Spirituality & Religion in Artwork: A Look at Basquiat & Fra Angelico
Thanks for watching!
I enjoyed taking a more in-depth look at these two artworks, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Water-Worshipper & Fra Angelico’s Mocking of the Christ. Visual analysis and searching for context behind artworks is fun in my opinion!
See my page to follow along my art journey and more video essay style videos!
Video Sections:
00:00 - 03:18 - Introduction
03:19 - 09:03 - Basquiat & Water-Worshipper
09:04 - 15:05 - Fra Angelico & Mocking of Christ
15:07 - 18:22 - Closing
Citations for everything mentioned: (I’m not used to putting citations in a youtube video description and thought it was funny haha)
Anthony B. Pinn. (2013). “Why Can’t I Be Both?”: Jean-Michel Basquiat and Aesthetics of Black Bodies Reconstituted. Journal of Africana Religions, 1(1), 109–132. https://doi.org/10.5325/jafrireli.1.1...
Bull, G. (1987). Lives of the Artists: Volume I: A Selection Translated by George Bull (Penguin Classics). (pp. 199–207). Penguin Books.
Dubois, L. (2001). Vodou and History. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 43(1), 92–100. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2696623
Figure. (1960). [Wood]. The Van Rijn Archive of African Art (YVRA) at the Yale University Art Gallery. Yale University Open Community Collections. https://jstor.org/stable/community.34...
Harris, S., & Klemm, P. (2015). Power Figure (Nkisi Nkondi), Kongo peoples – Smarthistory. Smarthistory.org. https://smarthistory.org/nkisi-nkondi...
Hood, W. (1986). Saint Dominic’s Manners of Praying: Gestures in Fra Angelico’s Cell Frescoes at S. Marco. The Art Bulletin, 68(2), 195–206. https://doi.org/10.2307/3050930
Jean-Michel Basquiat. (2025, May 7). Water-worshipper. Artnet.com. https://www.artnet.com/artists/jean-m...
Laurie Schneider Adams. (2013). Italian renaissance art, 2nd edition. (pp. 106–115). The Perseus Books Group.
Mami Wata (African myth) | EBSCO. (2021). EBSCO Information Services, Inc. | https://www.ebsco.com/research-starte...
Mangaaka Power Figure (Nkisi N’Kondi). (Second half of the 19th century). [Wood, iron, resin, ceramic, plant fiber, textile, pigment]. In Power Figure (Nkisi N’Kondi: Mangaaka) [2008.30]. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. https://jstor.org/stable/community.34...
McKeown, L., & Bernstein, J. H. (2022, April 12). Water-Worshipper: Basquiat’s Masterpiece of Race and Spirituality. Sothebys.com. https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/...
The Art of Examination: Role of the Doctor and the Nkisi Nkondi. (2018, September 26). Www.youtube.com. • The Art of Examination: Role of the Doctor...
The Mocking of Christ, 1440 - 1441 - Fra Angelico - WikiArt.org. (2021). Www.wikiart.org. https://www.wikiart.org/en/fra-angeli...
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