Old Black Joe Analysis

The artwork presented here Old Black Joe by Horace Pippin, is a 24 by 30 inch oil on canvas that has been kept in prime condition for years. Created in the year 1943, this painting was made in the year where the Second Great Migration was happening as millions of African Americans leave the South and head to Northern, and Midwestern cities. Other events of this time include Chambers v. Florida, and the 1943 Detroit Race riots erupt in Detroit, Michigan. This painting also has a huge possibility of connection of the song “Old Black Joe” by Stephen Foster who sings of a dying man reminiscing of his life and things no more.
In the image itself, Old Black Joe, the audience will gaze onto a scene depicting an older African American male sitting on a wooden bench in the shade provided by a tree partial seen on the edges of the painting. Besides him are a bag to his right and onto his left a child tethered to a pole and strap to keep her from wandering
Only then do the viewer take time to look around the rest of the picture, often trailing down ‘Old Black Joe’ to the child nearby then to the cotton field behind them to only end up at the large house where the woman stands. It’s because of the painting’s formal elements is why ‘Old Black Joe’ is known as the target topic and why it’s the first item one will gaze onto at first glance.
Taking a glance at ‘Old Black Joe’, the audience will see his positioning of staring straight back out of the frame to his placement inside the frame to even the colors used will show how he, ‘Old Black Joe’ becomes the focus point of the work provided. By having Joe himself placed in the center of the picture, along the child to his left and woman on right, Horace Pippin used the ‘Rule of Thirds’ as well as the famous ‘Triangle’ focal formation between all three