Back to: William H. Johnson
Art and Life of William H. Johnson:
A Guide for Teachers
Lesson 3. Family Life: Primitiveness and Tradition
Li'l Sis
After a fourteen-year absence, Johnson returned to Florence, South Carolina, in June 1944. Although he had not visited his family in many years, he had stayed in touch with them by mail, sending regular updates on his career, snapshots of Holcha and himself, and occasionally money.
Li'l Sis is an example of the many portraits of family members and friends Johnson painted during this visit. Using a broad brush and sure strokes, Johnson captures the wide-eyed innocence of his five-year-old niece as she stands with her flyswatter. Li'l Sis exemplifies Johnson's abandonment of the illusionistic, perspectival, three-dimensional, painterly techniques of the European-American tradition. Here, he captures just enough of a likeness to make recognition of his sitter possible.
Summing up his personal philosophy of art in a Danish interview in 1932, Johnson said:
My aim is to express in a natural way what I feel, what is in me, both rhythmically and spiritually, all that which in time has been saved up in my family of primitiveness and tradition, and which is now concentrated in me.
Primitivism in this context does not refer to the romantic notion about the art of Africans or other peoples of color, but to Johnson's own sense of racial and cultural identity belonging to the "folk," people who are bound to nature and express essentially their own spirituality.
Questions and Activities
Johnson used many warm colors—yellow, red, and orange—in this painting. Where does he use cool colors?
Discuss with students why Johnson may have decided to fill up so much space in the picture with yellow. Try to imagine this picture with a different background. How would the picture feel different?
Ask students to use tempera paints to create a silhouette portrait of someone in their family. Ask students to include objects that are special to the subject of the portrait.
Lamentation, or Descent from the Cross
The year 1943 marked the onset of personal tragedy for Johnson. In the fall, his wife Holcha was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was hospitalized and died the following January. Ironically, the following spring was one of Johnson's busiest exhibition seasons. His paintings were included in major exhibitions in Atlanta, Newark, New York, and Washington, D.C.
Despite his success, Johnson remained depressed by his wife's death. Even though he had explored some religious themes in earlier paintings, he increasingly turned to biblical and spiritual imagery as a means of reconciling his loss.
Lamentation depicts the scene that follows the Crucifixion as the three Marys lament the death of Christ. In spite of its marked simplicity and untutored-looking figures, Johnson carefully worked out the painting from a tiny pen-and-ink drawing. As in other religious paintings from this period, Johnson presents a polyphony of colors and patchwork patterns while representing the religious figures as distinct black American racial types.
Questions and Activities
Discuss with students how Johnson's use of gesture communicates both religious supplication and spiritual ecstasy?
Research other versions of the Lamentation. How is Johnson's painting different from those other pictures? (Note the bold colors and race of the figures).
Listen to "Crucifixion" by the Reverend Gary Davis. Compare Johnson's painting to the mood of the music.
Pictured top: William H. Johnson, Li'l Sis, 1944, oil on paperboard,
Pictured bottom: William H. Johnson, Lamentation, or Descent from the Cross, about 1944, oil on fiberboard,