ARCHETYPES, AESTHETICS AND CULTURE IN THE LIFE AND ART OF ROMARE BEARDEN

The healing properties of the archetypes, aesthetics, and culture in the symbolism, iconography, the life and art of the master collagist, painter and printmaker Romare Bearden (1911 – 1988) will be explored. The artist archetype expressed in Romare Bearden’s journey through the African diaspora, posits that no artist of his generation better exemplifies the psychological depth and connection to the historiography of the African diaspora and to the rich culture of  African-American psychology, history and art. The presentation illuminates the breadth and depth of Bearden’s aesthetics and imagination in his art, intellectual interests, pursuit of political consciousness and social activism. Influenced by the Harlem  Renaissance, jazz, African and European aesthetics, Bearden as Griot, guides us through a rich complex maze of symbols, images, memories, metaphors, dreams, mythology, spiritualism, rituals, cosmology and symbology. He proposed an African – Black aesthetic and identity that has been excavated and reconstructed as a healing salve and celebration of life within the global framework and historiography of the African diaspora.

 

 

GRACE C. STANISLAUS, MA in art history from Columbia University and BA in art history from Fordham University, graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. Former Executive Director of the Museum of the African Diaspora and President of the Romare Bearden Foundation, among others, she has published and lectured on art and artists and currently provides management consulting services. 

 

ALAN G. VAUGHAN, PhD, JD, is a member of the C.G Jung Institute of San Francisco, in private practice as an analyst and a clinical &  consulting psychologist. He is a psychology professor at Saybrook University, an artist and scholar. His scholarship interests are at the intersections of analytical psychology, U.S. Constitutional Jurisprudence and African diaspora studies.