What Was the Harlem Renaissance?

The Harlem Renaissance, also known as the New Black Movement, was a movement in the 1920s and 1930s that attempted to redefine black identities through literature, music, painting, photography, and intellectual thought. This is a direct reaction to negative stereotypes, which surged throughout America’s pop culture after the Civil War. Until the 20th century, blacks portrayed Sanbos, mammals and picky people, appearing in everyday household goods and popular entertainment, aiming to justify segregation. New Blacks as educated and cultural blacks are a direct rejection of these stereotypes.

As the main predecessor of the Harlem Renaissance, the black abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) recognized the power of images and used his image to combat racism, becoming one of the most popular Americans of the 19th century. He wants to project intelligence, strength, and dignity and calls for a true image of black people. But positive images alone cannot change the Jim Crow law that ruled the South.

Starting around 1916, African Americans began moving out of the South, where they were largely unprotected by violence and inequality. This great immigration allowed approximately 1.5 million African Americans to relocate from the South to start a new life in northern cities including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Detroit. ShareCropping is the main form of work for blacks in the South and is no better than slavery, as the system makes Sharecroppers take debt and take debt to those who own the land they work for. There is better industrial work in the north. And because of the labor shortage caused by World War I (1914-1918), black workers could meet the demand.

Meanwhile, black intellectuals define the concept of new black people as a generation of black people who reject racial stereotypes and demand full participation in American society. In 1925, writer and educator Alain Locke, often referred to as the “Harling Renaissance Father” published an anthology New Black: An Explanationwhich includes the works of today’s major black thinkers. Locke wrote in his article “New Blacks”: “Because the younger generation is full of vitality. The new spirit is sober in the masses, and in the eyes of professional observers, people transform perennial problems into progressive stages of contemporary black lives.”

With the massive movement of blacks to Harlem in the 1920s, an area in upper Manhattan covered about 1.4 square miles, known as the “Mecca of the New Blacks.” In that Mecca, the visual arts flourished. Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse’s innovations are changing, inspired by African art, Locke encourages black artists to do the same to shape new cultural identity. When the capital of the art world moved from Paris to New York around this time, black artists were still excluded from the mainstream. Instead of displaying their works in major galleries and museums, they are exhibited in customers’ homes, churches and school gyms.

The Harmon Foundation helps attract large audiences to see the work of black artists. Under Locke’s guidance, Mary Beattie Brady led the charity, which was founded by white real estate developer William E. Harmon. The foundation awards black people their achievements in fine arts, business, education, literature, music, racial relations, religious services and science. Prizes awarded to artists who have won fine art awards are changing careers. They provided artists for Hale Woodruff, Meta Warrick Fuller, Aaron Douglas, Palmer Hayden, James A. Porter and Archibald Motley Jr.

Aaron Douglas, one of the most successful Harlem artists of the time, used African forms in his works to create art comparable to European modernists such as Picasso and Matisse. Douglas crisishe will later create illustrations. He once said: “We can go to Africa to live, get a certain level of form and color, understand and use this knowledge to develop the expression of our lives.”

Encouraged by German portraitist Winold Reiss, Douglas began to adopt an African theme in his works. By using bold geometric shapes, painting silhouettes and using African patterns to flatten his characters, his work defines the visual art of movement. Douglas’s All aspects of black life, His most famous work was created in 1934. Each of the four panels of the work commemorates an aspect of the African-American story, visually narrating the journey of blacks from Africa to slavery to the Harlem Renaissance.

Augusta Savage is an outspoken artist who won the Harmon Foundation’s Otter Kahn Award for his famous sculpture during the Harlem Renaissance. Black head. She carved portraits of famous black figures, including Web Dubois. From 1929 to 1931, she studied La Grande Chaumière at the Paris Society and exhibited her work at Salon d’Automne. In 1934, she became the first African-American to join the National Association of Women’s Painters and Sculptors. Savage is also an educator who became the first director of the Harlem Community Arts Center, where she will teach and mentor emerging artists, including Jacob Lawrence.

Another Harlem Renaissance artist was James van der Zee, who showed through photography how the people of Harlem flourished. Van der Zee’s studio captures their essence. He is not a standard photo, but a tableaux with carefully staged props tells the story of the babysitter. Van der Zee’s photos prove a person’s own photos.

The Harlem Revival had a profound impact on the social, cultural and intellectual life of black people. Black artists developed poetry, novels, music and fine arts, challenged the dominant culture and consolidated the space for black people in American art. But most importantly, they advocate civil rights. This movement has made the intelligence and talent of black people understand and influenced future movements, demanding equal rights that black people deserve.