To S. M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works by Phillis Wheatley
"To S. M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works" is a poem by Phillis Wheatley that celebrates the artistic talents of Scipio Moorhead, an African artist and poet who was enslaved. The poem acknowledges Moorhead’s skill in art and the significance of his creative expression, contrasting it with the limitations imposed on him due to his status as a slave. Wheatley reflects on the power of imagination, highlighting how it allows artists to transcend their earthly conditions and create works that resonate with deeper truths and beauty. She encourages Moorhead to embrace his gifts and any recognition he may receive while also contemplating the notion that earthly glory pales in comparison to the divine splendor awaiting them in the afterlife. This dual focus on the immediate joy of artistic creation and the promise of spiritual fulfillment presents a poignant view of the challenges and aspirations faced by enslaved individuals. Wheatley’s piece serves as both a tribute to Moorhead's talent and a meditation on the broader implications of art and freedom, with an emphasis on the potential for nobler expressions beyond worldly constraints.
To S. M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works by Phillis Wheatley
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1773 (collected in Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, 1773)
Type of work: Poem
The Work
The poem opens with praise for the art of Scipio Moorhead, slave of a Presbyterian minister, who was both an artist and a poet. It was he who drew Wheatley’s portrait which appeared in her book of poems. As a fellow artist, she strives to comprehend the creative process that achieves his purposes and also gives her, as the audience of his work, such pleasure. The artist’s pencil gives life to figures born of his imagination and intent, and the speaker praises the power of imagination which bestows on the painter and the writer the ability to transcend the limitations of their world. For these two slave artists, those limitations would have been great indeed.
She encourages Moorhead to make the most of his gifts and to enjoy any fame that comes to him, but at the same time she fixes her thoughts on the afterlife, suggesting that what the earth offers as glory is paltry by comparison to Heaven’s glory. In paradise, where they will both be free, their celestial gifts will be nobler and purer, and they will no longer write about or paint “Damon” or “Aurora,” subjects that are worldly as well as being products of Western culture rather than the artists’ African culture.
Bibliography
Bassard, Katherine Clay. Spiritual Interrogations: Culture, Gender, and Community in Early African American Women’s Writing. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Carretta, Vincent, and Philip Gould, eds. Genius in Bondage: Literature of the Early Black Atlantic. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001.
Lasky, Kathryn. A Voice of Her Own: The Story of Phillis Wheatley, Slave Poet. Cambridge, Mass.: Candlewick Press, 2003.
Renfro, G. Herbert. Life and Works of Phillis Wheatley. The Black Heritage Library Collection. Plainview, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1970.
Richmond, Merle. Phillis Wheatley. American Women of Achievement. New York: Chelsea House, 1988.
Robinson, William H., ed. Critical Essays on Phillis Wheatley. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982.
Shields, John C. “The American Epic Writ Large: The Example of Phillis Wheatley.” In The American Aeneas:Classical Origins of the American Self. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2001.