What 1920s Movement Renewed African American Culture in Art Music Literature Drama and Dance?

The Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance (1920s–1930s) was an African-American cultural motion known for its proliferation in fine art, music, and literature.

Learning Objectives

Talk over the characteristics, themes, and contributing factors of the Harlem Renaissance

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• The cultural and political Harlem Renaissance produced visual art, novels, plays, poems, music, and dance that represented the flowering of a distinctive African-American expression.
• Along with the artists, political leaders such equally Marcus Garvey founded strong philosophies of black self-determination and unity among black communities in the United States, the Caribbean, and Africa.
• Harlem became an African-American neighborhood in the early 1900s, during the Great Migration in which many African Americans sought a improve standard of living and relief from the institutionalized racism in the S.
• While there was no unifying characteristic of the movement, mutual themes included the influence of slavery, black identity, the effects of institutional racism, and how to convey the experience of modern black life in the urban N.
• Notable visual artists of the movement include Aaron Douglas, Archibald Motley, Charles Henry Alston, and Jacob Lawrence.

Cardinal Terms

• Red Summer: The race riots that occurred in more than than three dozen cities in the United States during the summer and early on autumn of 1919.
• race riots: Riots acquired by racial hatred or dissension. They occurred throughout the 20th century, especially before and during the Civil Rights Motility.
• blackface: A style of theatrical makeup in which a white person blackens their face in order to represent a negro.

Overview

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural motility in the U.s.a. that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. While the zenith of the movement occurred between 1924 and 1929, its ideas have lived on much longer. At the fourth dimension, it was known equally the New Negro Motility, named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke.

This cultural and political renaissance produced novels, plays, murals, poems, music, dance, and other artwork that represented the flowering of a distinctive African-American expression. Along with the artists, political leaders such as Marcus Garvey founded strong philosophies of cocky-determination and unity amongst black communities in the Usa, the Caribbean, and Africa.

At the same time, activists similar Hubert Harrison challenged the notion of the renaissance, arguing that the term was largely a white invention that disregarded the continuous stream of creativity that had emerged from the African-American community since 1850.

Harlem'south Background

The commune of Harlem had originally developed in the 19th century as an sectional suburb for the white center and upper classes. During the enormous influx of European immigrants in the belatedly 19th century, the once exclusive district was abased by whites, who moved farther n.

Harlem became an African-American neighborhood in the early on 1900s, during the Great Migration in which many sought a ameliorate standard of living and relief from the institutionalized racism in the South. Others of African descent came from racially stratified communities in the Caribbean area, seeking a improve life in the U.S. By 1930, 90,000 new arrivals joined the African-Americans already living at that place, creating a community of nearly 200,000.

Despite the increasing popularity of black civilization, virulent white racism continued to impact African-American communities. Race riots and other civil uprisings occurred throughout the U.S. during the Red Summer of 1919, reflecting economical competition over jobs, housing, and social territories.

Characteristics and Themes

What characterized the Harlem Renaissance was an overt racial pride and the developing thought of a new black identity, that through intellect and product of literature, art, and music could challenge the pervading racism and promote progressive politics.

At that place was no uniting form characterizing the fine art that emerged, however. It encompassed a wide multifariousness of styles, including Pan-African perspectives; loftier culture and low culture; traditional music to dejection and jazz; traditional and experimental forms in literature, such every bit modernism; and the new form of jazz poetry.

Some common themes represented during the Harlem Renaissance were the influence of slavery, blackness identity, the furnishings of institutional racism, the dilemmas of performing and writing for aristocracy white audiences, and how to convey the experience of modernistic blackness life in the urban North.

New authors attracted a great corporeality of national attention, and the Harlem Renaissance led to more opportunities for blacks to be published by mainstream houses. Some authors who became nationally known were Jean Toomer, Jessie Fauset, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, Alain Locke, Eric D. Walrond, and Langston Hughes.

Langston Hughes: Langston Hughes was one of the most well-known writers to sally from the Harlem Renaissance.

A new way of playing the piano called Harlem Stride was likewise created during the Renaissance, and jazz musicians like Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, and Willie "The Lion" Smith are considered to have laid the foundation for hereafter musicians of their genre.

