Kara Walker

Alain de Botton's video talked how art is supposed to be hopeful because terrible problems like terrorism weigh so heavily on us.  Kara Walker’s work on the other hand is not hopeful in fact it makes people feel depressed after looking at her work, because her work is fictionally showing us how slaves were treated before the 13^th Amendment was amended to the US Constitution.  Some of her paintings, such as “The End of Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven” (1995) courtesy of the Huffington Post, show us a child being stabbed with a sword by what looks like a slave owner or driver.  There is no denying that salve owners and their workers treated slaves brutally by their owners, and Kara Walker.  

      

Kara Walker’s art showing us a side of slavery that many textbooks, history lessons, and documentaries go into great detail about the harsh treatment of slaves.  Alain de Botton’s last point about art is that art is propaganda for what really matters.  The clip from The Guardian informed us about the various forms of propaganda that have been used in Britain to recruit troops to fight during the war, to vote for a particular party during an upcoming election, and paintings by famous artists whose meaning of the painting is for you to stand up for a particular cause.  Kara Walker’s art is an example of propaganda that in my opinion is to educate the public about the history of the treatment of slaves even if her works of art are provocative. 

The fourth point made about what art is in Alain de Botton’s video is about how art rebalances us.  I am someone who is heavy on the joyful and happy side; however, Kara Walker’s artwork has brought me back to balance.  Her work has weighed down the other side of my scale, in Botton’s video, that will cause me to look at things through a balanced point of view rather than a one sided analysis.  Kara Walker’s cutouts of fictional slaves help her viewers look at her work differently than before.  After I looked at several pieces of Kara Walker’s artwork, it helped me balance myself, so that I could see the meaning of the piece of art Kara Walker is trying to convey to us.     

Kara Walker’s artwork would function as a piece of history in the south, because of how prevalent slavery was in the south between the 17^th and 19^th centuries.  History and preservation are two crucial aspects of the south that make it unique to the rest of the country, including the north.  Even though Kara Walker’s work opens up a piece of history people do not want to talk about, she is trying to preserve the history of the south through her work that people can see online or in museums across the country.  Not all of Kara Walker’s work is very graphic and provocative as “The End of Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven” she preserves the culture of slaves in "Slavery!Slavery!" (1997) Courtesy of The Brooklyn Museum's website.  Kara Walker’s artwork preserves the culture of the enslaved people in the south and she also preserves the history people would like to forget; however, Kara Walker .

Some of her paintings, such as “The End of Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven” (1995), courtesy of the Huffington Post

Slavery!Slavery! (1997) Courtesy of The Brooklyn Museum's website