“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”
~ from “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus
This month, HAVarts focuses on artists who create works about a welcoming and vibrant America. We delve into the impact of Artificial Intelligence on art, and showcase the costly price citizens pay for ignorance and hatred.
Peter Max’s use of bright, eye-popping colors make his paintings of the Statue of Liberty upbeat and expansive. Childe Hassam, America’s most famous impressionist, created compositions with themes featuring Americana and patriotism. Aaron Douglas created a unique artistic style that fused his interests in modernism and African art.
Some social media users are circulating the premise that the Statue of Liberty was originally modeled after a Black woman. The images associated with this assertion were created using AI. Hidreley Diao and Bas Uterwijk digitally create portraits of mythical and historical personalities.
And finally, an exceedingly rare, 19th-century portrait by Jacques Amans, acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was restored to show the Frey children and the enslaved, Afro-Creole teenager Bélizaire. It is one of the very few portraits in the U.S. commissioned by a family of that era that depicts an enslaved person.
The lines, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” are spoken by the statue, inviting the world to send her the tired, the poor, and the wretched, and promising to welcome them with her lamp.
