The Voyage of Life: Art, Allegory, and Community Response

In its broad compass and diversity, The Voyage of Life: Art, Allegory, and Community Response registers the artistic concerns of North American peoples, confirming the power of art to show how much of the human experience is held in common. However dissimilar its means of expression, art speaks to the universality of the voyage of life.

This online gallery explores how each person “plays in his or her time many parts,” attaining awareness as children, striking out as individuals, embracing or avoiding change during adulthood, and learning new ways of being in old age. Works by artists including Lee Krasner, Alice Neel, Andy Warhol, Jacob Lawrence, Thomas Cole, and Grant Wood reveal critical moments in the voyage of life, with its heydays, rough patches and new starts.