The Apartment 1943

Jacob Lawrence made this painting, The Apartment, with tempera on paper. It is an interesting choice. Oil paint is much more the fine art standard, while tempera has a long history in decorative arts, used for cheap and cheerful posters, illustrative work, and even for coloring Easter eggs. Lawrence used tempera in a deliberate way to emphasize the graphic impact of the image. Note the bold color scheme, flattened space, and hard lines between planes. He applied the paint in thin layers, almost like colored washes. This method allowed for a rapid completion, and it imbues the scene with a sense of immediacy. The room appears not as a sanctuary, but as a place of labor, the chairs awaiting their occupants, the table set for a meal to be consumed by the family, and the bed ready for another day. By embracing what might be considered a lowbrow medium, Lawrence invites us to see beauty and dignity in the everyday, challenging the conventional boundaries between high art and the lives of ordinary people.