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BEAUFORD DELANEY: SO SPLENDID A JOURNEY,

the first full-length documentary about Beauford.


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Saturday, September 17, 2022

Beauford on Obelisk Art History

I occasionally Google Beauford to see what obscure references to his life and art I can find online. Earlier this week, I found a delightful one - a page on a Website called Obelisk Art History.

Obelisk, formerly known as Trivium, is "a place to explore the wildly diverse world of art history." Created by Reed Enger 10+ years ago, it has evolved from a simple classroom resource to a platform with thousands of images, essays, correspondence, projects, and quizzes for those interested in art history.

In the section called "Artists," Enger has built a page called "Beauford Delaney: Capturing the Sacred Light." It features two sentences about Beauford and images of five of his works, most of which are dominated by the color "yellow." The sentences contain links to four other pages on the site, three of which link back to Beauford's page. Clicking on each image takes you to a page dedicated to the corresponding work, and this page also presents a brief paragraph that contains links to additional pages.

Through an innovative function called "The Kaleidoscope," Enger invites visitors to the site to take "a hypnotic journey through art history." On any given page that features a work of art, you'll find a rotating "gear" between the images of the work and the text describing it. Click on it, and you're taken to a new page where the work is transformed into a constantly changing pattern reminiscent of a kaleidoscope. This is absolutely mesmerizing!

Enger selected two abstracts and three portraits for "Capturing the Sacred Light." Here are a few screenshots of the kaleidoscopic images from these works.

Kaleidoscope - Portrait of Howard Swanson
Kaleidoscope - Composition 16
Kaleidoscope - Portrait of Marian Anderson
Kaleidoscope - Abstraction No. 4
Kaleidoscope - Portrait of James Baldwin

I'd love to hear your thoughts about this way this site transforms images of artwork from classical to contemporary into ever changing geometric forms. Write to me at amisdebeauford@yahoo.com to let me know!

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