Faith Ringgold's "God Bless America" is an expression of the emotional and physical torment of black Americans prior to and during the Civil Rights Movement. This piece of art movement had a lot of cultural ties to the population during the 1960's that also can be applied today in the year 2001. Through the description of medium, subject matter, form, and style I will relate this piece of history and the signfigance of what this composition means to me today.
             Faith Ringgold composed this piece by using oil paints on a 31 by 19 inch canvas. It is depicting the struggles that her community and herself were facing while trying to gain equal rights from the majority of white American culture. She uses line, shape, color, value and texture to depict the points she's trying to make. She uses mostly outline in an expressive quality to depict the extremity of the situtation. The most promindint shapes she uses is rectangles. The strips are long rectangles and even her face has a very square feeling to it. The only colors she uses are red, blue, black and white. All of these colors are in a low key, which are very bright and draw your attention equally.
             All of the principles of design are indicative in this painting. Unity and balance are achieved through her use if red and blue together and black and white. The positioning of the strips/cell bars gives the painting rhythm. The focal point of this painting is the women's face, particularly her eyes that have a heavy black outline. The entire composition is done to scale and is proportionate.
             God Bless America is done in a representational style. It is a stylized representation of real life that it still recognizable to the average person. Ringgold has done numerous paintings that depict the struggle of the black community during and prior to the 1960's. Her other artworks include titles such as, The Flag is Bleeding following the theme of the blac...