Primitivism In Street Life

840 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: African American influence on American music

Artist History
William H. Johnson Street Life, Harlem, born in Florence, South Carolina. lived during the Harlem renaissance period. Deciding to pursue his dreams in becoming an artist, he figured the segregated south was not a place to be for a young man who had dreams to become an artist. In 1918, at the age of 17 he moved to New York City where he worked several jobs and was admitted to the National Academy of Design in New York, where his artistic talents came to attention of Charles Webster Hawthorne, who decided to mentor him . Johnson then taught at while he taught at Harlem Community Art Center during his time there, he produced various artworks about the black community as a whole, including the artwork Street Life. Johnson is commonly known for Expressionism. Expressionism represents the artists personality and interior perception imposed on the visual reality of the objects depicted. The artist seeks to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse within a person. The artist accomplishes this aim through distortion, exaggeration, primitivism, and fantasy and through the vivid, jarring, violent, or dynamic application of formal elements (britannica.com).I believe Expressionism is an effective, powerful form of art which is communicable. Primitivism is capturing the essence or feature of something, I would say primitivism in this artwork was the environment
The style often required distorted objects in the art work, for example, the human body, he might draw the human head twice as big as the a normal head. Expressionism often requires an artwork to be distorted, fragmented or simplified. Johnsons work was purposely simplified, and is also classified as rep...

... middle of paper ...

...ricanart.si.edu. This artwork builds upon socially, historically and culturally during that period the artwork was produced. The reason it builds upon historically is that it was good for blacks in the society at that time, it was a push for blacks to better themselves, it gave them better standards, it made them feel better about themselves. This artwork was produced 1939, during the Harlem Renaissance, therefore it is safe to Johnson is product of the Renaissance. The time in period the artwork was made built upon socially, especially since blacks started living luxurious lives. It also builds upon culturally because it is the life they were living that time, nothing to offend anyone in the society. This artwork also reacts culturally because it reacted to the way backs were looked as then. The artwork does not rebel against socially, historically an culturally.

Show More
Related

  • Kara Walker Art Analysis

    1545 Words  | 4 Pages

    Visceral. Raw. Controversial. Powerful. The works which Kara Walker creates have elicited strong and diametric responses from members of the art community. She manipulates the style of antebellum era silhouettes, intended to create simple, idealistic images, and instead creates commentaries on race, gender, and power within the specific history of the United States. She has also been accused of reconfirming the negative stereotypes of black people, especially black women, that the viewer and that the white, male dominated art world may hold. This perspective implies that both her subjects and her artworks are passive when confronted with their viewers. Personally, I believe that more than anything, Walker’s work deals in power -- specifically, the slim examples of power black individuals have over their

    Read More

  • The Explanation Of Street Corner Society: Street Corner Society

    1174 Words  | 3 Pages

    Pages 94 - 108 discuss the floor and how the girls interacted with one another upon move in day and throughout the semester. The section begins with a description of Alana who felt a lack of connection with the girls on her floor. The other girls on her floor had only hung out with her once, and they used her as a designated driver causing Alana to not want to return to MU her sophomore year. By the end of the year, half the floor were defined as isolates including Alana because they can only claim one other friend (other than roommate) on the floor. Eighteen of these twenty five women were from less privileged families. They are “less likely to have the funds, time, social tastes, and knowledge necessary to successfully engage in college social life” causing them to have trouble fitting in (Armstrong/Hamilton, 96).

    Read More

  • Essay On Ernie Barnes

    1852 Words  | 4 Pages

    Ernie Barnes was and still is one of the most popular and well-respected black artists today. Born and raised in Durham, North Carolina, in 1938, during the time the south as segregated, Ernie Barnes was not expected to become a famous artist. However, as a young boy, Barnes would, “often [accompany] his mother to the home of the prominent attorney, Frank Fuller, Jr., where she worked as a [housekeeper]” (Artist Vitae, The Company of Art, 1999). Fuller was able to spark Barnes’ interest in art when he was only seven years old. Fuller told him about the various schools of art, his favorite painters, and the museums he visited (Barnes, 1995, p. 7). Fuller further introduced Barnes to the works of such artists as, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Correggio, which later influenced Barnes’ mannerist style of painting.

    Read More

  • Jacob Lawrence’s Direct and Dramatic Paintings

    817 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...ce was recognized for his talent. Despite the primitive look of Lawrence’s painting the gesture are read and reveals a set of principles inspired by African-Americans. Thus, the modernist aesthetic of his art shows the critical faith of a people oppressed and striving to get ahead. Therefore, elements of his work and themes like man’s struggle produce one of the United States most famous African-American Artist of all times Jacob Lawrence.

    Read More

  • Emory Douglas: All Power to the People

    1072 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gun-slinging, militant-looking, irate adolescent African American men, women, and children: an incessant image employed by the revolutionary artist Emory Douglas. Douglas is perhaps one of the most iconic artists’ of the 20th century and has created thousands of influential protest images that remain unforgettable to this day. Through the use of compelling images Emory Douglas aided in defining the distinct visual aesthetic of the Black Panther Party’s newspapers, pamphlets, and posters. It was through such mediums that Douglas had the ability to enlighten and provoke a predominately illiterate and uneducated community via visual communication, illustrating that art can evolve into an overpowering device to precipitate social and political change.

