Harlem Renaissance Essay

I. interpolationThe Atlantic slave trade caused the rotund fore dissolve of Africans across disparate separate of the world largely in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. This African Diaspora brought well-nigh(predicate) eleven million of nastyamoor heap in the unfermented b solely (P. Larson. Reconsidering Trauma, Identity, and the African Diaspora Enslavement and Historical shop in Nineteenth-Century Highland Madagascar). The descendants of those that were brought in the Americas, chiefly those in the United States workings as slaves in the south, later experient an early(a)(a) diaspora moving from the south to the magnetic north to escape the hardships brought about by fervent racial discrimination.A large segment had defined in the city of Harlem, immature York urban center which opened up a surge of excellent germinal work make by sicks and became in vogue for some beat. This point came to be know as the Harlem conversion, also variantly cognize as the New Negro Movement, or the New Negro spiritual rebirth. This was a period of outstanding creativity expressed in visual arts, writings, and melody during this large thrust of raw population, wherein the disgraceful Diaspora has moved into big cities. It changed the character of opaque American art whole shebang, from stately imitations of snowy artists to sophisticated explorations and expressions of black support and agriculture that revealed and stimulated a current confidence and racial pride.The app arnt performance concern in the vast black ghetto of Harlem, in New York City, thus the name of the movement. Harlem became the vex of gathering for aspiring black artists, writers, and musicians, everywherelap their experiences and providing mutual encouragement for one an new(prenominal)(a).The boundary Harlem spiritual rebirth is a misnomer. If measured by quantity alone, it was much a tolerate than a rebirth, for never to begin with had so many black Am ericans produced so much literary, aesthetic, and scholarly material at the same time. If measured by quality, however, it was really a continuum, the quickening of a lively stream fed earlier by the important whole kit and boodle of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, novelist and forgetful story writer Charles W. Chestnutt, poet and novelist Hames Weldon Johnson and the essays of Du Bois.The Harlem metempsychosis created a significant break through with(predicate), wherein it attach the first time wherein literary and artistic works done by African Americans gained in matter care and interest. Doors of opportunities were opened for such(prenominal) works to be publicized and presented to the general public, which in the beginning were not possible. Although its main achievement is undercoat primarily in literature, it also pall the great African-American works in politics and other creative mediums such as visual art, music, and theater that researchd disparate aspects of black American brio sentence (R. Twombly. Harlem conversion).II. Background and DiscussionDuring the early part of the 1900s, Black Nationalism and racial cognizance began to emerge particularly during the 1920s. One disc over factor that helped this cultivation was the surfacing of the black middle class, which in turn were brought about by the increasing number of meliorate blacks who had free-base employment opportunities and a reliable degree of economic advancement subsequently the American Civil War (Harlem spiritual rebirth).During World War I, thousands of black people left the depressed rural reciprocal ohm for jobs in northern defense plants. cognize as the broad Migration, more African Americans realized themselves in cities such as Harlem, in New York City. They were socially conscious, and became a center of political and cultural development of the black Americans. This population created racial tensions over housings and employment that resulted in change magnitude black militancy about rights, including industrious agitation by the national knowledge for the Advancement of colored People (NAACP) and other civil rights organizations. Fore about for this black movements agenda, which was expressed in various mediums, is to clamor for racial compare. Championing the cause were black intellectuals W.E.B. Du Bois and Alain Locke.White responses to these developments were some(prenominal) negative and positive. The Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups reached their peak of northern popularity during the 1920s. At the same time unprecedented white interest in racial maters created a large audience for black authors who began to settle in the district of New York City known as Harlem. Like other black ghettoes, Harlem was a new, untapped fountain of themes and materials, which partially accounts for its popularity among artists and intellectuals, but unlike other ghettoes it was a newly constructed, fashionable, residential section. surgical process as a kind of black mecca, Harlems excellent housing, its prestige, excitement, and cosmopolitan flavor, attracted a black middle class from which sprang its artistic