Confrontation at the Bridge from the series Not Songs of Loyalty Alone: The Struggle for Personal Freedom 1975

Jacob Lawrence made this tempera painting, Confrontation at the Bridge, as part of his series “Not Songs of Loyalty Alone: The Struggle for Personal Freedom.” Look at the way he’s laid down these blocks of pure color, shapes butted up against each other to make a scene full of tension. The painting is so flat, but the colors create a deep space. The black bridge is like a stage, pushing the crowd forward. Lawrence’s paint handling is matter-of-fact, almost like house painting, but look closer at the reflections in the water below. See how the colors break apart into these flickering shapes of red, yellow, and blue. It’s a fantastic contrast with the stillness of the figures. That red stabbing into the blue, it's like a visual cry, full of unspoken anxiety. Lawrence reminds me of those early modernists, like the German Expressionist painter, Kirchner, who used color and composition to convey feeling, but with a distinctly American voice. He invites us to feel the weight of history and the complexity of human experience through color and form. And like all great art, it asks more questions than it answers.