i-xxii Front matter.qxd - Brandeis Institutional Repository

From Portraiture to Pictures of People / 19One ƒnal legacy to Neel from Henri’s teaching may have been the modelof the politically radical artist. Henri did not express his political beliefs in TheArt Spirit, but in his painting his radicalism was implied by his choice of subjectmatter. As Annette Cox has argued, Henri “was one of the ƒrst Americanartists to suggest that there could be a clear connection between art and socialreform.” 23 Henri’s portraits of blacks, in particular, are an important precedentfor Neel’s Spanish Harlem work. At the turn of the century blacks were sociallyand artistically invisible, 24 and Henri’s portraits can be credited with liftingthem from the realm of stock players in genre scenes. Yet Henri seems to havehad little concern either with referring to the actual economic and social conditionsin which blacks lived or with truly probing character. His former studentRockwell Kent questioned the depth of Henri’s commitment to social reform:“if Henri turned to . . . underprivilege . . . it was merely because, to him,man at this level was most revealing of his own humanity.” 25In extending Henri’s legacy in her mature work, Neel moved from generalizedpainterly impressions to incisive linear depictions. In his portrait of a vivaciousyoung girl, Eva Green (ƒg. 6), Henri seems to have followed his own exhortationto “feel the dignity of the child.” 26 Yet, we are given too little visualinformation to recognize in Eva any individual characteristics beyond those ofan accommodating cheerfulness. Moreover, by concentrating on black childrenin his portraits, Henri reinforced the stereotype of the black as “childlike.”Neel’s Two Black Girls (Antonia and Carmen Encarnacion) (1959, ƒg. 7)could be considered as an homage to Henri. They are painted with Henri’s attentionto individual facial expression and with a vigorous painterly stroke that,as in Eva Green, aids in conveying a sense of their vitality. The differences liein her greater attention to their speciƒc features and expressions, and to theeloquence of their body language and dress, which are conveyed through herdrawing. Like Degas before her, Neel grants to children the same psychologicalcomplexity as adults. The children’s tilted heads, and their awkward, angularposes suggest a combination of shyness, insecurity, and curiosity, whereastheir too-short dresses suggest tightened circumstances and its attendant vulnerability.The poignancy of pose and dress is offset by one girl’s patience (theleft-hand ƒgure) and the other’s inquisitiveness (the child on the right). Neel’sportrayal of childhood vulnerability and curiosity thus emerges from the matrixof a speciƒc confrontation across age and race.In a comment that is revealing of the unquestioned assumptions of his era,Henri said that “in the great [men], of which a nation may be proud, the racespeaks.” 27 By making “race” little more than one attribute inseparable from acomplex of others, Neel mitigated its difference and undercut stereotypes. Hersubjects are depicted as “two black girls who are probably sisters who grew upin difƒcult circumstances in Harlem in the 1950s and who are both curious