Journal Entry 3/11/2013

1. Journal Entry 3/11/2013 • When historians look back at the popular music of today, what will they say about it? What message do you think they will draw from it about today’s generation?

2. The Harlem Renaissance Artistic Analysis

3. The New Negro • Title: The New Negro • Editor: Alain Locke, ed. • Date: 1925 • This is the definitive text of the Harlem Renaissance. • The term “Negro” was not considered derogatory or offensive at this time. The term dates to the turn of the twentieth century and represented a moving forward from past stereotypical forms of representation. • The book was edited by Alain Locke, who taught at Howard University and was one of the leading cultural critics, along with W.E.B. Du Bois. • The New Negro included poems, writings, and art from the leading African American writers and artists of this time. • However, it was illustrated predominantly by a German immigrant, Winold Reiss, and his student, the African American artist Aaron Douglas.

4. The Creation • Artist: Aaron Douglas • Date: 1935 • This work is rendered in an African-inspired setting withGod’s hand extending from the top of the composition. • Aaron Douglas’s flat, abstracted style was influenced bysources including Art Deco, African Art, and Cubism. • Douglas often used varying hues of a single color in hisworks. • Notice the pyramids hinting to the “idea” of Africa. • The painting is based on an illustration in God’sTrombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse and is one ofa series created for the book. • Douglas became known as “THE” artist of the HarlemRenaissance.

5. Jockey Club • Artist: Archibald J. Motley Jr. • Date: 1929 • Medium: Oil on canvas • Archibald J. Motley Jr. was born in NewOrleans in 1891 and moved to Chicago in 1892. • He and his family were considered “old settlers”because they arrived in Chicago before WWI. • Motley identified himself as Creole. • He studied at the School of the Art Institute ofChicago between 1914 and 1918 and was one ofthe first African Americans to graduate. • In this work, Motley explores the effects of natural and artificial lighting. Jontyle Theresa Robinson, ascholar on Motley, writes that it is also “…a statement about French racism and the politics of exclusion. • The black doorman, although at the center of the composition, remains outside of the activity of the scene.” • Notice that the doorman is the only black person in the painting.

7. Ethiopia • Artist: Meta Warrick Fuller • Date: 1921 • Medium: Plaster full figure, bronze cast • Though Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller never lived in Harlem, she has beencredited as being one of the first African American artists to depict blackthemes. • Meta was born in 1877 in Philadelphia, to a wealthy, upper-middle class • African American family. Her family was educated and influenced byBooker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois. The young Meta Warrickgrew up in an atmosphere of aspiration and promise. • Meta studied in Paris and was briefly mentored by Auguste Rodin. • Here we find one of Fuller’s iconic sculptures, Ethiopia. Though titled“Ethiopia”, it is an image of a female Egyptian figure, removing thewrappings of a mummy. This represents the African American risingout of the wrappings of slavery and the past towards a new blackconsciousness and renewed cultural identity. • Ethiopia is also a symbol of Africa, which was a constant source of inspiration to artists of the Harlem Renaissance.

9. Negro Masks • Artist: Malvin Gray Johnson • Date: 1932 • This work is one that is found in the background of MalvinGray Johnson’s Self-Portrait, shown on the following page. • Many artists, such as Picasso with his work Les Demoisellesd’Avignon, began to look to Africa for artistic inspiration. • African masks were a symbol of the art from the continent • and could be found in other artists’ work as well. • For Johnson, it was not just about artistic inspiration. Themasks also represented racial pride.

10. “If We Must Die” (1919) • If we must die, let it not be like hogs • Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, • While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, • Making their mock at our accursed lot. • If we must die, O let us nobly die, • So that our precious blood may not be shed • In vain; then even the monsters we defy • Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! • O kinsmen we must meet the common foe! • Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, • And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow! • What though before us lies the open grave? • Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, • Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

11. Cross • My old man's a white old man
 • And my old mother's black.
 • If ever I cursed my white old man
I take my curses back.
 • If ever I cursed my black old mother
 • And wished she were in hell,
 • I'm sorry for that evil wish
 • And now I wish her well
 • My old man died in a fine big house.
 • My ma died in a shack.
 • I wonder where I'm going to die,
 • Being neither white nor black?

12. James Van Der Zee • Man in Uniform • 1924

13. Postman • Title: Postman • Artist: Malvin Gray Johnson • Date: 1934 • Medium: Oil on canvas • In 1912, Malvin Gray Johnson moved to New York from • North Carolina. He was 16 and moved to attend NYC’sNational Academy of Design. • He was an artist working in Harlem and was known forchoosing sitters of his own class. • The books in the background on the right indicate thatthe sitter is a member of the educated middle class. • Johnson created dignified portraits like Winold Reiss. • These works (Postman and Negro Soldier) areconsidered some of his best works. • The Cézannesque artistic device of tilting the top of thetable reflects his interest in European modernism.

14. “Jubilee Stomp” • Duke Ellington • 1928

15. Blues • Archibald J. Motley • Painting (1929)