Aaron Douglas (1899-1979) is often considered the foremost artist of the Harlem Renaissance. His work was often reproduced in The Crisis magazine of the NAACP. Douglas illustrated Gods Trombones by James Weldon Johnson. During the Depression, the Works Progress Administration hired Douglas to paint a series of murals for the New York Public Library in Harlem. Inspired by Alain Locke, Douglas titled the series, Aspects of Negro Life. In the first panel, The Negro in an African Setting, 1934, blacks are shown free and happy in Africa. Circles of light suggest the motion of the music as they dance. The floating sculpture above the dancers stands in for African spirits. In the panel From Slavery to Reconstruction, 1934, Douglas created a historical narrative. The far right side shows African American slaves and the foreground includes a row of cotton. The trumpet on the right is celebrating the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 (the piece of paper being held). The central figure is leading his people and pointing at the U.S. Capitol in the distance. The leader is urging people to vote as seen by the ballot in his hand. On the left side, we see Union soldiers leaving the south and the Ku Klux Klan replacing them. The third panel was An Idyll of the Deep South, 1934, which subverts the myth of happy Africans Americans. Though a group in the center appears to be enjoying themselves, the background contains lynching and hard work. The star in the upper left corner shows the hope that some black intellectuals had for communism providing a better life. The fourth panel, Song of the Towers, 1934, ...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, according to the New York Public Library. Douglas chose flattened shapes, influenced by Cubism, as a universal language that would be understood by all cultures.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 16:24:37 +0000
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