Visual artists of the time included Charles Alston, Henry Bannarn, Leslie Bolling, Aaron Douglas, Jacob Lawrence, and Archibold Motley.

Blackness Belt (original painting in colour): Archibald Motley is nearly famous for his colorful chronicling of the African-American experience during the 1920s and 1930s and is considered one of the major contributors to the Harlem Renaissance.

Aaron Douglas

Aaron Douglas was a notable artist of the Harlem Renaissance. After completing his BFA at the University of Nebraska in 1922, Douglas moved to New York City, settling in Harlem. Just a few months later his arrival he began to produce illustrations for both The Crisis and Opportunity, the two nearly important magazines associated with the Harlem Renaissance.

He likewise began studying with Winold Reiss, a German language creative person who had been hired past Alain Locke to illustrate The New Negro. Reiss' teaching helped Douglas develop the modernist style he would employ for the adjacent decade.

Douglas' date with African and Egyptian design brought him to the attention of W. E. B. Du Bois and Dr. Locke, who were pressing for young African-American artists to express their African heritage and African-American folk culture in their fine art.

In 1926 Douglas married Alta Sawyer. They lived together in Harlem and for the next several years, opened their home to an important, powerful circle of artists and writers we now call the Harlem Renaissance.

Charles Henry Alston

Charles Henry Alston (Nov 28, 1907–April 27, 1977) was an African-American painter, sculptor, illustrator, muralist, and teacher who lived and worked in Harlem. Alston was the first African-American supervisor for the Works Progress Assistants's Federal Art Project.

Alston designed and painted murals at the Harlem Hospital and the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Building. In 1990 Alston'due south bosom of Martin Luther King, Jr. became the kickoff paradigm of an African-American displayed at the White Firm.

In the beginning, Charles Alston's landscape work was inspired by the work of Aaron Douglas, Diego Rivera, and José Clemente Orozco, the latter who he met when they did mural work in New York. In 1943 Alston was elected to the board of directors of the National Society of Mural Painters.

He created murals for the Harlem Infirmary, Golden State Common, American Museum of Natural History, Public School 154, the Bronx Family and Criminal Courtroom, and the Abraham Lincoln High Schoolhouse in Brooklyn, New York.

Modernistic Medicine: Alston's mural at the Harlem Hospital is a pregnant work of the Harlem Renaissance.

Jacob Lawrence

Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000) was an African-American painter known for his portrayal of African-American life. Simply not only was he a painter, storyteller, and interpreter, he also was an educator. Lawrence referred to his mode as dynamic cubism, though by his own account the master influence was non so much French fine art equally the shapes and colors of Harlem.

He brought the African-American experience to life using blacks and browns juxtaposed with vivid colors. He also taught, and spent 15 years equally a professor at the University of Washington.

Lawrence is among the best-known 20th-century African-American painters. He was 23 years onetime when he gained national recognition with his threescore-panel Migration Serial, painted on cardboard. The series depicted the Smashing Migration of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North. A part of this series was featured in a 1941 issue of Fortune Magazine. The collection is now held by two museums.

Lawrence's works are in the permanent collections of numerous museums, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the Phillips Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Fine art, the Brooklyn Museum, and Reynolda House Museum of American Art. He is widely known for his modernist illustrations of everyday life as well as epic narratives of African American history and historical figures.

Jacob Lawrence, Self Portrait: This painting, done in 1977, exemplifies the brilliant utilise of colour in his work.

American Regionalist Art

Regionalism refers to a naturalist and realist style of painting that dominated American rural painting in the 1930s.

Learning Objectives

Define the American painting style of Regionalism

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• After World War I, many American artists rejected the mod trends emanating from the Armory Show and European influences such every bit those from the School of Paris. Instead they chose to prefer academic realism to depict American rural scenes.
• Past the 1940s there was a potent fence among the Regionalists and the Social Realists in rural areas, whose piece of work addressed social, economic, and political problems; and the Abstruse artists in New York City who embraced Modernism.
• Using a realist approach, the artistic focus of Regionalism was to create scenes of rural life by artists who shunned city life and rapidly developing technological advances.
• Regionalist style was at its tiptop from 1930 to 1935, and is best-known through the then-called Regionalist Triumvirate of Grant Wood in Iowa, Thomas Hart Benton in Missouri, and John Steuart Curry in Kansas.

