 Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's edition of Barnes Takeout, your daily serving of art from the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. I'm Bill Perthys, the Bernard C. Watson Director of Adult Education, and happy Juneteenth, and happy Father's Day, or at least an early happy Father's Day. In celebration of both of those, of Juneteenth as well as Father's Day, I've chosen a painting that's by the American artist, Horace Pippin. It's in Gallery Five, and here we are in Gallery Five, and we're looking at the West Wall, and the Pippin I'm talking about is here over the door. Let me show it to you. It was painted by Horace Pippin in 1934, and it's called Abraham Lincoln and his father building their cabin on Pigeon Creek. As I said, I chose this both in celebration of Juneteenth, as well as for Father's Day. As you probably know, Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States, and it commemorates this day in 1865, when Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, entered Galveston, Texas, with the news that the Civil War had ended, and that all slaves were now free. This came two and a half years after President Lincoln declared the Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect in January 1, 1863. On that day in 1865, Major General Granger read Proclamation number three, which said, and I quote, the people of Texas are informed that in accordance with the proclamation from the executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection there to for existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer. And in this picture, appropriately enough for both of these occasions, Horace Pippin portrays a moment when the adolescent Abraham Lincoln and his father are clearing land and building their cabin on a new plot of land in Little Pigeon Creek in Indiana. And this event more or less takes place in 1816, 1817. The Lincoln family moved from where Lincoln was born across the Ohio River, rather in Kentucky. Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 in Sinking Spring Farm there in Indiana. But the family moved across the Ohio River when Lincoln was seven for a couple reasons. One, there was a dispute over the title of their land in Kentucky, and his father didn't have the funds to be able to contest that. But also because Kentucky had been admitted to the Union in 1792 as a slave state, and Lincoln's father, Thomas, was morally opposed to slavery. Indiana, on the other hand, had been excluded from slavery by way of the Northwest Ordinance. And this picture is one of four that portray important moments in the life of the 16th President. So as I mentioned here, we see Lincoln, who I read as being the figure in the foreground and his father behind him. Now, this scene actually takes place when Lincoln would have been about eight years old. So he's shown perhaps a little older than that. But he's working with his father to clear the land. This land that they settled on in Little Pigeon Creek was extremely remote. There were no roads or paths that even led to it. It was densely forested. So in order to clear land, to have land to be able to farm to support themselves, they had to clear that land. And in the process, they used the trees that they were cutting down to build a more permanent housing for them. They had actually moved there the year before and had spent that first winter in temporary shelters. And in many ways, the picture is very evocative, despite the fact that Pippin used a fairly limited range of colors. He uses them extremely effectively, very dynamically. If we look at just the landscape to begin with, it's painted out of hues that are common to many Pippin's works. That is, they're relatively dark. They're somewhat tonal, so we get sort of lighter and darker tones that suggest things. And it's very dense. We get a sense of the thickness of the forest. And he's given us really remarkable details as well. So we get the leaves on the trees. And then he uses color as a way of really bringing out the figures. So the boldest colors in this picture are the white and the blue. And that white and blue is shared both in the shirts of the figures of Lincoln and his father. His father, as I'm reading it, is the figure in the blue shirt. And then those same colors are carried up into the sky. And we get a sense of this clear sky, clear blue sky with these large puffy white clouds. There's a clarity to the picture space. And then Pippin gives us other details. For instance, the color of the leaves. And as we see them dotting the air here, suggesting that we're moving towards autumn. And that creates a sense of sort of urgency in the picture as we see the two figures hewing the logs in order to build the cabin that they would need for the coming winter. As I mentioned, Lincoln lived in this cabin with his family from 1816 until 1830. So until he was 21. So a young man until he moved out on his own. And in many ways this picture also prefigures some important upcoming moments in Lincoln's life. One is his stance on slavery. As I mentioned, one of the reasons that his father moved the family from Kentucky to Indiana was in opposition to slavery. And needless to say, as the 16th president, Abraham Lincoln went on to not only be the head of the Union Army to fight for the Civil War, but also through the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves. And that Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in 10 states not under Union control. And that was a very, that was a Catholic moment within the Civil War. But in it also, this picture also prefigures some tragedies in Lincoln's life. Just a year after this event would have taken place. Lincoln's mother Nancy died of milk poisoning, something that was not unfortunately was not uncommon out where pasture land clear pasture land was not available and cows were foraging in the forest. And needless to say, we know the tragedy of the assassination of Lincoln. And so in many ways, this picture both captures a bonding moment for Lincoln and his father as they literally through their own hands build the home for their further family, but also suggests the kinds of tragedies that are to come. But also the important role that Lincoln played in creating the freedoms of that the Civil War was fought for. So I hope this picture both creates a moment of celebration for those of you celebrating Juneteenth. But I also want to wish the best to all of my fellow fathers out there. I just ask that you don't put your your sons and your daughters through quite as much labor as it seems Lincoln and his father are at work here in this this picture by ours, Pippin. In any case, join us again for our next Barnes Takeout. Thanks for joining us. I'm Tom Collins, new Bauer family executive director of the Barnes Foundation. I hope you enjoyed Barnes Takeout. Subscribe and make sure your post notifications are on to get daily servings of art. Thanks for watching and for your support of the Barnes Foundation.