I aim to create my project on the Harlem Renaissance from 1910s to the end of 1930s and more specifically the visual artworks of that movement. Since this is a time period before the larger struggle for decolonization in the international world, it stands as a cultural and artistic predecessor of the later movements. The movement is also unique in that it takes a mix of the American and African culture to create something distinctive in its intellectual expression. The time period, which was merely a few years later the abolishment of slavery in America and the rampant exercise of the Jim Crow laws, attempted to create an identity of the black man which was not in relation to its slave past and which made the mark of the black man known on the international forum. It was a new manifestation of black consciousness and showed the black aesthetic to the world. Although, the Harlem Renaissance is a massive cultural and academic movement which is multi-dimensional, I intend to, by focusing on visual art, understand the meaning and affect it had on black identity, representation and their position in the world.
I’m particularly interested in the visual art of that movement is that apart from the many other things it sought to convey, it ‘represented’ the black identity in the eyes of the black population. People could see themselves in the paintings which showcased both the American culture along with their history and the influence Africa has on them. For example, the painting by Archibald John Motley Jr. known as ‘Saturday Night Street Scene’ shows the mix of people enjoying a night at the club having forgotten their differences amongst themselves. This is just a rudimentary example of the type of life and hope the paintings emanated. Along with this, like the paintings of Aaron Douglas, one sees the history of the life of the African-American in his slave days which sought to redeem the history of struggle of the black man. One such painting is his ‘Aspects of Negro life: From slavery to Reconstruction.’
The form that my project will take is that of a report with commentary on selected works by the artists mentioned above and others as well. I will attempt to make the commentary holistic in the sense that it represents the different themes radiated from the art. In doing so, I might overlap into the Surrealist tradition because in that time, Surrealism sought to create art which was not conventional, which meant that it found space in the black illustration of identity in the mainstream world of art.
Decoloniality and Decolonization 