A Memphis juke joint

(light piano music)

- [Dr. Zucker] We're in
the Georgia Museum of Art,

looking at a large
painting by Vertis Hayes.

This is called "Juke Joint,"

and it was painted in 1946.

- [Dr. Harris] Interesting
to see a Southern scene,

probably somewhere outside
of Memphis, Tennessee.

- [Dr. Zucker] And it's
interesting to look

at an easel painting

because Vertis Hayes
is probably best known

for the murals that he
produced in Memphis,

but also that he produced in New York City

as part of the WPA, most
famously at Harlem Hospital.

So let's start with what a juke joint is.

- [Dr. Harris] Essentially,
a juke joint would have been

almost like a bar or saloon

noted for having great
music and entertainment.

It was a central part of many communities,

particularly African-American communities.

They could have come in any form,

a small place in a rural area,

in larger cities, they might've taken up

a corner of a city block

and they became a central meeting place.

- [Dr. Zucker] And this does seem like

the central meeting
place in this painting,

but the building is isolated.

- [Dr. Harris] The fact
that it's by itself

is really interesting

because if you think of the time period,

you would have seen
larger cities like Memphis

that would have had clusters of buildings,

lots of people, lots of cars.

And here you have this more isolated scene

where the juke joint
is the central building

in the composition.

- [Dr. Zucker] The building
almost feels alive.

It's curving, it seems to
almost be stretching upward.

- [Dr. Harris] You can feel the energy

of what's going on inside.

You can faintly see the colors

that seem like they're
bouncing on the window panes,

but everything is directed
toward the juke joint.

If you look at the electrical
pole across the street

leaning in toward the juke joint building.

- [Dr. Zucker] And there's a
gentle curve to the roof line

of the juke joint,

which is echoed in the wires of the pole

And even in the clouds.

This was a carefully composed image.

- [Dr. Harris] There's a
house that's down the road,

and there's an outhouse.

They all have these curves.

Everything is moving.

- [Dr. Zucker] And that
kind of organic quality

makes this painting feel so human.

It makes it feel approachable.

And this is a characteristic
of a kind of painting

that is known as social realism.

- [Dr. Harris] Vertis Hayes was part

of a larger community of artists

that would have participated

in this social realist
vein in American art,

showing social scenes of people
active in their communities.

Even more mundane scenes,

or genre scenes of various communities

across the United States,
particularly in the South,

where there was a lot of interest

in showing rural areas such as this.

- [Dr. Zucker] And by genre scenes,

we mean scenes of everyday life.

Not a historically important event,

nobody of particular note,

but just the things that
people do every day.

And here we see lots of people

going about their every day activities.

- [Dr. Harris] You see
everything from the people

entering and exiting the juke joint,

to the tamale seller,

the dog that seated on the
border of the composition,

the man in the overalls, who's a customer,

waiting for his tamale to be prepared.

And then even the man in the green suit,

who appears to be heading
toward the juke joint.

- [Dr. Zucker] And then
further up the hill

we see a man in yellow pants

standing right in front
of this woman in white.

Even further up the hill,

we can just make out the
silhouette of yet another figure.

- [Dr. Harris] That figure is mirroring

the curving electrical pole

and the house and the roof
line of the juke joint.

- [Dr. Zucker] And then
the man with his foot up

on the runner of a police car,

talking to two officers.

- [Dr. Harris] We're not sure
about what that conversation

might be about,

if they know each other
or if there's a problem.

It's interesting how the police car

is functionally oppositionally
to what's going on

on the left-hand side.

- [Dr. Zucker] The one
form that's as powerful

as the building is that road.

It's almost a mountain.

- [Dr. Harris] You can see that the road

is leading toward the viewer.

Everything leans downward.

You wonder if this will
eventually be paved?

- [Dr. Zucker] You can see where

the rain has run down that
road, has eroded that soil.

And it really expresses for me

the economic neglect of a rural area.

And it's a period when the United States

has just lived through
the Second World War,

but it's also a moment
when the Great Depression

is still a recent memory.

- [Dr. Harris] We're not really sure

what time of day it might be.

Probably getting close to nighttime

because you can see that the
artist emphasizes the bulb.

But that purple-ish tint,

you wonder if there's a storm
that's about to touch down.

- [Dr. Zucker] But also
just that everything

in this painting seems to be in flux

and to be moving, to be alive.

There are no perfect right
angles in that building.

Everything in the sky
seems to be changing.

And even the road, a
slower kind of change.

The change of erosion.

One of the things that I
think is really interesting

is the attention to signage,

to the everyday things
that somebody would see.

We see the large beer sign,

but then closer to us,

we also see what would probably be

an enameled sign, advertising beer.

We see Moe's Cafe.

Perhaps there's a little blue
sign that is alerting people

that there's a public telephone here.

There's all these wonderful details

that capture our attention
and make the scene

feel really authentic.

(light piano music)