and literary set.A. General CharacteristicsNot all works during this movement is militant in nature. However, participants and contributors in the Renaissance were intensely race-conscious, imperial of their heritage of being black, and much in love with their community. Most of them, some more subtly than others, criticized racial exploitation. Partly as a tribute to their achievements and partly as a reflection of their racial self-awareness, the Renaissance members were collectively called New Negroes, also indicating that they had replaced the (largely white created) literary image of the comic, pathetic plantation Negro with the proud, busy, in underage black man of the northern city.The New Negroes were generally integrationists, optimistically interpreting their own individual succes ses as harbingers of improvement in race relations. borrowing from Harpers, Harcourt, Brace, Viking, Boni & Livewright, Knopf, and other front-line publishers began coming through quick succession, boosting more optimism among African-American contributors of the Harlem Renaissance. preferably than depicting a new movement of style, the art during the Harlem Renaissance is united by their uncouth aspiration of depicting and expressing in artistic form the African-American mastermind and life. Common characteristics can be found among such works such as the birth of racial pride among black Americans.This called for tracing its roots and origin by taking attention and interest to the life of blacks primarily in Africa and South America. Also, such strong social and racial understanding brought a strong desire for equality in the American society, both socially and politically. But one of the most common and significant characteristic of the Harlem Renaissance was the thick pr oduction of a variety of creative expressions. Diversity was the main distinctive quality, brought about by an experimental spirit of the movement such as in music which ranged from blues, jazz, to orchestra music.B. Primary Artist of the Harlem Renaissance  Aaron Douglas (1898-1979)The illustrious artist of the Harlem Renaissance was Aaron Douglas, who chose to depict the New Negro Movement through African images which bore primitive techniques paintings in nonrepresentational shapes, flat, and rugged edges. In his works, Douglas wanted the viewing audience to know and recognize the African-American identity. As such, Aaron Douglas is often referred to as the Father of African American Art.Born in Topeka, Kansas, Douglas was able to finish his B.A degree. Moving to Harlem in 1925, Aaron immediately set to work, creating illustrations for prominent magazines of the Harlem Renaissance. Douglas was influenced in his modernist style under the tutelage of German artist Winold Rei ss, a style which marked most of his celebrated works and incorporating both African and Egyptian strokes of illustration and design. It was Reis who encourage Douglas to take African design into his works which became his trademark (The Harlem Renaissance Aaron Douglas).Such expressive style of African primitive style caught the attention of the main proponents of the Harlem Renaissance, namely W.E.B. Dubois and Alain Locke who found Douglas works as an appropriate embodiment of the African-American heritage. They were encouraging young artists to depict their African legacy through their artworks. Even though at a time when DuBois stilled considered total heat Tanner more important, Douglas has fairly established a reputation as the jumper cable visual artist of his time.Harlem Renaissance painters are united by the desire to campaign and portray the life and condition of blacks, particularly African-Americans. However, at this point the similarity ends. Harlem Renaissance ar tworks are as varied in style as the artists themselves. Although like Douglas, most painters of this period received formal trainings and as such, their style and strokes are no different from other non-black artists. What only separate the artists of the Harlem Renaissance from others are their themes and subjects.III. ConclusionA. Ending and importeeAs a conclusion, one of the strengths of the Harlem Renaissance was also a serious weakness. Because they were dependent on white patrons and viewers for popularity, black artists were not fully free to explore the mechanisms that perpetrated racial injustice, nor could they propose solutions unacceptable to whites. Furthermore, when the Great Depression dominated American life during the 1930s, the whites, who had been the bulk of the Renaissance audience, concentrated on economics and politics, oblivious to black American suffering. American arts and letters took up new themes, and although the best artists continued to work, they in conclusion lost popularity. The Great Depression control many black artists to scatter and were for the most part forced to leave New York or to take other jobs to tide them over the hard times. Creativity was drowned by necessity.Nevertheless, notwithstanding its many weaknesses and disadvantages, the Harlem Renaissance was a milepost in black American culture and the basis for later achievements.