What Was the Growth of Africanamerican Arts in the 1920s Known as?

The Harlem Renaissance

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

Learning Objectives

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

Primal 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 as Marcus Garvey founded stiff philosophies of black cocky-determination and unity among black communities in the Us, the Caribbean, and Africa.
• Harlem became an African-American neighborhood in the early 1900s, during the Smashing Migration in which many African Americans sought a better standard of living and relief from the institutionalized racism in the Southward.
• While there was no unifying characteristic of the movement, common themes included the influence of slavery, black identity, the effects of institutional racism, and how to convey the experience of modernistic blackness life in the urban N.
• Notable visual artists of the movement include Aaron Douglas, Archibald Motley, Charles Henry Alston, and Jacob Lawrence.

Cardinal Terms

• Ruddy Summertime: The race riots that occurred in more than iii dozen cities in the Usa during the summertime and early autumn of 1919.
• race riots: Riots caused by racial hatred or dissension. They occurred throughout the 20th century, especially before and during the Civil Rights Movement.
• blackface: A style of theatrical makeup in which a white person blackens their confront in order to represent a negro.

Overview

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural motion in the United States that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. While the zenith of the motility occurred between 1924 and 1929, its ideas take lived on much longer. At the time, it was known as the New Negro Movement, named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke.

This cultural and political renaissance produced novels, plays, murals, poems, music, trip the light fantastic, 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 among blackness communities in the United States, the Caribbean, and Africa.

At the same fourth dimension, activists like 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 customs since 1850.

Harlem's Background

The district of Harlem had originally developed in the 19th century equally an exclusive suburb for the white heart and upper classes. During the enormous influx of European immigrants in the belatedly 19th century, the once exclusive district was abandoned past whites, who moved farther north.

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

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

Characteristics and Themes

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

There was no uniting grade characterizing the art that emerged, however. It encompassed a broad multifariousness of styles, including Pan-African perspectives; loftier culture and low civilisation; traditional music to blues and jazz; traditional and experimental forms in literature, such as modernism; and the new class of jazz verse.

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

New authors attracted a bang-up corporeality of national attention, and the Harlem Renaissance led to more opportunities for blacks to be published past 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 emerge from the Harlem Renaissance.

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

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

Black Belt (original painting in color): Archibald Motley is well-nigh famous for his colorful chronicling of the African-American experience during the 1920s and 1930s and is considered i of the major contributors to the Harlem Renaissance.

Aaron Douglas

Aaron Douglas was a notable creative person of the Harlem Renaissance. Afterward completing his BFA at the Academy of Nebraska in 1922, Douglas moved to New York Metropolis, settling in Harlem. Simply a few months after his inflow he began to produce illustrations for both The Crisis and Opportunity, the two most important magazines associated with the Harlem Renaissance.

He too began studying with Winold Reiss, a High german artist who had been hired by Alain Locke to illustrate The New Negro. Reiss' teaching helped Douglas develop the modernist style he would employ for the next decade.

Douglas' engagement 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 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 nosotros at present call the Harlem Renaissance.

Charles Henry Alston

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

Alston designed and painted murals at the Harlem Hospital and the Golden Country Common Life Insurance Edifice. In 1990 Alston'south bust of Martin Luther Male monarch, Jr. became the first image of an African-American displayed at the White Firm.

In the beginning, Charles Alston'south mural work was inspired past 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 lath of directors of the National Society of Mural Painters.

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

Modern Medicine: Alston's landscape at the Harlem Hospital is a significant work of the Harlem Renaissance.

Jacob Lawrence

Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000) was an African-American painter known for his portrayal of African-American life. Only not only was he a painter, storyteller, and interpreter, he likewise was an educator. Lawrence referred to his mode equally dynamic cubism, though by his own account the primary influence was not so much French art every bit 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 as a professor at the University of Washington.

Lawrence is among the all-time-known 20th-century African-American painters. He was 23 years old when he gained national recognition with his 60-console Migration Series, painted on paper-thin. The series depicted the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North. A part of this series was featured in a 1941 effect 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 Modernistic Fine art, the Whitney Museum, the Phillips Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and Reynolda House Museum of American Art. He is widely known for his modernist illustrations of everyday life also as epic narratives of African American history and historical figures.

Jacob Lawrence, Cocky Portrait: This painting, done in 1977, exemplifies the vivid use of colour in his piece of work.

American Regionalist Art

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

Learning Objectives

Define the American painting style of Regionalism

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• After Globe War I, many American artists rejected the mod trends emanating from the Armory Show and European influences such as those from the School of Paris. Instead they chose to adopt academic realism to describe American rural scenes.
• By the 1940s there was a stiff fence among the Regionalists and the Social Realists in rural areas, whose work addressed social, economic, and political issues; and the Abstruse artists in New York City who embraced Modernism.
• Using a realist approach, the creative focus of Regionalism was to create scenes of rural life by artists who shunned urban center life and rapidly developing technological advances.
• Regionalist style was at its height from 1930 to 1935, and is all-time-known through the then-called Regionalist Triumvirate of Grant Woods in Iowa, Thomas Hart Benton in Missouri, and John Steuart Curry in Kansas.

