Comments
on Moyo Okediji's The Dutchman
Written by Zac Anderson
The
Dutchman, by Moyo Okediji, is a chaotic painting without a clear
main focal
point. The painting was done in 1995 as
an acrylic on canvas and was inspired by the Atlantic crossing that
captured
Africans had to endure before reaching the Americas
to be sold into slavery. The artist uses a
combination of colors,
lines and images to express the pain and fear associated with the
Atlantic
crossing and with the time spent in the Americas as slaves. Okediji also depicts imagery from Robert
Hayden’s poem entitled Middle Passage from
which Okediji was inspired. These
techniques quickly catch the observer’s attention.
It is important to understand the
artist’s background before evaluating his work.
Moyo Okediji was born in Nigeria
in 1956. Before he painted The
Dutchman,
Okediji traveled in the United States where he
gained
further understanding into the hardships endured by African-Americans. The
Dutchman was partly inspired
by Robert Hayden’s poem entitled Middle Passage, a
poem depicting the
horrors and misery associated with the Atlantic
crossing (Ackland, 2003).
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Copyright Ackland Art Museum
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When analyzing The Dutchman it is also
important to understand the history of the
Middle
Passage. The Middle Passage was
the second leg of a three part journey that formed a
triangle between Europe, Africa,
and the Americans. Cargo was shipped from
Europe to
Africa where it was traded
for slaves. These slaves were packed into
the hulls of
the ships so
tightly that they could hardly move. Sanitation
and clean air were both non-existent. The
slaves suffered from malnutrition and
punishment. Many slaves died from
disease caused by
the inhospitable conditions under the deck. Some slaves
even committed suicide so they
would not have to endure such hardships.
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Then the ships
crossed the Atlantic from Africa
to the Americans during the second leg of the voyage. In
the Americans, the slaves were sold and
traded for
crops that returned with the ships to Europe where the entire trip was to be completed again
(Middle Passage, 2005). Understanding the
horrors of the Middle
Passage gives the observer incite into why the artist created this
painting.
The artist makes use of bright, slightly
disorienting colors to portray the feelings of fear and confusion that
the
slaves must have felt. The artist uses
both bright and
dark colors to reach this goal.
He includes shades of blue, orange, red, yellow, black, white, and
purple. Okediji chose the color blue for
the majority of the
painting for two reasons.
First, blue symbolizes the Atlantic Ocean,
an important part of the story around the painting. Second, blue
also represents the suffering
that took place once the slaves had reached the Americas. The
color blue is generally used to represent
sadness. The idea of blue is found in
African-American
blues songs sung for the purpose of releasing pain and
suffering (Ackland, 2003).
Okediji also uses random,
intersecting lines to illustrate confusion and fear. The many colors he
uses
fill in
quadrants created by these random lines that intersect and criss-cross
the
canvas. Inside some of the lines are
shapes made with sharp lines such as squares and diamonds.
The jagged lines give the painting a harsh,
painful feel. They alert the observer to
the harsh condition of the Atlantic crossing and the suffering that
accompanied
it. Other lines are thicker and are
colored white. These lines are slightly
curvier
and help to portray a feeling of waves rolling across the ocean’s
surface. The lines that represent the
ocean set the
scene for the horror and fear that took place.
There are people and animals in the
painting. The people represent the
slaves and the slave traders. They are
randomly
spaced throughout the work of art. This
represents the confusion of the captured Africans and depicts both
sides of the
story. It appears that the animals
represent the slave
traders who forced the captured Africans onto the ships that would
cross the Atlantic Ocean.
The animals also represent the more general horrors and fears
that the slaves
had to
face during the crossing. These fears
are embodied in the demon image and are portrayed to look like snakes
and
sharks.
The artist uses bright colors so
that the painting will stand out. It is
designed to catch the observer’s attention and alert the viewer to the
suffering that has taken place. The
bright colors and the chaos in the painting cause viewers to look
closer in
order to interpret the painting. This is
how they discover the story of what happened that is told in the
painting.
Many aspects of the painting come
from Robert Hayden’s Middle Passage.
The first line of the poem depicts the ship’s
sails as sharp weapons. Okediji
expresses this with the use of harsh lines with sharp angles. Hayden alludes to sharp claws that scratch
and Okediji also uses sharp lines and shapes to express this in his
painting. The second line of the poem
mentions sharks
which are portrayed in The Dutchman.
The poem is itself chaotic and this is
expressed in the painting with many bright colors and random, curving
or jagged
lines. The figures that are randomly
spaced throughout the painting are upside down and twisted into
different
positions to further the chaotic theme.
Hayden describes scenes of blood and fire which Okediji
illustrates with
shades of red and orange in his painting (Hayden).
It appears that Okediji used Hayden’s poem as
a guide for painting The Dutchman.
The artist uses symbols, colors,
and lines to represent the horrors endured by captured Africans during
the
Atlantic crossing. Okediji drew heavily
on Robert Hayden’s poem in order to express certain ideas and feelings
in the
painting that he took from the poem. Sharp
lines and shapes lead to
a sense of the harsh conditions that the slaves had to endure. Various colors and figures in different
positions
portray chaos. Okediji
uses bright colors and the sense of
chaos so as to draw in the observer so that they will better understand
the
story that he is trying to tell. Okediji
uses all aspects of the painting to tell the story of the terrible
Middle
Passage and the suffering the slaves had to endure.