The Harlem Renaissance: cultural and artistic movement

Harlem Renaissance: Artistic Movement or Political Statement

Although the genesis and the influence of the Harlem Renaissance is well-understood, the driving motives and goals behind the movement are more controversial. Some believe the Harlem Renaissance was an early expression of Black political struggle. Others believe that it was purely an artistic and cultural movement, just like the Beats of the 60's.

The Harlem Renaissance describes the emergence of an artistic community from the shame and repression of their Negro experiences. However, their experiences as negroes, although a crucial condition of the movement, was never the reason for the movement. Rather, the only reason for the movement was the artists' desire to express themselves, making the Harlem Renaissance an indisputably artistic movement, not a political struggle.

Background

The Harlem Renaissance was a period of great cultural flowering in the 1920s and 1930s. It was the product of the profound structural shifts that occurred in American society as a result of Emancipation and Reconstruction. (Kallen, 4). The migration of many talented, ambitious Blacks from the Agricultural South to urban areas such as New York set the conditions for a cultural exchange that would change American culture forever.

As these emigrants acclimated themselves to urban life and improved their socioeconomic circumstances, they availed themselves of the excellent education available in the Northeast. (Kallen, 9). Many were educated in the humanities and entered the world of art and letters. They often outclassed their White peers as writers and commentators on the major issues of the day, such as Socialism or the Great War in Europe.

Of these Northeastern-educated literati, a special handful inherited the talent of the educated Northeastern elite, but not necessarily their tastes, interests, and concerns. These people, growing up in the agricultural South, would write about what was real to them in a manner that was natural to them. (Kallen, 32). Their audience and observers were impressed by their talent but shocked by their subject matter, eventually grouping and labeling them as a "Negro-Art" movement, which would later be known as the "Harlem Renaissance."

Analysis

The Racial Perspective

The pursuit of racial recognition was exemplified by the New Negro Movement. The New Negro Movement was concerned with the rehabilitation of the Negro's image in American society. (Locke, 8). Locke was a philosophy professor and social critic who recognized the unique social trends resulting from the exodus of Blacks out of the still-feudalistic South. These new Blacks took advantage of their new mobility by educating themselves in the arts and humanities. Locke took it upon himself to assume the role of spokesman for these new, educated Blacks, inaugurating the New Negro Movement.

The Colorless Perspective

In response to the initial labeling of this trend as "Negro-Art," skeptical George Schuyler, a journalist and artist in his own right, insisted that it was not. It was not "Negro-Art," Schuyler, insisted, because Art had no categories. (Schuyler, Negro-Art Hokum). Art is art, no matter who is writing it. (Schuyler). Schuyler objected to the labeling of the movement as a "Negro Renaissance." Schuyler may have been overreacting here, as the Scottish Enlightenment was also an ethnically-defined label, but was not meant to indicate a distinctly Scottish nature in the ideas.

The Ugly-Duckling Perspective

Langston Hughes, the most visible icon of the Harlem Renaissance, started out as a simple, brilliant artist and became a cultural commentator and spokesmen for the Harlem Renaissance as well. It is important to note that Hughes only started commenting on the Harlem Renaissance in response to prior commentary that he could not accept. In the Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain, Hughes sought to refute reductionist attempts to Whitewash the movement by Schuyler, who criticized the "Negro-Art Hokum" as mere hype. (Hughes, the Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain).

Langston, in his commentary, sought to point out that the Negro condition was crucial to their development as artists. "We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame." (Hughes). In this declaration, one does not detect racial pride or bitterness, but rather, a tender plea for the right to create art without being judged by society as vulgar or threatening.

Hughes viewed negro art before the Harlem Renaissance as restricted by shame of their unique cultural features as negro, so foreign to Western art at the time, and fear of the scorn they would receive from the public and their peers if this negro culture ever were to leak out in their art. (Hughes). Because of these self-imposed restraints, negro art was missing the passionate, unself-conscious desire for self-expression which is so vital to art.

Evaluation

Locke tried too hard to define the movement. He had a strong agenda, the rehabilitation of the Negro's character that needed to be pushed, even if it had to be forced on the movement. (8). It is significant that Locke is the only one of the three spokesmen who was not himself an artist. In many ways, he was the least qualified to speak on behalf of the artists and writers of the period, most of whom were too busy writing to provide self-conscious commentary of their work and their "movement."

Schuyler, for his part, tried too hard to sterilize the movement. Although his premise, that art is art and has no categories, is certainly valid, he forgets that this is not a philosophical issue, but a social and cultural issue. In his attempt to refute the hype and cultural fetishism surrounding the movement, he is forced to deny that there is a movement altogether. This not only makes him seem detached, but also prevents him from examining elements of the movement that were not mere hype, but the product of real social circumstances.