MS01.01.03.B01.F13.013

told were varied, Religion and folklore played an important role in his art. He seemed to know how to get down to the bare essentials of form and to pull out whatever he thought he needed. Johnson's simplicity stands out in everything he did. He never thought of himself as creating a new form in his art. He became one of the first African-American artists to affirm his own faith in the new imagery that Alain Locke and Aaron Douglas had established as the pre-mise in the new movement which lifted the image of the Black American and the African up as something (a subject) worthy of visual consideration.

The symbolic presence of the new form in African-American art is also clearly delineated in the work of painter-printmaker Walter Williams. Williams' art is about people and it is this concept of a people image or humanistic image that is often outstanding in African-American art. Even when other ethnic group move to catch up with the latest isms in vogue. The content of Williams' work is often reflective of his own people who have born the burdens of slavery, poverty, and injustice (segregation), and wear the badges of their conquest of these social ills on their faces. His art is about people even when he paints still life. The fruits chosen, eg. watermelon, are foods that some people attach a stigma to when eating. Thus, the content of his work eveokes an intense feeling for ordinary life situations that one may experience on a daily basis. This concept of the symbolic presence in African-American art qonnotes (denotes) an active ethos in art and assigns a func--

R. (W. Williams Boy in Landscape)
L. (W. Williams Roots)
R. (W. Williams Girl with Melon)
L. (W. Williams 2 Trees One Boy)