cavetocanvas: Richard Avedon, Marian Anderson, 1955 From the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Here is the great contralto singer Marian Anderson. By waiting for the moment when Anderson closed her eyes, Avedon was able to suggest her intense inner concentration on the song and to allow us, the viewer, to focus on her mouth. Even if the viewer knows nothing about Marian Anderson, one can still see in this photograph the total commitment to her voice, that she was the very embodiment of song. And if in fact the viewer is aware of the social context of the photograph—that Anderson fought in a very quiet and effective way to be heard in the 1930s, despite attempts by the Daughters of the American Revolution to prevent her from singing at Washington D.C.’s DAR-owned Constitution Hall because of her race, which caused First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to resign from the organization—one would be able to detect a kind of moral probity and strength in this portrait as well.

cavetocanvas:

Richard Avedon, Marian Anderson, 1955

From the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

Here is the great contralto singer Marian Anderson. By waiting for the moment when Anderson closed her eyes, Avedon was able to suggest her intense inner concentration on the song and to allow us, the viewer, to focus on her mouth. Even if the viewer knows nothing about Marian Anderson, one can still see in this photograph the total commitment to her voice, that she was the very embodiment of song. And if in fact the viewer is aware of the social context of the photograph—that Anderson fought in a very quiet and effective way to be heard in the 1930s, despite attempts by the Daughters of the American Revolution to prevent her from singing at Washington D.C.’s DAR-owned Constitution Hall because of her race, which caused First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to resign from the organization—one would be able to detect a kind of moral probity and strength in this portrait as well.

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  1. latxcvi reblogged this from quartertonebloom
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  5. metamorphoseandbodhi reblogged this from cavetocanvas and added:
    Anderson photographed by Richard Avedon in 1955....Here is the great contralto singer...
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    sierra is a contralto c:
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    I adore Marian Anderson.
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