A Familial Lesson of Love: ‘The Banjo Lesson’

Reaching Within: What traditional art offers the heart

A detail from “The Banjo Lesson,” 1893, by Henry Ossawa Tanner. Oil on Canvas, 49 inches by 35.5 inches. Hampton University Museum, Virginia. Public Domain

My family is very important to me. I really don’t know where I’d be without their constant love and care. My grandparents, uncles, and aunts all had a significant impact on my life, making sure I understood that I could become anything I wanted to be if I was willing to put in the effort. 

For me, Henry Ossawa Tanner’s painting “The Banjo Lesson” reminds me of the affection and encouragement I received from my family. Tanner used the depiction of love within the black family as a way of mending the harsh reality of 19th-century race relations. Instead of propagating a divisive ideology of revolution and destruction, he decided to use his art to show how we human beings, irrespective of our differences, are all capable of love. 

Henry Ossawa Tanner

Tanner was a black American painter at the turn of the 20th century. His mother and father were former slaves but became quite accomplished after the Civil War. Despite their circumstances, Tanner’s parents raised him in a relatively cultured and educated household.