Cardinal Terms

• social realism: An artistic motion, expressed in the visual and other realist arts that depicts social injustice and economic hardship through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles that often describe working-class activities every bit heroic.
• School of Paris: A school of art that represented the importance of Paris as a center of Western art in the early on decades of the 20th century, and where a group of artists including Picasso, Chagall, Mondrian, and Matisse created in the styles of Postal service-Impressionism, Cubism, and Fauvism.
• Armory testify: The 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art that was organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors. The exhibition ran in New York Metropolis'southward 69th Regiment Armory from February 17 until March 15, and became an important event in the history of American art, introducing New Yorkers to modernistic art.

Overview of American Regionalism

Regionalism, besides known as American scene painting, refers to a naturalist style of painting that was prevalent during the 1920s through the 1950s in the Usa. Later on World State of war I, many American artists rejected the modern trends that emanated from the Armory Prove and European influences, choosing instead to adopt an academic realism to depict American rural scenes.

Partly due to the Smashing Depression, Regionalism became one of the dominant art movements in America in the 1930s (the other existence Social Realism). At the time, the The states was still a heavily agricultural nation with a much smaller portion of its population living in industrial cities such equally New York Metropolis or Chicago.

A debate between brainchild versus realism had been ongoing since the 1913 Armory Show, and this continued throughout the 1930s among Regionalism, Social Realism, and Abstract fine art. By the 1940s this debate evolved into two camps that were divided geographically and politically:

1. The Regionalists and the Social Realists who primarily lived in rural areas and whose work addressed social, economic, and political issues.
2. The Abstract artists who primarily lived in New York Metropolis and embraced Modernism.

Regionalism's eventual loss of status in the art world is mainly a result of the ultimate triumph of Abstract expressionism, when Modernist critics gained power in the 1940s.

The Regionalists and the Social Realists

Using a realist approach, Regionalist artists shunned city life and its quickly developing technological advances to create scenes of rural life. In Grant Wood's pamphlet Revolt Confronting the City, published in Iowa City in 1935, he asserts that American artists and buyers of art were no longer looking to Parisian culture for subject affair and style.

Wood wrote that Regional artists translate the physiography, industry, and psychology of their hometown, and that the competition of these preceding elements creates American culture. He wrote that the lure of the city was gone, and hoped that art of the widely diffused "whole people" would prevail.

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere: This painting by Grant Wood, done in 1931, exemplifies a typical Regionalist depiction of small-boondocks America.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Regionalist art was widely appreciated for its reassuring images of the American heartland. Much of the work conveyed a sense of nationalism and romanticism in depictions of everyday American life.

During the 1930s, these artists documented and depicted American small towns and rural landscapes, as well every bit cities; the works which stress local and small-town themes are ofttimes called American Regionalism, and those depicting urban scenes, with political and social consciousness, are called Social Realism.

Some artists depicted images as a mode to return to a simpler fourth dimension abroad from industrialization, whereas others sought to make a political statement and lent their art to revolutionary and radical causes.

Cutting the Line: This 1944 artwork past Thomas Hart Benton shows the launch of a Tank Landing Ship (LST). Benton is considered past many art critics to exist the quintessential American artist of the 20th Century, and during World War II was commissioned by Abbott Laboratories to produce artworks about the Navy.

Regionalist style was at its meridian from 1930 to 1935, and is best-known through the so-chosen Regionalist Triumvirate of Grant Wood in Iowa, Thomas Hart Benton in Missouri, and John Steuart Curry in Kansas.

Other artists of the motion include John Rogers Cox, Alexandre Hogue, Dale Nichols, and William S. Schwartz. Many artists involved in the motion studied with or under Benton at the Kansas Urban center Art Institute (KCAI), such every bit John Stockton de Martelly, Frederic James, and Pat Potucek.

American Gothic: Grant Wood's all-time-known work is this 1930 painting, which is besides ane of the well-nigh famous paintings in American art, and one of the few images to reach the status of universally recognized cultural icon, comparable to Leonardo da Vinci'due south Mona Lisa and Edvard Munch's The Scream.

Photography during the Great Depression

During the 1930s and 1940s, photography evolved in terms of its technical possibilities also as its part as an fine art form.

