MS01.01.03.B02.F10.034

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was still bladent denial of the rights of Black Americans through democratic principles that were guaranteed every man and woman, regardless of race or creed, by the Constitution of the United States. That Duncanson was able to presevere and rise beyond the level of the ordinary through the exercise of a superior talent in the art of painting during this cruical period in history attests not only his skill at rendering and defining with the eye of the poet the lyricism of form so often sought in nature by artists of all culture, but also brings to our attention the majestic drama that he was able to engage in by acting in art upon those ideals which are universal in the lives of men even in a society where racisial prejudice was rampant and openly sanctioned as the law of the land. In a sense, Duncanson's work represents without question the highest level of achievement in American art that was obtainable in his day.
The Black artist, even during the period of turbulance and strife, in the 19th century, which was brought on by the ongoing system of human slavery in America, never lost sight of his goals of achieving a lofty position in the art world as a practitioneer who would be respected first al all for the mastery of his craft. He neither wanted nor condoned his being set aside in a specific sociological catergory which was based primarily on race. But realizing the nature of the racially conscious world in which he had been born, he had to struggle against insurmountable odds to maintain his humanity and spiritual devotion to art. But art in America, like all other forms of cultural expression, is seldom so ordered as to fit into one disinct catergory whereby one prevailing style of modern of expressing content is acceptable to all practitioners who consider themselves makers of visual form. In this sense, the black artist is no different from any other in that he too must struggle to stisfy the natural eurge within to be sensitive to order and form through media and at the same time feel the temporal order of his existence in relation to the socio-cultural patterns of his enviorment.