Life After Sundown 1979

Ernie Barnes created *Life After Sundown* using umber paint applied in thin layers to build a scene. I imagine Barnes painting this, layering the paint to create a sepia-toned reality. I sympathize with artists who paint scenes with multiple figures, like this pool hall with its cast of characters. What would it be like to arrange them all, to imbue each with its own story? Barnes’s figures bend in unique ways; they are never rigid but move with a fluid, gestural grace. Take the figure lunging forward, for example, arm aloft. He throws his whole body into a gesture of exclamation! Like other paintings of everyday life by artists such as Jacob Lawrence, this work connects with the tradition of social realism. In turn, this painting continues that conversation, inspiring new ways of depicting the human form in motion.