This painting created by Aaron Douglas,
named Aspects of Negro Life, represents one of the greatest and most influential
periods of our time, the Harlem Renaissance.
This oil on canvas
Originally known as the New Negro Movement,
the Harlem Renaissance was the period just after World War I (1914-1918) where
the mass migration of African Americans drastically changed the demographics of
cities such as Washington D.C., Philadelphia, New York, Pittsburg, Detroit,
Chicago, and Saint Louis. Harlem is a
neighborhood in New York City where this movement of African culture was intensely
popular and influential not only nationally but globally, epically many
French-speaking writers from African and Caribbean colonies who lived in Paris,
thus the name Harlem Renaissance was born.
Major Contributors to the Harlem Renaissance that inspired the arts
include:
Writers:
- Langston Hughes
- Jessie Redmon Fauset
- Countee Cullen
- Zora Neale Hurston
- Richard Bruce Nugent
- Wallace Thurman
- Claude McKay
- Jean Toomer
Intellectuals
- Alain LeRoy Locke
- W. E. B Du Bois
- James Weldon Johnson
- Charles Spurgeon Johnson
- Walter Francis White
- Arthur Schomburg
- Marcus Garvey
Aaron Douglas (1899-1979) created
painting, murals, and illustrated artwork that became part of the Harlem Renaissance
culture of influencing young African American artists to express their
heritage and culture though art and music. Douglas’ works include;
- Illustrations for The
Crisis and Opportunity, 1925–1939
- Illustrations for James
Weldon Johnson, God's Trombones, 1927
- Mural at Club Ebony, 1927
(destroyed)
- Illustrations for Paul Morand,
Black Magic, 1929
- Harriet Tubman, mural
at Bennett College, 1930
- Symbolic Negro History,
murals at Fisk University, 1930
- Dance Magic, murals
for the Sherman Hotel, Chicago, 1930–31
- Aspects of Negro Life,
murals at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 1934
- Illustrations included in
selected editions of Countee Cullen's Caroling Dusk and Alain
Locke's New Negro. Illustrations also published in periodicals such
as Vanity Fair, New York Sun, Boston Transcript, and American
Mercury.
“Douglas created numerous large-scale murals that portray subjects from
African American history and contemporary life in epic allegories. In 1934, he
was commissioned, under the sponsorship of the Public Works of Art Project
(PWAP), to paint a series of murals for The New York Public Library's 135th
Street branch, now the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Among
his best-known works, the four panels of Aspects
of Negro Life are characteristic of Douglas's style, with graphically
incisive motifs and the dynamic incorporation of such influences as African
sculpture, jazz music, dance, and abstract geometric forms. One of the murals, Song of the Towers, depicts a figure
fleeing from the hand of serfdom. It is symbolic of the migration of African
peoples from the rural South and the Caribbean to the urban industrial centers
of the North just after World War I. Standing on the wheel of life in the
center of the composition, a saxophonist expresses the creativity of the 1920s
and the freedom it afforded the "New Negro." Douglas joined the
faculty of Fisk University in 1937 and stayed there until his retirement in
1966. A true pioneer, his artistic insight has had a lasting influence on
American art history and the nation's culture heritage, and is a testament to
the themes of African heritage and racial pride.” –New York Public Library
Testaments to themes
of African heritage and racial pride did not stop with Douglas’ work. Below are selected examples from influential
artists that worked during the Harlem Renaissance that still continues to
inspire and celebrate culture heritage.
James Van Der Zee (American,
1886-1983), Evening Attire, 1922, gelatin silver print, 10
x 8 inches, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC.
Palmer Hayden, The
Janitor Who Paints, about 1937, oil, 39 1/8 x 32
7/8 inches, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC.
Archibald J. Motley, Nightlife,
1943, oil on canvas, 91.4 x
121.3 cm, Art Institute of Chicago, IL.
Augusta Savage (American, 1892-1962), Gamin,
1930, bronze.
Malvin Gray Johnson (American,
1896-1934), Brothers,
1934, oil, 38 x
30 1/8 inches, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC.
Richmond Barthé, Blackberry Woman, 1932, bronze, 33 3/4 x 11 x 14
inches, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC.
The Harlem Renaissance can arguably be one the greatest culture
influences that still survives today. Artwork
just scratches the surface of the great cultures mechanisms the Harlem
Renaissance gave to the world. Other than
Artwork Jazz still continues to inspire and move culture today. The Harlem Renaissance period was captured by
Aaron Douglas’ quote:
"(L)et's bare our arms and plunge them deep through
laughter, through pain, through sorrow, through hope, through disappointment,
into the very depths of the souls of our people and drag forth material crude,
rough, neglected. Then let's sing it, dance it, write it, paint it. Let's do
the impossible." – Aaron Douglas
Sources:
Aaron Douglas: Art, Race, and the Harlem Renaissance
Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist
Harlem renaissance: Art of black America
Harlem Renaissance Artists
Modernism and the Harlem renaissance
"Douglas, Aaron". American National Biography.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. 6:789-790.
My favorite artistic era would have to be modern art, more specifically art aimed at counteracting the destruction and lack of trust in government and society after the first World War. The efforts to combat the dazed and numb feelings broke off into two separate parts, one senseless and almost childish response and another extremely defined and regimented aspect of life. 
The first response was given the name of Dada, which can mean many different things in many different languages. One prominent Dada artist, Hugo Ball, wrote a series of almost meaningless words and phrases that sound like gobbly-goop when read out loud in a group. The actual text itself is a work of art because of the numerous fonts and sizes used. Its definitely not something I would buy for my collection, if I had one, but it is something to admire for the drastic changes from the previous eras. Also in the same style bin was an artist by the name of Marcel Duchamp. His works more poked fun at what art was becoming with paintings like L.H.O.O.Q. which is his own code pronounced in french to mean "She has a hot ass". Of course this would be controversial to art critics if it were just a painting of a woman's behind but it wasn't just any woman, it was Mona Lisa herself. Duchamp's works also include a urinal signed incognito as R. Mutt and named it 'Fountain'.
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