Langston Hughes And The Harlem Renaissance

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Between 1916 and 1940, the area of Manhattan named Harlem became synonymous with black culture (black stars 1) Dubbed the capital of Black America, Harlem became home to a blossoming of African American culture, particularly in the creative arts. As African Americans “expressed pride in their history, style and culture, through embracing the arts”, Black literature, music, and art thrived in a revolutionary movement that would come to be known as the Harlem Renaissance (black stars 2) The terms that define this movement have been questioned (was Harlem so central? was there a real renaissance?), its premises, objectives and agenda criticized, and the still the name has been kept, and the event has continually been celebrated from its time…show more content…
The most prolific writer of the Harlem Renaissance was Langston Hughes. Hughes cast off the influences of white poets and wrote with the rhythmic meter of blues and jazz. (us history) By exploring black vernacular speech and lyrical forms, Hughes, on the other hand, built his artistic project on identification with the Negro masses. Hughes in his first book, The Weary Blues (1926), wrote of working-class life and black popular culture as well as his own vagabond experiences in the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe. Hughes challenged black artists and writers to reject this bland, monolithic “Americanism” and seek within the black communities of the United States the unique aesthetic possibilities and artistic inspiration that might lead to new art, new literature, and a new source of pride for African Americans. He was largely dedicated to revealing and critiquing through art the racist and prejudicial ideas, institutions, and practices that hindered black individuals and communities from full enjoyment of the nation’s resources and the freedoms it promised its citizens. Hughes called upon writers to use the transformative power of words to effect social change: eliminate stereotypes, “wipe out . . . all the old inequalities of the past,” and expose the false leaders within organized religion and the black community who do nothing to combat…show more content…
Prior to World War I, black painters and sculptors had rarely concerned themselves with African American subject matter. By the end of the 1920s, however, black artists had begun developing styles related to black aesthetic traditions of Africa or to folk art.The signature artist of the renaissance was Aaron Douglas, who turned away from traditional landscape painting after moving to New York City from Kansas \. Aaron Douglas is known to be a "father of Afro-American Art". His stylized, silhouette-like rendering of recognizably black characters, imbued with qualities of spiritual yearning and racial pride, became closely identified with the Harlem Renaissance generally. (Encylopedia Brittancica) in 1926, Aaron Douglas illustrated several poems by langston hughes, who had spent part of his childhood in lawrence, Kansas. both worked to combine images and poetry to convey the blues, which were an important influence for them and their contemporaries. Their collaborations were so popular with readers that the magazine eventually issued a special collector’s package brought together all the illustrations and
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