Art Analysis: An Idyll Of The Deep South

The Era of Art

The Harlem Renaissance is the birth of rich African American culture through art, music, and literature. It began in the early 1910’s into the mid 1930’s. Harlem is a neighborhood in New York which during that era turned into a predominately African American area. This started during World War I, and workers were recruited to the Northern states because manual labor workers were needed. Many brilliant African Americans of their time arose from the Harlem area such as Langston Hughes, Jacob Lawrence, and Palmer Hayden just to name a few. The spirit of the Harlem Renaissance is powerful and lively. African Americans had gone through extreme circumstances physically and emotionally to be able to get to places such as Harlem. One

Aaron Douglas was born in Kansas. He had an interest in art starting at a very young age. His mother’s love for watercolors had a big inspiration for his work. He later graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree and settled in Harlem where his work thrived. His most inspirational piece is An Idyll of the Deep South. I feel as though it depicts the reality of slavery. All the people are blended into the background as if they are nothing. They look up into the distance as if they are in a state of unease. The painting itself is a monochromatic piece of art that uses different values of purple. Purple is a unique and unusual color to use for such a grim picture because purple from a psychological standpoint is a symbol representing power and ambition. The color choice may represent to the unconscious mind that even when going through something terrible, that there can be power and ambition one will work through to see their way out of

They all speak profoundly about the various stages of life the African American community had to go through during the Harlem Renaissance. Dreams represented the struggles that happened during slavery. The yellow bars they are behind makes the people in the painting seem as though they are prisoners, which is probably how the slaves felt during their time before they relocated up north. Idyll of the Deep South has a similar representation in the sense that it was prior to the transformation to the north. That painting depicts the work they had to do. The main thing I noticed in the Idyll of the Deep south painting you see an orb of light centered in the photo going up which almost gives you a sense of hope for the future. Lastly, Jeunesse is relevant to the Harlem Renaissance because it represents the life the African Community built once they settled in Harlem. Jeunesse is my favorite piece of art from all of them because to me it represents the rainbow at the end of a storm. I never knew anything about the Harlem Renaissance or the art from that era before researching for this paper. The hardships that they went through, but ended in such a cultured and content place where everyone was embraced as themselves is quite