Issues to consider




Lyrics to "Strange Fruit":
          Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
          Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
          Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze,
          Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

          Pastoral scenes of the gallant South,
          The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
          Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
          Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

          Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
          For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
          For the Sun to rot, for the tree to drop,
          Here is a strange and bitter crop. (Words and Music by Lewis Allen)

          If this painting, like "Strange Fruit" is related to lynching, why do you think that Abercrombie chose not depict a realistic lynching? If she had, would the painting have been more, or less powerful in your view? When thinking about this, you may want to consider the style of the painting. The style that the painter chooses may itself be a comment on the subject by the artist. What message or emotional response do you think that Abercrombie wants us to recieve about this subject? How is she trying to make us feel about the subject? How does she manipulate her style to achieve this effect?
          If you consider the painting in light of the song, what parallels do you find between the song and the painting? Might Abercrombie have been trying to achieve visually the same effect that the music has? There are many artists, such as Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian, who believed that their paintings could be visual renderings of music. If this was the case here, do you think that Abercrombie has created the song's visual equivalence?

You could look at another painting which depicts the subject of lynching and compare it to Abercrombie's, Jacob Lawrence'sMigration of the Negro: Panel No.15, 1940-41.

Bibliography



Gertrude Abercrombie and Surrealism:
 Theories of modern art: a source book by artists and critics by Herschel B. Chipp (University of California Press, 1968) pp. 129-145. Art Reserve:N6450/.C62

History of Modern Art by H.H. Arnason (Prentice Hall, 1986) pp. 99-107. Art Reserve: N6490/.A713/1986b

There are also numerous resources on famous Surrealist artists, such as René Magritte, Giorgio de Chirico or Salvador Dali, which you could reference on the OnLine catalogue.

African-American Experience
There are numerous resources available on the OnLine catalogue concerning African-American life in the south and lynchings.