Question

Discuss jean-michel basquiat's horn players using the contextual theory of criticism.

Answer 1

Answer: Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 1983 painting Horn Players shows us all the main stylistic features we have come to expect from this renowned American artist. In addition to half-length portraits on the left and right panels of this painting consisting of three joined panels), basquiats has included several drawings and words—many of which Basquiat drew and then crossed out. On each panel we also notice large swaths of white paint, which seem to occuring at the same time highlight the black background and obscure the drawings and/or words beneath. Most notable. Well is the repeated words like “DIZZY,” “ORNITHOLOGY,” “PREE” and "TEETH” that the artist has scattered across all three panels of this work.

Looking again at Horn Players, for example, reveals several connections to Picasso’s Three Musicians. Basquiat’s use of the triptych format—a popular device for the artist in this period—echoes the triple subjects of the Picasso image. The figure of Parker in Basquiat’s composition is also reproduced in the same position as the standing figure (playing the clarinet) in Picasso’s work.

Many scholars have connected Basquiat’s interest in jazz to a larger investment in African American popular culture but an alternative explanation is that the young Basquiat looked to jazz music for inspiration and for instruction, much in the same way that he looked to the modern masters of painting. Parker, Gillespie, and the other musicians of the bebop era infamously appropriated both the harmonic structures of jazz standards, using them as a structure for their own songs, and repeated similar note patterns across several improvisations. Basquiat used similar techniques of appropriation throughout his career as a painter