After the civil war ended in America, many free African Americans continue to stay under their former owners and a lot of them started to search for a safe place to explore their new lives as a freeman, Liberated African Americans exodus sparked in Harlem, New York from around the south and North and settled the city. This neighborhood gave birth to a cultural revolution and earned its status as “the capital of black America”. According to the lecture notes, “The Harlem Renaissance was an African American literary and art movement in the uptown Manhattan neighborhood of Harlem in the mid and late»1920$”i To name some of those great artists between 1870 and late 19205 were among Winslow Homer, Henry Ossawa Turner, and Archibald Motley, Lawrence is considered among the best known twentieth-century African American painters.
The Painting Description: Dressing for the carnival: As seen in the painting its multicolored costumes suggested a festival celebration The brilliant light and color of this scene, originally titled “Sketch—4th of July in Virginia,” contradicts its more solemn meaning There are a lot of actions going on the scene, the figure is the focus of the Viewer, the foreground is hold, the man dancing with the two women and the children focusing the action, the beauty of the bushes behind the house and social harmony was unique in content As the historian predicted it was the beginnings of its transformation into a new tradition. Most historians still see this painting evident of how whites saw blacks in America.
This paint was valued in distinctive ways. First is Formalism, which means that the painting is truly beautiful and its perfectly fits in under the category of formalism. Second expressive is another value that can be placed on the Banjo Lesson. The family association, the love and affection is being shared by the two figures of the painting. Those painting capture family ties and type of social value, and African American culture in the form of musical expression. BluesI Archibald Motley, 1929 Although Archibald J. Motley Jr never worked in Harlem, Still he was one of the first of amongst artists to concentrate on African American life in his paintings and his work provided a foundation for much of the work that became identified with the Harlem Renaissance He was born in New Orleans and spent the majority of his life in Chicago The blues was one of Motley’s most famous works, which shows a multicultural dancers and musicians dancing together.
As you see some of African American males are dancing with Caucasian females. This painting describes how social lives of African Americans were changed over the years or maybe it’s his new political agenda advocating racial equality. Jacob Lawrence, 1942 Jacob Lawrence never called himself a history painter but the historians indicated that he was a painter and a storyteller; he championed African American historical themes from the life of Frederick Douglass, to the race riots of the 19605. Lawrence painting notifies the segregation, discrimination, poverty, social inequities, political injustices> and sense of hopelessness that threatened the stability of African American society in 205 century.
