St. Gregory Analysis

The painting that really caught my eyes while waking through Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art at St. Gregory was Reading the Letter by a twentieth century artist named, Harry Roseland. During the twentieth century genre painting became a huge deal and artist starting showing more and more. This allowed the artist to tell a story Roseland was self- taught and really enjoyed depicting old and poor African Americans. The reason Roseland loved painting these Post Civil War African Americans was because it was a topic that was going unnoticed.

The first thing that I notice in this painting is that the white woman is the brightest thing in the painting. It makes it seem as if she is the most important thing in the painting. The viewer cannot see any brush strokes on the white woman. Her clothes are nice, she is very clean, and is seems as if she just got back from a nice Sunday stroll in the park. The white woman does not seem like she is in her normal environment. The reason being is that the house that she is in is very old looking. The house seems as if

The brush strokes of the can clearly be seen on every inch of the wall. The walls are very dark, along with everything else in the painting, beside the white woman. Roseland does an exceptional job with using chiaroscuro in this painting. The main part of this painting is the letter that the white woman is reading. This painting makes it seem as if the African American woman cannot read and is having the white woman read the letter for her. That could be the reason why she is so bright and detailed. I also notice that there is a rip in the tablecloth right between the white woman and the African- American woman. I do not think that Roseland did this on accident. I believe it was placed there to show the separation between the two. The letter is also placed between the two so; the view can interpret this, as reading is one of the things that separate these