Existing comment:
Old America seems to be breaking up and moving Westward . . .
-- an English immigrant, 1817
Panel 30, 1956
Lawrence's final Struggle panel takes its subject from a pamphlet written and published by Morris Birkbeck, an English-born Quaker and abolitionist to advertise to his British compatriots accounts from the trail that the promised a fresh start in the American West. In this painting, Lawrence filled the picture plane with the continuous, unrelenting forward movement of covered wagons hauled by oxen over uneven terrain. A conspicuous splash of blood serves as a reminder of those who have sacrificed and died for a new life of freedom. Here Lawrence invites us to pursue the promise of American democracy and to continue to imagine what it means to be on this symbolic wagon and to take up the reins of the struggle. |