The Banjo Lesson is an oil painting by American artist Henry O. Tanner in 1893. It’s a predominantly realistic work, with hints of Impressionism as per the era1, featuring a young black pupil perched on an aged black man’s lap, engaged him in banjo practice. Its set is spacious, with cooling blue and brown as the dominant colors, and light cast upon the duo as if performers in a spotlight. The Banjo Lesson is a work that conveys the values of innocence, tradition, complacency, and serenity, but upon contextual introspection displays somewhat paradoxical values of defiance and an upheaval of values. In particular, it challenges the conventional perspective held towards African Americans in the nineteenth century.
African Americans portrayed in art in this age were indeed often represented as musicians. As they were usually stereotyped as entertainers, their depiction was conventionally minstrel-like 2. The Banjo Lesson broke this cliché with its sensitive, sincere and intense interpretation of the individuals that comprise African American communities and their abilities. The musical traditions that are sweetly transferred from one generation to the next within the painting, is profound in its depiction of race in Tanners time. The painting’s calming environment, rich with haziness and earthy tones, is indeed a combative work meant to fight cultural norms. In an era where African Americans were viewed as subhuman, Tanner’s reputation as a painter in itself was monumental. Before his birth, his mother Sarah Tanner evaded the threat of shackles through the networks of the Underground Railroad, eventually finding refuge in the free state of Pennsylvania3.
The innocence and purity of young black Americans suggested in the painting is in blatant disregard to the artistic and cultural norms of the time. The boy in the painting is dressed in clothing of youth; donned in