Palmer Hayden, Spirituals (Dreams), 1935 

Narrator: Spirituals (Dreams), from 1935 is a vertical watercolor painting with graphite pencil on paper. The image measures almost a foot and a half tall by just over half a foot wide. It is hung on a red wall, on the left side of the gallery.

This work is a dream-like composite of scenes. Vignettes are seamlessly woven together meeting soft edges created by the variation in the saturation which is characteristic of water color. Four Black men seen from the waist up embrace in a warm huddle in the center of the image, their mouths open in a round shape suggesting that they are singing. From top left to right there is a dark bluish gray sky that transforms into pale yellow sunlight from a golden sun. Corn stalks frame the image on the top with white flowers blooming below the sun. From top to bottom, each scene comes further into the foreground. Below the sky, the group of men’s bodies form a tight circle. One holds a hoe while another holds a shovel. Their jackets are charcoal, navy, rust with brown cross hatching, and green. Of the four men you can see the faces of two, one is looking joyously toward the other, whose eyes are peacefully closed. You see the back of the man in the green jacket, arms outstretched holding the group together with yellow and red accents along the sleeves and collar. A trail curves around the side of the left edge of the painting. A woman with a basket on her head wearing a red head wrap, a white shirt, and a blue ankle length skirt walks down the path hand on hip. To her right, a conical tree with red fruits sits inside of a purple cloud with yellow scalloped edges. In the foreground on the far right, two donkeys facing away from each other but positioned side by side, one brown and one white, appear to bray or sing. Both the lone woman and the donkeys appear under long slender leaves springing from the edges of the composition. At the bottom in the center is the head of a fifth man who appears to sing, eyes closed. His neck tapers down to a point as if he is a spirit, ghost, or memory emerging from a pale multicolored portal under a sloping hill that the conical tree stands on. At the bottom left is Palmer Hayden's faded signature in brown.