Because of his commitment to a color-blind world, he created images whose humanity, but not their race, was evident. Too bad so few Southerners or other Americans, for that matter were not as socially color-blind as Gwathmey, an artist who used brilliant colors in his work. A decade after his death, he is still ahead of the times. The social commentary within Gwathmey's paintings, meanwhile, is as relevant today as it is historical. Kammen's fine book will call attention to Gwathmey and his observations.
Democracy allows individualism even radicalism but most people go along with the crowd.
In the early 20th-century South, the crowd consisted of the repressive and the passive. Against the Day, Egerton describes the South of those times as rural, agricultural, isolated. It had its ruling nobles, its lords of the plantation manor and its peasants, its vassals. Its values were rooted in the land, in stability and permanence, in hierarchy and status, in caste and class and race. The highest values were honor and duty, loyalty and obedience.