Learning Objectives

Describe the evolution of photography from 1930–1945

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• In 1935–1936 both Kodak and Agfa introduced new color moving-picture show technologies that immune for the proliferation of color photography for the commencement time.
• Social realism extended to photography, and depicted social injustice and economic hardship through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles. Working-class activities were often depicted as heroic.
• Grouping f/64, led by Ansel Adams, was a group of seven San Francisco photographers who shared a common photographic style characterized past sharp-focused and advisedly framed images seen through a specially Western viewpoint.
• The FSA funded a number of photographers to document the realities of the Low and who created the iconic images that we still run across today.

Key Terms

• Harlem Renaissance: An African-American cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s and is characterized past a proliferation of music, literature, poetry and dance.
• pictorialism: A school of artistic photography that emphasized using photography to mimic certain styles of contemporary painting, and flourished in the belatedly 19th and early 20th centuries. Images were typically characterized by a soft focus and colour or brushstroke manipulation.
• Great Low: A major economic collapse that lasted from 1929 to 1940 in the United States.

Overview

The period from 1930–1945 in American history is marked by the Great Depression and the outbreak of the second World War. During this time, both photography and sculpture expanded into new realms of artistic expression, heavily influenced past the order and times.

Photography

Photographic technology continued to expand throughout the 20th century. Kodachrome, the first modernistic integral tripack (or monopack) color film, was introduced past Kodak in 1935, and Agfa'due south similarly structured Agfacolor Neu was introduced in 1936. These new technologies allowed for the proliferation of colour photography for the kickoff time, and currently available color films still employ a multilayer emulsion and the aforementioned principles, almost closely resembling Agfa'south product.

Social Realism

Social realism, also known equally socio-realism, became an of import art movement during the Slap-up Depression in the 1930s. Social realism depicted social and racial injustice, and economical hardship through unvarnished pictures of life'south struggles, and often portrayed working-class activities as heroic.

The movement was largely a fashion of painting that typically conveyed a message of social or political protest edged with satire; all the same, information technology also extended to the fine art of photography. Prominent photographers at the time included Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Margaret Bourke-White, Lewis Hine, Edward Steichen, Gordon Parks, Arthur Rothstein, Marion Mail service Wolcott, Doris Ulmann, Berenice Abbott, Aaron Siskind, and Russell Lee, amidst several others.

Each of these artists sought to describe the globe–and often the poverty–they saw effectually them with the realistic portrayal that only photography could provide.

The FSA

The Farm Security Administration, part of the New Bargain, was an effort during the Low to combat American rural poverty. The majority of the program was directed towards rural rehabilitation, only it is also known for funding the piece of work of a number of photographers.

From 1935–1944, the Farm Security Administration employed several photographers to document the effects of the Great Depression on the population of America. The Information Partition of the FSA was responsible for providing educational materials and press information to the public.

Nether Roy Stryker, the Information Division of the FSA adopted a goal of "introducing America to Americans." Many of the well-nigh famous Depression-era photographers, such every bit Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Gordon Parks, were fostered by the FSA project.

Migrant Mother: The caption of the image reads: "Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California." Lange's image of a supposed migrant pea picker, Florence Owens Thompson, and her family has become an icon of resilience in the face of adversity.

Group F/64

Aslope social realism, another approach to photography, referred to every bit straight photography, was also gaining momentum. Grouping f/64 is perhaps the most well-known case of this art motion.

Group f/64 was a group of seven, 20th-century San Francisco photographers who shared a common photographic manner characterized by sharp-focused and carefully framed images seen through a particularly Western viewpoint. In function, they formed in opposition to the pictorialism movement in photography that had dominated much of the early 20th century, but moreover they wanted to promote a new modernist artful that was based on precisely exposed images of natural forms and establish objects.

Photographers involved in the group included Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, John Paul Edwards, Sonya Noskowiak, Henry Swift, Willard Van Dyke, and Edward Weston.

Yosemite Copse with Snow on Branches, by Ansel Adams: Ansel Adams was one of the co-founders of Group f/64, a grouping of photographers known who shared a common fashion characterized by precipitous-focused and carefully framed images.

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-arthistory/chapter/art-in-the-us-during-the-1920s-and-1930s/

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