A Deeper Look...

In search of a painting that interested me in the Ackland Art Museum, I found myself lingering for quite some time looking at a piece by Moyo Okediji. At first glance my eyes noticed the sorrowful face of an African American body in the middle of the painting and I felt the sadness and sympathy that Okediji may have felt as he tried to reflect the troubles of African American slaves. From this painting, The Dutchman, Moyo Okediji; a Nigerian born African American, expresses his feelings of the treatment of the African –American race through the prominent use of cool and warm colors, and curvilinear lines. Robert Hayden’s poem about the Atlantic slave trade entitled Middle Passage helped inspire Okediji to convey his connection to the enslaved African Americans through his painting.

The Dutchman contains a great deal of passion and turmoil. Okediji chose to show how the Africans endured the harsh journey from Africa to the United States just to become enslaved. Since Okediji grew up in Africa, one must assume that he feels compassion and distress for these Africans who were forced to make this long journey. In order to depict the commotion and uproar as the Dutchman shoved Africans onto a strange ship, Okediji used curvilinear lines. The curving lines and edges of the painting suggest a misguidance of some sort. The uncertainty of the slaves’ journey across the Middle Passage left them confused, as they headed towards a cruel death. At the same time the curvy lines represent the Atlantic Ocean that carries the traveling slaves. As the lines cover the whole painting, it suggests the constant tossing and turning of waves.

By continuing the curving lines across the bodies of the people in the painting Okediji is trying to make a point that the life of a slave was not held in high regard. If one somehow fell from the boat into the ocean no one rushed to save them or even realized that they had gone missing. He is suggesting to us as viewers that the life of a human being should never be taken for granted, or just washed away amongst the waves. Not only are curvilinear lines incorporated throughout the whole painting but in depicting the actual slaves Okediji used them as well. The mouths on the faces of the slave bodies are open and curved inward, suggesting a distressed cry being released from the mouth. The slaves are crying out for someone to save them but all around them is only ocean and the white man who remains their captor.

In drawing the hands of the slaves Okediji left them curved and open also. The most obvious depiction of this is the slave in the middle of the painting whose hands are open and outstretched as if he is reaching for the shore or a way off the horrible ship. Up in the top left corner of his painting Okediji placed another human figure wearing a curved hat on top of his head. He holds a pipe in his mouth and unlike the curved mouths of the slaves his expression remains stern. Here Okediji is trying to represent the white man, or “Dutchman” who is enslaving the passengers of The Middle Passage. Since he does not use curved lines in the expressions of the white man one assumes that the figure is unyielding and severe. In this way, Okediji reveals his sympathy for his long ago ancestors who were under the control of these men and could do nothing about it. By using curvilinear lines Okediji was able to expand upon his feelings for the slaves journeying on the Middle Passage and gain sorrow from the viewer.

In addition to the use of curving lines, and probably most important of all, Okediji incorporated a mix of warm and cool colors into his depiction of the slaves’ journey on the Middle Passage. At first glance, striking hues of blue hit the observer’s eyes. Blue, a cool color, holds duel signification in Okediji’s painting. To some, the color blue splashed across the canvas can suggest once more the Atlantic Ocean, upon which the slaves were traveling. By using different hues of blue, both dark and light, Okediji suggests the clear, blue sky above the ship and the dark, foreboding ocean below it. To the slaves, the clear, blue sky probably looked like freedom while the murky ocean symbolized death. Referring again to the slave depicted in the middle of the painting, his hands are outstretched into a light blue area of the painting, or in my eyes the sky of the painting. The slave is searching for freedom and looking to the heavens for someone to save him. The blue incorporated in the painting also refers to the African music sung by almost all slaves. The pain and sorrow at the heart of these songs later turned into “blues” music that we know of today. In this way, Okediji is reconnecting his ancestors to modern day African Americans who have not forgotten their sorrowful blues tunes.

In order to depict the troubles of the slaves on the Middle Passage Okediji also used warm colors in The Dutchman. Observing closely, the viewer can see that the background of Okediji’s painting consists of yellow-orange patterns. Among the pattern there are different shapes and the pattern looks like something one would recognize as being made in Africa. African paintings and different pieces of artwork often have patterns like this on their surface and including this as the background suggests what the slaves were leaving behind upon making their journey. Only small spots of the pattern can be seen and this reveals the fact that as the slaves traveled further and further away their country stayed further and further behind them. Once they were with the white man the culture of the slaves would be blotted out and replaced by the white mans’ culture. In his painting Okediji suggests this by covering up the African pattern with the cool colors that suggest the “ocean” or the “blues.” Throughout the painting there also seems to be hints of reddish-orange. To me this signifies blood from the slaves when they were whipped and tortured by their captors. It is known from Hayden’s poem, The Middle Passage that the middle passage was a “voyage through death to life upon these shores,” meaning that the slaves who did not die during the journey were most likely meeting their end once on the shore.

Overall, Moyo Okediji’s painting The Dutchman is inspiring yet sad. By basing it on Hayden’s poem about The Middle Passage Okediji is trying to make society more aware of the horrors and difficulties that slaves were forced into during the journey across the Atlantic. His use of curvilinear lines and mix of cool and warm colors signify many of these horrors and when one takes a deeper look at his painting there are a variety of other symbols within that have deeper meanings.