Aaron Douglas and Langston Hughes on the Black Self

Cosmopolitan Modernism

1: Case Study

The article “The Cosmopolitan Modernism of the Harlem Renaissance” from The Nation, by Rachel Hunter Himes, published on April 15, 2024, discusses the Harlem Renaissance as a cosmopolitan reflection of modernism. It discusses the transatlantic exchanges that influenced Black society and art in the 1920s and 1930s. But it also discusses the Met Museum’s attempt to present this period and this art (or lack of) in recent exhibits.

Relationship between Modernity and Modernism

Modernity refers to the historical period marked by the transition from traditional to modern industrial society. This transition was made possible thanks to an increasingly technological society and economic incentives that opened up after the end of the WW1. WW1 in a way marked the end of the old world traditional society. In the US, people experienced the Roaring Twenties, which marked the dawn of a new modern era and a reinvention of identity (men became dandies and women became flappers, to use the jargon of the times). The times were heady, fun-loving, and forward-looking.

Modernism, on the other hand, is an artistic and cultural response to modernity. Artists looked for new ways to express themselves, since the world of their day seemed cut off from the world of before. The old styles and perspectives could not be used to reflect what was going on around them. They needed something new. Thus, artists like Picasso invented their various styles, such as cubism, to reflect the new modernity around them. Overall, modernism can be best described as a conscious artist break with the past from traditional approaches in pursuit of something new, evocative, provoking, appealing to and reflective of modernity.

In the article by Himes, the relationship between modernity and modernism can be seen through the Harlem Renaissance. Himes argues that the Harlem Renaissance was about the self-expression of the Black artist—and whether it pleased anyone it did not matter, as Langston Hughes noted (Himes, 2024). Himes goes on to say, however, this disregard for the viewer’s response to the artwork of the Harlem Renaissance is indicative of modernism: just like Picasso was indifferent to critics and admirers alike regarding the new forms he created, the artists of modernism were indifferent to the audience. Their focus was on self-assertion at a time when a new world of modernity seemed to be opening up. Modernity existed in Harlem, however, in a way that was different from in other places. It was a city that attracted the attention of well-to-do whites, seeking some thrilling alternative to the buckle-down society of the past. Harlem was like a disruptor—a jarring leap from out of the old world and into the new world of modernity. Harlem was modernity in the sense that, as Hughes put it, its people were indifferent to the past and to the present and even to the future. Their focus was on the Self—the self-expression of the Black artist—that was the Harlem Renaissance. Its poetry was new and innovative along with its visual artwork. It was distinctly its own thing. In short, or as Himes suggests, African American artists and intellectuals engaged with and represented modernity by creating works that were new to the American scene: they reflected Black experiences, Black urban life, Black identity, and yet there was something global and universal about it all—perhaps because in one sense everyone has a Self, everyone has a desire to be seen and heard, everyone has a story to tell, and almost everyone’s life (to some degree) tells a story about pain and hope in a dance of life.

Antinomy in Modern/Modernist Education

An antinomy related to modernist education that emerges in the article is the opposition of a specific culture (Black society and art in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance) the and universalisms conveyed by the Met’s art museum approach to that time and place and movement and culture. Himes points out that the Met initially produced an exhibit about the Harlem Renaissance that displayed zero works by Black artists from that era, instead going for spectacle by displaying old pictures literally of Harlem—none of the works of its people, rather just the people and the city itself. Himes wanted to know where the art was. What she saw in that first exhibit was a universalist approach to modernity—not a modernist approach. She saw the museum trying to take the Black experience and Black culture out of the Black Harlem Renaissance and make it something generalized.

However, the Harlem Renaissance was based on and grew out of the very specific experiences of Black Americans in that very specific place. Nonetheless, it was also a movement that engaged with universalisms, because it was the Black Self confronting the ideals, ideas, and movements of the universe in the modern era. Antinomy is evident in the response to celebrating or honoring the Harlem Renaissance and accepting what it was, as well as in the movement itself and how it asserted the particular (the Black Self) in the face of the general or universal.