    Read More

  • Aaron Douglas, The New Negro Movements

    1068 Words  | 3 Pages

    as "the New Negro Movement" later the Harlem renaissance." The art today isn't really memorable

    Read More

  • Jacob Lawrence

    1738 Words  | 4 Pages

    One the most distinguished artists of the twentieth century, Jacob Lawrence was born in Atlantic City and spnt part of his child hood in Pennsylvania. After his parents split up in 1924, he went with his mother and siblings to New York, settling in Harlem. "He trained as a painter at the Harlem Art Workshop, inside the New York Public Library's 113 5th Street branch. Younger than the artists and writers who took part in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, Lawrence was also at an angle to them: he was not interested in the kind of idealized, fake-primitive images of blacks - the Noble Negroes in Art Deco guise - that tended to be produced as an antidote to the toxic racist stereotypes with which white popular culture had flooded America since Reconstruction. Nevertheless, he gained self-confidence from the Harlem cultural milieu - in particular, from the art critic Alain Locke, a Harvard-trained esthete (and America's first black Rhodes scholar) who believed strongly in the possibility of an art created by blacks, which could speak explicitly to African-Americans and still embody the values, and self-critical powers, of modernism. Or, in Locke's own words, "There is in truly great art no essential conflict between racial or national traits and universal human values." This would not sit well with today's American cultural separatists who trumpet about the incompatibility of American experiences - "It's a black thing, you wouldn't understand" - but it was vital to Lawrence's own growth as an artist. Locke perceived the importance of the Great Migration, not just as an economic event but as a cultural one, in which countless blacks took over the control of their own lives, which had been denied them in the South: When years later he told an interviewer that "I am the black community," he was neither boasting nor kidding. He had none of the alienation from Harlem that was felt by some other black artists of the 1930s, like the expatriate William Johnson.

    Read More

  • The Role of Female African American Sculptors in the Harlem Renaissance

    1699 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Harlem Renaissance, a time of global appreciation for the black culture, was a door opening for African American women. Until then, African Americans, let alone African American women, were neither respected nor recognized in the artistic world. During this time of this New Negro Movement, women sculptors were able to connect their heritages with the present issues in America. There is an abundance of culture and history to be learned from these sculptures because the artists creatively intertwine both. Meta Warrick Fuller and Edmonia Lewis, two of the most popular sculptors of this time, were able to reflect their native heritages and the dynamics of society through their artwork.

    Read More

  • The New Negro Movement: The Harlem Renaissance

    419 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Harlem Renaissance had a lot of influence on modern day art because many artist white and black drew inspiration from traditional African sculptures. In the 1900s, “the aesthetics of traditional African sculpture became a powerful influence among European artists who formed an avant-garde in the development of modern art.”(“African

    Read More

  • Ron Karenga's Black Cultural Nationalism

    1167 Words  | 3 Pages

    The people of the black culture need a motivating force behind their community. They need a black aesthetic to motivate them and incline them to support the revolution. The black aesthetic itself will not be enough to motivate the people; they will need black art to help them understand what they are supporting. The art in the black culture needs an aesthetic to get the message across to its viewers and allow them to understand the meaning behind pieces of artwork. One of Ron Karenga’s points is how people need to respond positively to the artwork because it then shows that the artist got the main idea to the audience and helps to motivate them to support the revolution. In “Black Cultural Nationalism”, the author, Ron Karenga, argues that

    Read More

  • Harlem Renaissance Essay

    1061 Words  | 3 Pages

    ..., where his paintings grew even more popular due to their religious themes. His study in drawing and painting became beneficial to becoming friends with a renowned mentor, Stuart Davis. “In the early 1930’s, he joined the Harlem Artists Guild and was responsible for the drawing of cartoons that were to be published in Baltimore Afro-American. He formed the spiral group that dealt with the promotion of the black artists’ works, as well as, exploring ways for contributing to the civil rights movements at that time” (edu, 2014). His lifelong commitment to African Art, helped shape the way that African American art was viewed.

    Read More

  • The Black Arts Movement

    1704 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Black Arts movement refers to a period of “furious flowering” of African American creativity beginning in the mid-1960’s and continuing through much of the 1970’s (Perceptions of Black). Linked both chronologically and ideologically with the Black Power Movement, The BAM recognized the idea of two cultural Americas: one black and one white. The BAM pressed for the creation of a distinctive Black Aesthetic in which black artists created for black audiences. The movement saw artistic production as the key to revising Black American’s perceptions of themselves, thus the Black Aesthetic was believed to be an integral component of the economic, political, and cultural empowerment of the Black community. The concepts of Black Power, Nationalism, Community, and Performance all influenced the formation of this national movement, and it proliferated through community institutions, theatrical performance, literature, and music.

    Read More

  • Johnson and Dubois

    323 Words  | 1 Pages

    As Johnson developed his ideas about literature, he adopted the use of "double consciousness" the theme presented by DuBois in Souls of Black Folk. This theme was used significantly in Johnson's Autobiography. Along with this theme he came to embrace the idea of "racial distinctiveness" theorized by DuBois. DuBois argues in his book that spiritual contributions are what African-Americans bring to white American culture.

    Read More

  • Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness - A Modernist Novel

    505 Words  | 2 Pages

    Cubism takes the opposite route for the same effect. Solid lines are drawn, but the painting itself is usually more abstract (as with Picasso). At times it can be difficult to discern what some paintings are supposed to represent. Bright, vivid colors infuse the pieces with more passion. The contrast between those not well defined objects and the punch of emotion gives cubism its personality and vitality.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Dada Art

    854 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...nding things; putting them together and making them work. He often used subtle colours in his collages allowing for the occasional use of bold colours to act as a contrast. Similarly he would cut shapes into clear geometric forms, often to make some kind of statement. The influences of Cubism and Constructivism, can be seen in the arrangement and composition of his work.

    Read More

More about Primitivism In Street Life

Open Document