In all honesty, I am not a very artistic person. I have absolutely nothing against art - it's just that I never spent much time trying to understand it or reflect upon it. This was actually the very first time I visited an art gallery in my life, except for those elementary school field trips. (Yes, I know. I was very sheltered.) When I walked into Meadows Museum, I was a little surprised by how quiet and serene it was.
As I gazed past all of the colors and figures looking for something Holocaust related, a particular Jacob Lawrence paining caught my eye. It was the first painting in the Hiroshima Series called Playground (Part of the Walter O. Evens Collection of African American Art - painted in 1983.) I looked at the blending colors of white, red, black, and brown and the emotion that seemed to jump from the wall was stinging. There were people - but they did not look exactly like people. They had human bodies, but the heads looked only like skeletons heads covered with red, which looked like blood to me! These skeleton-headed people were everywhere - they seemed to take the stance of either dancing or fighting! Their hands were also blood red - and they were carrying what looked like whips! In the very corner, there was a poor little white dog, also dripping blood, which seemed to just watch the entire chaotic scene.
To me, the picture seemed to be telling the story of the African American struggle to win freedom during the civil war. The story of this struggle seems directly related to the struggle during the Holocaust. In both cases, people were persecuted and looked down upon because of their ethnic background or race. Both the Jews and the African Americans had to fight for their freedom and their lives. What really seems to connect this Jacob Lawrence painting to Maus is that neither portrays their subjects as who they really are. Maus represents the Jews with mice, and Lawrence represents the African Americans with skeleton heads.