69 METHOD
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, some of Bearden’s collages became more painterly. The ratio of painted surface is equal to or greater than the collaged areas. An example of this late painterly style is Profile/Part II, The Thirties: Midtown Sunset. Here the two techniques—collage and painting—seem perfectly balanced. It is difficult to distinguish the collaged areas from the painted ones. Overall there is fluidity and luminosity that produce a glow from within. Bearden described the scene as “my last view of daylight as I entered the subway on my way home from N.Y.U.” Midtown Sunset is one of nineteen collages from the Profile/Part II: The Thirties series, which focuses primarily on Bearden’s life in Harlem. In this view of New York City, Bearden’s underlying geometry is apparent. The picture plane is divided into two rectangles: on the left the sun is just beginning to set, and on the right the moon has risen. Bearden’s recurring sun/moon motif gives us a sense of time elapsing (and collapsing). The space is shallow, with building stacked upon building. The arcs and spire of the Chrysler Building are seen in the upper left corner. Patterns of short brushstrokes and bleached areas suggest the window-filled walls of skyscrapers. The bleached areas lend a luminous effect. Amidst the painted buildings, Bearden has used cut-paper ones to fill in this cityscape. On the right side, patterns of horizontal and vertical lines extend the cut-paper cityscape to the top edge of the work. The ubiquitous symbol of a train creates a strong horizontal. In the bottom right corner a rectangle of blurred black, blue, green, and yellow perhaps suggests the passing of the subway, the rush of the crowd, the city’s eternal movement.
slide 19 Profile/Part II, The Thirties: Midtown Sunset, 1981, collage of various papers with paint and bleached areas on fiberboard, 14 x 22 in. Private collection