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...we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honour - 4 July 1776
Jacob Lawrence American
Not on view
The final words of the Declaration of Independence—a solemn pledge to the human rights of "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness"—are imagined by Lawrence as a responsibility of every American in a functioning democracy. A rake and musket divide his composition, creating a protective V-shaped space around the emblematic colonial farmer and loyal citizen that evokes the popular imagery of George Washington as a modern Cincinnatus, the Roman general who relinquished power for agrarian life. Lawrence’s figure struggles to bear the burden of his wagonload of hay, a symbol of the nation’s bountiful ideals of freedom, which he has fought to uphold and defend—as suggested by the vertical drops of blood at far right.
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