Investigation of a Work of Art and the Artist who created the Art Funeral Procession is one of Hunter’s many funeral procession-themed paintings.

Clementine Hunter created the painting Funeral Procession, and it is in the Savannah College of
Art and Design’s collection in Savannah, Georgia. Funeral processions have a rich and illustrious
history. They have become a unique method of sending someone farewell and commemorating
them as part of a memorial service. When organizing a funeral, consider if the service will
continue to a cemetery (or whether that is even suitable, given the type of service one is having).
The memorial team from the funeral home or institution assisting the bereaved with the process
will ensure that logistics are handled in the manner they deem appropriate to honor and
remember their loved one. There are several methods to express your love and legacy for a
departed loved one. African Americans want to make the process as easy and pleasant as
possible by providing resources, ideas, and tools, so one can focus on creating community and
support among friends and family. Therefore, it is important to discuss the funeral procession by
Clementine Hunter, focusing on discussing and critiquing the representation of events, clothing
and how coloring depicted the mood of the occasion.
Clementine Hunter was an Afro-Creole artist best known for her paintings showing
scenes from African-American life on southern plantations in the late 1800s and early 1900s
(Romano et al., 2021). Clementine Hunter, an African American artist who was mostly self-
taught, documented life in the Cane River region between the early and mid-twentieth century.
Although she did not begin painting until she was fifty, she created over 5,000 pieces of Art,
including over two dozen quilts and narrative textiles (Romano et al., 2021). Before her death,
Hunter was well-known as a “folk” or “self-taught” artist, though the meaning of such titles is
still contested. Many of her paintings show events and people at Melrose Plantation in

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Natchitoches Parish, a cotton farm along the Cane River where she spent most of her life
working. Hunter is arguably best recognized for the nine room-size pictures she painted on the
walls of the African House, a Melrose plantation outbuilding.
Hunter’s paintings, including the painting of the funeral procession, usually show the life
of African Americans in the Cane River neighborhood. She painted on various surfaces,
including abandoned items such as cardboard, bottles, plastic containers, window shades,
buckets, and even an ironing board (Parrie, 2020). She depicted people doing domestic chores,
praying, dancing, and socializing, as seen by the names of some of her works: Washing Day,
Fishing, Saturday Night, Blessed Martin Chapel, Cotton Crucifixion, Black Jesus, Pecan
Threshing, Melrose Complex, and Cane River Funeral. The presence of revival meetings,
marriages, wakes, funerals, and crucifixion scenes in her paintings demonstrates the Creole
community’s devotion to religion. Women were also prominent in her Art, both physically and
metaphorically.
The painting funeral procession was a fine illustration of African American culture. She
portrayed strong African American women engaged in many elements of traditional rural life,
including working and playing outside, marrying, caring for children, nursing the ill, attending
church, and burying the deceased. According to Parrie (2020), her angels are female, Mary
appears with the newborn Jesus, and even Jesus appears as a girl on occasion. Almost all of her
figurines are black. Hunter was inspired to create Art until she was nearing the end of her life. In
the painting, she demonstrated the emotional part of women painting most of the women
carrying flowers at the funeral representing their higher emotional expression.
The picture portrays a funeral procession of African Americans in Louisiana. Two men
exit a church carrying a flower-decorated coffin. A woman with flowers follows close behind. In

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the foreground, a casket is carried to a recently dug grave, while two religious people hold
crosses over the grave. Four female figurines with flowers and two male figures stand guard at
the burial. In this artwork, Hunter depicts an important scenario of a person’s ascent into heaven
in the brilliant blues, greens, and yellows that define practically all of her work.
The flowers in the painting have different colors that portray different meanings and
emotions of African American societies. The pink flower represents rem