Product Details

• Actors: Art of Romare Bearden
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Homevision
• VHS Release Date: November 18, 2003
• Run Time: 30 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: B0000CNXYS
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #45,502 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars collage painter, September 17, 2004

By	Jeffery Mingo (Homewood, IL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Art of Romare Bearden (DVD)

This documentary would be great for classes in elementary, secondary, or tertiary schools.

Bearden really practiced DuBois' views on double consciousness. He blended African sculpture with cubism. He used pointilism and applied it to black American subjects. He portrayed the urban and rural landscapes.

Still, I have some questions. Danny Glover reads quotes from the artist. Bearden was not a Harlem Renaissance painter. He died in the 1980s. He was around after talkies. They show films of him in color. It's not like he was Shakespeare. Surely they could have shown clips of him speaking for himself. They never say he was mute or had problems in front of the media.

Mr. Bearden was so light-skinned that I didn't know that he was African American until well into the documentary. Eventually they show his parents and his mother looked white. One interviewee described him as "light-skinned" but then the subject is never brought up again. Why not? Malcolm X spoke often about what it was like to be light-skinned and have a white grandparent. Bearden had a light complexion but his subject matter always covered people of African descent in rich ebony and cocoa hues. One could ask why he never portrayed subjects of his own complection.

I'm sure that Bearden was a terrific artist. But anybody with a pair of scissors can make a collage. In a similar vein, I wonder why David Hockney is praised when anyone can take the photographs he has. I wish the documentary explored on a deeper level what was so special about Bearden's collages or what else did he make besides collages.