2: Analysis

Conformance to the Idea of Modernism

Himes’ article aligns well with the course’s idea of modernism as a movement that seeks to reinterpret and redefine contemporary norms in response to the conditions of modernity. The Harlem Renaissance is described as a Black, urban modernist movement that broke with the past, reflected on itself in the now, and moved away from traditional forms and ideas to self-determine and construct a new space. This is evident in the enormous mural paintings by Aaron Douglas’s Aspects of Negro Life, which were displayed in the Met’s second attempt to honor the Harlem Renaissance. Himes (2024) states:

Within this dense and complex composition, figures stooping to pick cotton are awakened by an orator, whose powerful voice is made visible by the concentric circles that radiate from him, producing ever more subtle gradations of hue and tone as they overlap and inflect the artist’s signature silhouetted forms. Broken chains dangle from arms lifted in strength and celebration as uniformed figures take up arms, recalling the critical historical revision of Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction: It was Black people who liberated themselves, stealing back their own labor power from the slaveholding South and rising up to fight those who held them in bondage. innovative ways of expressing African American experiences and identities.

Her description is important in terms of understanding the article’s view of modernism: Douglas is using an old form—the mural—but for a new purpose: Black liberation. The mural reflects not old world themes and values but rather the new era of liberation and Self and the struggle for equality, a principle of modernity. Modernism thus reflects on these ideas to form a sense of identity, mission, composure, Self, and place.

Non-conformance to Course’s Idea of Modernism

If the article did not conform to the course’s idea of modernism, it might instead view the Harlem Renaissance as a historical movement with little relevance to contemporary issues. However, the Himes avoids this by showing that the modernist principles of the Harlem Renaissance can still be relevant and respected—if places like the Met actually take the time to honor them as they are instead of projecting something general and universal onto the era and treating it merely as an historical artifact rather than as a real, human response to the changing tides.

3: Articulation

Modernity and modernism are distinct but related. Modernity refers to the changes within society that occurred after WW1. Modernism is the artistic response to these changes, using new forms, styles, ideas, and approaches. For example, Baker's (1987) examination of modernism shows the ways in which the Harlem Renaissance embodied modernist principles by taking on the new ideas and evaluating them and offering its own and reflecting on its Self without regard for what others might think or say about it. It was not so self-conscious as it was Self-Asserting. Baker and Himes both show appreciation for the artwork of the Harlem Renaissance and respect it on its own terms and for its own merits. They show how in spite of whatever indifference Hughes said the movement held the same movement still allowed people to see if they wanted to see. It showed the Black experience in the face of the modern world full of all its pompous vigor. It showed a world of cultures set to collide. It showed the meaning of the movement on a global stage as well. Himes refers to the “Diasporic pathways” of the movement and the intersectionality of gender, race, sexuality, identity, and place, stating: “In Barthé’s sculpture of Benga, we catch sight of a queer Harlem Renaissance—a theme reflected in nearby works, including Dark Rapture, a nude painting of James Baldwin by his dear friend Beauford Delaney, which shimmers with prismatic color. Both gay, Barthé and Benga met amid the artistic ferment of Paris, where the sculptor, like many Black Americans of the time, sought social freedom and artistic inspiration in the city where the dancer, disinherited by his father, made his home after leaving Dakar.” Baker’s view of the modernism of the Harlem Renaissance also alludes to the Diasporic nature of the movements progenitors, such as the poet Claude McKay—and indeed many of them were transatlantic in their movements, as modernity itself opened pathways for travel and experience abroad, celebrating life after WW1 with fervor and intent, never looking back but only embracing the now and the feeling of being alive. It was all Self-assertion, new, appealing, loud, strong, vibrant—but not always accepted by those still clinging to the past, to old world values, to old world ideals, which in time would rise back up to reassert themselves in the 1930s.