Key Terms

• social realism: An artistic motility, expressed in the visual and other realist arts that depicts social injustice and economic hardship through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles that oftentimes draw working-class activities equally heroic.
• School of Paris: A school of fine art that represented the importance of Paris equally a eye of Western art in the early decades of the 20th century, and where a grouping of artists including Picasso, Chagall, Mondrian, and Matisse created in the styles of Post-Impressionism, Cubism, and Fauvism.
• Armory show: The 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art that was organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors. The exhibition ran in New York City'south 69th Regiment Arsenal from Feb 17 until March 15, and became an important event in the history of American art, introducing New Yorkers to modern art.

Overview of American Regionalism

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

Partly due to the Great Depression, Regionalism became i of the dominant art movements in America in the 1930s (the other being Social Realism). At the time, the United States was still a heavily agricultural nation with a much smaller portion of its population living in industrial cities such equally New York City or Chicago.

A contend between brainchild versus realism had been ongoing since the 1913 Armory Testify, and this connected throughout the 1930s among Regionalism, Social Realism, and Abstract fine art. By the 1940s this debate evolved into 2 camps that were divided geographically and politically:

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

Regionalism'southward eventual loss of status in the fine art globe 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 speedily developing technological advances to create scenes of rural life. In Grant Wood'south pamphlet Revolt Against the Urban center, published in Iowa City in 1935, he asserts that American artists and buyers of fine art were no longer looking to Parisian culture for subject matter and style.

Woods wrote that Regional artists interpret the physiography, industry, and psychology of their hometown, and that the contest of these preceding elements creates American civilization. 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 Woods, washed in 1931, exemplifies a typical Regionalist depiction of small-town 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 equally cities; the works which stress local and small-town themes are oft called American Regionalism, and those depicting urban scenes, with political and social consciousness, are chosen Social Realism.

Some artists depicted images every bit a way to render to a simpler time away 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 by Thomas Hart Benton shows the launch of a Tank Landing Ship (LST). Benton is considered by many art critics to be the quintessential American creative person of the 20th Century, and during Globe State of war II was commissioned by Abbott Laboratories to produce artworks well-nigh the Navy.

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

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

American Gothic: Grant Wood's all-time-known work is this 1930 painting, which is as well one of the most 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 Bang-up Depression

During the 1930s and 1940s, photography evolved in terms of its technical possibilities as well equally its function every bit an art form.

Learning Objectives

Describe the evolution of photography from 1930–1945

Key Takeaways

Cardinal Points

• In 1935–1936 both Kodak and Agfa introduced new colour film technologies that allowed for the proliferation of color photography for the first time.
• Social realism extended to photography, and depicted social injustice and economical hardship through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles. Working-class activities were oft depicted as heroic.
• Group f/64, led by Ansel Adams, was a group of seven San Francisco photographers who shared a mutual photographic manner characterized by sharp-focused and carefully framed images seen through a particularly Western viewpoint.
• The FSA funded a number of photographers to document the realities of the Low and who created the iconic images that we nonetheless encounter today.

Key Terms

• Harlem Renaissance: An African-American cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s and is characterized by a proliferation of music, literature, poetry and dance.
• pictorialism: A school of artistic photography that emphasized using photography to mimic sure 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 Depression: A major economic collapse that lasted from 1929 to 1940 in the U.s.a..

Overview

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

Photography

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

Social Realism

Social realism, too known as socio-realism, became an important fine art movement during the Not bad Depression in the 1930s. Social realism depicted social and racial injustice, and economic hardship through unvarnished pictures of life'southward struggles, and often portrayed working-grade activities equally heroic.

The movement was largely a mode of painting that typically conveyed a bulletin of social or political protest edged with satire; however, information technology also extended to the 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 depict the world–and often the poverty–they saw around them with the realistic portrayal that only photography could provide.

The FSA

The Farm Security Administration, part of the New Deal, was an endeavour 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 work of a number of photographers.

From 1935–1944, the Farm Security Administration employed several photographers to document the effects of the Nifty Depression on the population of America. The Information Division 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 nearly famous Depression-era photographers, such as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Gordon Parks, were fostered by the FSA projection.

Migrant Mother: The caption of the image reads: "Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of vii children. Age thirty-2. Nipomo, California." Lange'southward epitome of a supposed migrant pea picker, Florence Owens Thompson, and her family unit has become an icon of resilience in the face of adversity.

Group F/64

Alongside social realism, some other arroyo to photography, referred to as straight photography, was likewise gaining momentum. Group f/64 is perhaps the most well-known instance of this art motility.

Group f/64 was a grouping 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 part, they formed in opposition to the pictorialism motion in photography that had dominated much of the early 20th century, simply moreover they wanted to promote a new modernist aesthetic that was based on precisely exposed images of natural forms and plant 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 Trees with Snow on Branches, by Ansel Adams: Ansel Adams was one of the co-founders of Group f/64, a group of photographers known who shared a common style characterized by sharp-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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