1017/S2045796019000362.

William Blake. “Dante Running from the Three Beasts.” The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, illustrations 1824-1827. Watercolor. National Gallery of Victoria. https://g.co/arts/oCuV39p8kcYysJ1T8

William Blake, the British printer, poet and artist, shared the sort of apocalyptic thread seen in van Heemskerck and Hampton. Blake was an innovator in his printing technique as in his understanding of scripture. His depiction of Dante Running from the Three Beasts transforms the early Renaissance text, infuses it with an individualist visionary sensibility and combines the poetic description with traditional Christian iconography. In Blake’s commissioned illustration beasts like those of the apocalypse are softened with a pastel palette. The sky is illuminated with a beautiful array of horizontal clouds in crimsons and blues. The male figure looks strong due to his forceful posture and extended limbs. And the saving angel appears with a welcoming gesture, her arms extending to mirror and meet the fleeing figure.