Jacob Lawrence: Painting Analysis

Jacob Lawrence painted the Migration Series in 1941 during the time of the Great Migration in America. Lawrence and others, such as Langston Hughes, have been one of the most prominent artists that portrayed the social commentary of African Americans in the United States during the early 1900s. Lawrence’s sixty panels narrate the historical migration of the numerous African Americans who took the train heading from the South to the North, where they could provide a better life for themselves in the midst of an industrial setting. The depiction of the sixty tempera paintings accompanied by various supporting texts leave an emotional account of this time in history to this day.

Jacob Lawrence’s two-dimensional cubistic style of painting throughout this series often

Like all of the other paintings that are on display at the Seattle Art Museum, the museum provides a text that summarizes the details of the series and how and when they were painted, as well as Lawrence and his goals for the piece. However, two other texts are included that other art pieces are normally not accommodated with. These include Lawrence’s simple captions for each of his paintings, and a poem by Langston Hughes that embodies the message of the migration in striking verses. Lawrence’s inclusion of captions that are for the most part no longer than two sentences long for each of his sixty tempera paintings provides a humble yet strong impact on its viewers. Likewise, Hughes’ lyrical accompaniment provides yet one more type of text, which balances the art of words and the art of paint on canvas. The message that Hughes evokes in his poem, One-Way Ticket, explains the way the Southern African Americans felt as they picked up their whole lives and took it with them on a train towards a better