Does High Art or Folk Art Best Express Racial Pride? The Harlem renaissance was the era black people were finally recognized for their talent and uniqueness. High art and folk art were two ways black people expressed themselves through their paintings and poetry. Folk art is the better way to express racial pride, be respected by other cultures, and be original. To express themselves black people don’t have to mimic other cultures nor prove themselves to them. That’s exactly what high art does. It proves to any race that doubts them that black people are just as intelligent and sophisticated as them. For example, in (Doc B) it states, “And wring from grasping hands their meed of gold.” Meed is an archaic word that originated
Danzantes Unidos is a festival where Folklorico groups across the country come and demonstrate their dancing skill, we also come to take classes from the best teachers in Mexico. This event unites us as a community, but I want to highlight as how the appreciation of your hard work can make you feel. In this moment I felt appreciated and joyful as chills ran through my body. I understood this feeling is what I wanted. Many people state that dancing is not a sport; although we don't compete for a trophy or a score, we compete against each other for the spotlight.
Peeling Away the Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that brought attention to the achievements of African Americans and challenged their racial stereotypes. It was a period when African Americans became famous for their creativity and talents. It was also a time when Blacks faced racial discrimination and segregation. Josephine Baker’s cultural heritage and identity were a big part of her career.
After WWI, black people began to portray pride and respect for their race, sparking “The New Negro.” This revolutionary movement is more commonly known as the Harlem Renaissance- a social, cultural, and artistic explosion that took place Harlem, NY. Harlem became the cultural center and attracted many black writers, artists, musicians, photographers, poets, and scholars. Those from the South began to flee from its’ oppressive caste system to escape cruelty. The goal of this movement was to face all the hate they received by accomplishing their freaks and desires without anyone getting in their way.
The Harlem renaissance was a time where black was beautiful, a cultural, social and artistic explosion between 1910 and the 1930’s. It was an artistic movement full of high, and folk art. It was when African Americans finally embraced who they are and proved they are as good as Americans. The Harlem renaissance was named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke. Folk art was showing everyday life and dialect, which was written the way it was said, for example in Langston Hughes’s poem homesick blues uses common dialect (doc d).
There are many ways people can express their race and ethnicity. For example; art, music, dancing and even acting. These are all ways to show your racial pride, and the best place to do it was at the Harlem Renaissance. However, is it high art or folk art that best expresses racial pride?
The Harlem Renaissance was an event that started during World War One and lasted until the 1930’s. The Harlem Renaissance reshaped art, music, literature and theatre in the African American community. One debated during the Harlem Renaissance was whether folk art or high art best represented racial pride. Folk art best represents racial pride because it does not imitate other people’s art it shows the lives of everyday people, and people could relate to it.
The Harlem Era was a time of rebirth of African American arts in all forms. The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural, social, and artistic explosion that took place in the early 1920’s. During the time of this Era it was known as the “New Negro Movement”. Poets like W.E.B Dubois and Langston Hughes Were great supporters of this movement. Although, they were on different sides, one of the big questions during this time was Racial Pride. Pride in being black became a huge part in essay, art and poetry of this generation. However, many black Writers had opposed ideas of how to show racial pride. W.E.B Dubois thought that by creating high art that would prove themselves as intellectual equals to white people. On the other hand, Langston Hughes spoke against this idea and thought the best way to show pride in being black is to create folk art, which celebrated African American culture and the lives of everyday people lives. Anyways, which one actually does show racial pride?
"Race pride" and "race consciousness" cornerstones to the Harlem Renaissance, were closely linked to a new understanding of the African heritage of Black American(Marx 170). The Harlem Renaissance was a period between 1920 and 1940 of great cultural, economic and identity assertion among talented and expressive African Americans. Its high point occurred between 1920 and 1930 but it had started before then and continued after. The art, literature and music of the Harlem Renaissance expressed the rebirth of the African American spirit and it was born in the minds of its poets and in the hears of its common people. Such emotions were expressed in songs, essays, artwork, and dance. The Harlem Renaissance brought along racial pride for blacks.
Du Bois is concerned with three main ideas within his essay, those being beauty, art as propaganda and how African Americans and their art will be ultimately judged. Beauty, however, is not how you view something’s allure to Du Bois, but rather who is it that will describe what is classical and beautiful? Suggesting that African Americans fit this role perfectly, Du Bois states “pushed aside as we have been in America, there has come to us not only a certain distaste for the tawdry and flamboyant but a vision of what the world could be if it were really a beautiful world.” He is also interested in how Negro art will distinguish itself from the works of other non-black artists.
Second, there was an event that occurred from the Roaring Twenties or the Jazz Age, which was called the Harlem Renaissance. During the Harlem Renaissance, a numerous amount of African American put forth their talents and intellect. This is a prime example of a form of expression or cultural expression because a trend was set for more African Americans to start “Expanding their horizons and embracing the concept of the “new Negro” movement (P. Scott Corbett, et al). Even though discrimination was still around, this progressive movement helped African Americans contribute to literature, music, politics and more. In which helped shape and form a path for African-Americans to rediscover their black culture, for African American artists, writers, and other famous leaders to “formulated an independent black culture and encouraged racial pride, rejecting any emulation of white American culture” (P. Scott Corbett, et al).
History.com (2009) describes the Harlem Renaissance movement as “a literary, artistic, and intellectual movement that kindled a new black cultural identity.” The 1920s and 1930s emcompass a time in history where blacks found themselves ostracized from mainstream society. It was uncommon to see the expressions of black artistry in everyday life, especially on a literary level.
From the 1920’s to the mid 1930’s a literary, intellectual, and artistic movement occurred that kindled the African Americans a new cultural identity. This movement became known as the Harlem Renaissance, which is also known as the “New Negro Movement”. With this movement, African Americans sought out to challenge the “Negro” stereotype that they had received from others while developing innovation and great cultural activity. The Harlem Renaissance became an artistic explosion in the creative arts. Thus, many African Americans turned to writing, art, music, and theatrics to express their selves.
Harlem Renaissance, a blossoming (c. 1918–37) of African American culture, particularly in the creative arts, and the most influential movement in African American literary history. Embracing literary, musical, theatrical, and visual arts, participants sought to reconceptualize “the Negro” apart from the white stereotypes that had influenced black peoples’ relationship to their heritage and to each other. They also sought to break free of Victorian moral values and bourgeois shame about aspects of their lives that might, as seen by whites, reinforce racist beliefs. Never dominated by a particular school of thought but rather characterized by intense debate, the movement laid the groundwork for all later African American literature and had
What is Black art? Black Art is “cultural production informed by standards of creativity and beauty and aspired by and reflective of people 's life experiences and life aspirations” (Karenga, 1980:80). According to Evans (1979:37), Why is it called Black art? “...It is called Black art because it is saturated with the experience and behavior patterns of the people for whom it is created and because its substance is functional.” So, according to Karenga and Evans Black art is an art and any art if it is made based a Black person 's life. Africa artist was carvers of wood, ivory and bone, sculptors in stone, clay, bronze, gold and iron. Slaves struggled for their freedom and all they had was their art. Even thought Whites most
The Black Arts movement refers to a period of “furious flowering” of African American creativity beginning in the mid-1960’s and continuing through much of the 1970’s (Perceptions of Black). Linked both chronologically and ideologically with the Black Power Movement, The BAM recognized the idea of two cultural Americas: one black and one white. The BAM pressed for the creation of a distinctive Black Aesthetic in which black artists created for black audiences. The movement saw artistic production as the key to revising Black American’s perceptions of themselves, thus the Black Aesthetic was believed to be an integral component of the economic, political, and cultural empowerment of the Black