Saturday Haiku in celebration of light

This week on my blog I have been remembering 400 years of Africans and Europeans building a nation together. It is not our finest heritage, that a new nation used slave labor and displaced indigenous people to build what has come to be known as the highest example of freedom, liberty, and democracy. Yet it is the paradox that we must embrace and live with if we are to forge ahead to a better society.

Today's haiku is one I wrote two years ago, inspired by the art of Henry Ossawa Tanner, the first African American artist to achieve international acclaim. Because of the racial climate in the U.S., Tanner would have to move to France in order to find international appreciation, much like the writer James Baldwin would do a generation later.

lantern light

in autumn darkness

peaceful time 
                        ~ CK

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Image: "Etaples Fisher Folk" (1923) at the High Museum of Art

Artist: Henry Ossawa Tanner

Medium: Tempera and oil on canvas

(Public Domain, courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)

About the Artist:

Henry Ossawa Tanner (June 21, 1859 – May 25, 1937) was an American artist and the first African-American painter to gain international acclaim. Tanner moved to Paris, France, in 1891 to study, and continued to live there after being accepted in French artistic circles. His painting entitled Daniel in the Lions' Den was accepted into the 1896 Salon, the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

After his own self-study in art as a young man, Tanner enrolled in 1879 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. The only black student, he became a favorite of the painter Thomas Eakins, who had recently begun teaching there. Tanner made other connections among artists, including Robert Henri. In the late 1890s he was sponsored for a trip to then-Palestine by Rodman Wanamaker, who was impressed by his paintings of biblical themes. (Wikipedia)

About the Image:

In "Etaples Fisher Folk", Tanner’s use of chiaroscuro (dark-light contrast) suggests the influence of seventeenth-century Dutch painters, particularly Rembrandt, and sets a solemn, religious tone for this scene of two peasants preparing a meal. Using an unusual technique, Tanner combined tempera and oils and applied them in heavy layers. (Google Arts and Culture) 

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