The “New Negro” of American painting was the celebratory cry of the avant-garde – a salute to unpretentious, naïve, easily accessible, vibrantly colored and textural paintings that serve as a vehicle to provide a glimpse of the 'others' world. Three cheers for Horace Pippin (1888–1946)! Propelled quickly into the high art circle, his work was viewed as a novelty that defied categorization and therefore not recognized as part of the western art cannon. What the self-appointed intelligentsia failed to detect was Pippin’s ability to astutely observe and capture the humanity of the ordinary—the lives and events of common folk in unadorned vignettes. Pippin’s work incorporates an “Emersonian sensibility:” simple, no fanfare, allowing the inherent …show more content…
It features fourteen nearly-identical white male figures, similarly dressed and with thick tousled hair and bushy beards, gazing in different directions with the exception of five who stare directly out at the viewer. Each figure signifies a role. Twelve of the figures, at the upper half of the painting, staggered and seated in condensed rows represent the jury. One figure stands without an overcoat, his right arm extended, pointing a finger downward while steadily holding a shotgun like a walking stick in his other hand, pleading his case for the commonwealth – the prosecutor. Lying on a stretcher that sprawls across the middle ground at the feet of the jurors, covered in a blanket and wounded -- the defendant, John Brown. On the floor nearby is a small open bible and a decorative red carpetbag. The other person in the room–not featured–is the viewer, bearing …show more content…
The prosecutor is Judas, diverting his eyes while hovering over Brown and holding a shotgun, a symbol that implies the partiality of the court and foreshadows Brown death. The jury can be seen as the twelve apostles, grouped as four sets of three. The small open bible represents Brown’s piety and the red decorative carpetbag contains the thirty pieces of silver given to Judas. Pippin’s reference to the biblical story of the last supper, which symbolizes Jesus’s sacrifice for the salvation of mankind, martyrizes Brown and mythologizes his actions in the collective consciousness of black