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The Opener

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Leftt: General Toussaint L'Ouverture attacked the English at Artibonite and there captured two towns (1937) / Right: The Opener (1997)

With clear lines and crisp colors, L'Ouverture spurs on his horse in Jacob Lawrence’s The Opener. Charging through sugarcane and aflame with the spirit of revolution atop a white steed, L'Ouverture brandishes his golden sword out above the battlefield as he leads the attack against the English at Artibonite. The verdant greenness of the curved land, white horse and plume alongside the vertical waving motion of sugarcane whose growth closest to us, wriggle the eyes upwards away from the burning world of old French-Haiti and towards center-stage, an image of liberated Haiti opened by General Toussaint L’Ouverture. However, this battle would prove near fatal when his hand was severely crushed. Finding himself wounded and his army lacking sufficient ammunition, L'Ouverture was forced to resign. 

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