Prelude to Troy (No. 2) 1974

This is Romare Bearden’s "Prelude to Troy (No. 2)," and just imagine Bearden coaxing this scene from a plate, through a whole process of layering and pressing. It's all in blue, a monochromatic dream, dense with figures and landscapes almost emerging from a myth. I can just picture him there, thinking about Homer, about the drama of the Trojan War, but also about how to translate that into something immediate, something you can feel in your gut. Look at how he’s built up this world with all these tiny marks, like he’s creating a tapestry, or maybe a memory. He’s not just telling a story, he’s building a world, and the texture becomes the story. I love how he uses these dense fields of blue to create depth and atmosphere. There is an intentional ambiguity, an invitation to see beyond the surface. Ultimately, Bearden seems to suggest how we are all in conversation with history, with each other, constantly reimagining and retelling these stories.