Aaron Douglas and the Harlem Renaissance Art Movement

The Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance is the term given to a period in American history when a new focus on the African-American experience emerged, beginning in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. It was a time when African-American artists began to express their culture openly, and a new appreciation for the African-American artist and African-American art took hold.

The Harlem Renaissance has been described as "a cultural and psychological watershed, an era in which black people were perceived as having finally liberated themselves from a past fraught with self-doubt and surrendered instead to an unprecedented optimism, a novel pride in all things black and a cultural confidence that stretched beyond the borders of Harlem to other black communities in the Western world" (Powelland).

This Renaissance extended to all areas of the arts, including painting, singing, and performing. What united these artists was their shared focus on the Black experience: "painter Aaron Douglas, author Langston Hughes, jazz musician Duke Ellington, blues singer Bessie Smith, dancer Josephine Baker and the consummate all-round performer Paul Robeson — had certain attitudes about the black experience as art that, through paintings, writings, musical compositions and performances, explored an assortment of black representational possibilities" (Powelland).

Aaron Douglas and the Harlem Renaissance

This period in the 1920s is described as "extremely uplifting to African-Americans as a people. Personalities and individuals connected their expressions in writings, music, and visual artworks as they related to the political, social, and economic conditions of being black in America" (B. David Schwartz Memorial Library).

Douglas emerged during this Renaissance and was encouraged to express his African roots. "Douglas's use of African design and subject matter in his work brought him to the attention of William Edward Burghardt DuBois and Alain Locke, who were pressing for young African-American artists to express their African heritage and African-American folk culture in their art" (Schomburg Center).

With the broader focus on African-American artists during this period, "Aaron Douglas became a leading visual artist during this time" (Schomburg Center). His work was closely associated with the rising Harlem cultural image, and Douglas was regularly published in The Crisis, Opportunity, and Vanity Fair. He also became well known for illustrating James Weldon Johnson's book God's Trombones and for his illustrations published in The New Negro anthology (Schomburg Center).

Aaron Douglas's Work and Themes

In 1934, Douglas was commissioned to paint a series of murals for the New York Public Library. The murals were designed to represent specific aspects of African-American life (Schomburg Center).

Aaron Douglas's work holds significance both for its themes and its style. The themes consistently reflect the African-American place in the world. Some of his most notable works include Triborough Bridge (oil, 1935), The Negro in an African Setting (black and white mural, oil, 1933), The Composer (portrait in oil, 1967), Listen, Lord — A Prayer (black and white illustration, 1925), and Evolution of the Negro Dance (black and white mural, oil, 1935) (B. David Schwartz Memorial Library).

In each of these works, the theme is drawn from an African-American perspective. This use of art to represent African-American experience was a new development. Up until that time, African-American painters had largely painted in a white or European style.

This was perhaps Douglas's most significant contribution to art — he opened the door for the expression of the African-American experience. He "was recognized for making it acceptable for future African-American artists to express in their creations movements and depictions from their experiences as African-Americans" (B. David Schwartz Memorial Library).