Reflecting back on my childhood days, I remember that people used to say that in a kid 's life, art was very important; given that I was a young child, the representation of art for me came inside the boxes of crayons, coloring books, and paint brushes accompanied by a piece of paper that gave freedom to my imagination, and fed my desire to be creative. It wasn 't until very late in my life, however, that I realized that art was so much more than just a combination of colors, shapes, themes, or symbols; I came to understand, that both modern day and old age art have the ability to illustrate certain sociological issues such as racism, and how through it, it is possible to see how certain social groups are made inferior; while at the same time it is possible to understand the sociological struggles that are currently taking place in their respective communities. …show more content…
Whiteness has impacted many aspects of humanity; I want you to think back to your first, second, and even third grade art classes. The theme of art always seems to be the same, or at least to me it seems this way. Art in elementary and middle schools is always structured around making white culture seem as the only acceptable thing, one which has a beautiful sunset, a dog, a family of three, and a house standing behind a beautiful and colorful garden. As I think back to my experiences with art and analyze the context I have learned in class, it is rare, that art is utilized to illustrate the struggles, social challenges, and lack of resources of minority groups living in disadvantaged
You will choose and closely evaluate three pieces of art (paintings, poems, music, etc.) from black artists, using the information in Hughes’s essay as the basis of your evaluation and analysis. First, you must provide an in-depth analysis of the selected art pieces. Then, you should determine whether or not the artists are living up to the roles and responsibilities put forth by Hughes, using textual evidence from his essay to support your evaluation of the
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
In order to add something to their lives, [black families] decorated their tenements and their homes in all of these colors. I've been asked, is anyone in my family artistically inclined? I've always felt ashamed of my response and I always said no, not realizing that my artistic sensibility came from this ambiance.... It's only in retrospect that I realized I was surrounded by art. You'd walk Seventh Avenue and took in the windows and you'd see all these colors in the depths of the depression. All these colors.
At Krannert Art Museum this year Social Studies put out their third exhibit featuring eight artists? works that provoke viewers to reflect on issues of identity, tolerance, equal rights, and integration as they apply to education now. When I walked in to the exhibit I noticed a very interesting portrait to begin with. It was five separate portraits of two women, one white, one black, both attempting to sit in the same chair. The title of the work was Plessy vs. Ferguson, in memory of the Supreme Court decision that made segregation legal. The separate part seemed to hold true but the equal part was far more than lacking. Most cases seemed to be that there wasn?t enough to separate hence the reason for the two women struggling over the same chair. This art took me awhile to understand because my brain had not been geared to what I was actually witnessing. It wasn?t until I sat down on a retro style couch resting on a beige shag carpet rug facing a silent movie projection. The obvious use of perspective in this art form helped me understand the side by side projection of two different family videos. One was footage from a Jewish family and the other was an African American family?s footage. Both of the videos depicted family gatherings for celebrations such as barbeques, birthday parties, trips to Disney World and religious holidays.
Over the decades, art has been used as a weapon against the callousness of various social constructs - it has been used to challenge authority, to counter ideologies, to get a message across and to make a difference. In the same way, classical poetry and literature written by minds belonging to a different time, a different place and a different community have somehow found a way to transcend the boundaries set by time and space and have been carried through the ages to somehow seep into contemporary times and shape our society in ways we cannot fathom.
I am an artist. That is not a disclaimer or a boast; it is a statement of position. I believe in the undeniable importance of art and the futility of censorship. I also believe that art is one of the best indicators of the mood of a culture. Scholars, doctors, therapists, and lawyers can attempt to explain us to ourselves, but their testimony, while useful, will almost always be dry and lacking in emotional depth. I am proud to write in defense of a group that predates and outlasts all other professional analysts of the human condition-creators of art.
In the 1800’s it would’ve been considered a crime for a person of color to do anything that a “white” person was doing. They were considered to do one thing and one thing only and that’s work. They weren’t supposed to be writing, making music, or creating art. All of these were used to express someone’s feeling towards a subject and people of color were not allowed to do that. The people of color were using these ways of art to communicate and express how they were treated and how they wanted to be treated. Source D says, “The Art Institute of Chicago's collection of African American art provides a rich introduction to over 100 years of noted achievements in painting, sculpture, and printmaking. Ranging chronologically from the Civil War era to the Harlem Renaissance and from the civil-rights struggles following World War II to the contemporary period, these works constitute a dynamic visual legacy.” This statement shows how important it was for the African American people to make art and express what they were going through. It has opened the eyes of people and changed history. The art itself has changed human nature in many ways and showed that they deserve to be treated the same as everyone else. This is why it was a crime in those times. Now everyone is free to express their feelings in any type of art such as writing, musical art, and making art as an artist. Art is a beautiful thing that everyone should be able to express. Art is a part of human nature and it can be expressed in many ways and everyone needs to have the right to do that. This is why human nature has changed. It has changed in a good way and made everyone’s views and opinions change on what people of color should be able to
The Black Arts Movement (BAM), 1965 to 1976, started in Harlem, New York, was an influential movement for various reasons. The movement is characterized as a set of perspectives about African American cultural making, which presumed that black artists were main authority for the political activism. It additionally announced that the main substantial political end of dark specialists' exertions was liberation from white political and aesthetic force structures. In the same way that white individuals were to be stripped of their entitlement to prohibit or characterize dark character, white stylish benchmarks were to be ousted and swapped with innovative qualities emerging from the dark group. This movement was first and foremost a literary movement. However, during the late 1960’s and 1970’s the movement started to welcome visual artists as well.
Black Power and Black Art relate to one another in one major aspect: politics. The political aspect of both concepts aided in transforming African American culture. “The Black Arts and the Black Power concept both relate broadly to the Afro-American 's desire for self-determination and nationhood.” (Neal 1968) The desire for nationhood helped African Americans establish their independence in America and it aided them in developing what the world means to their culture and their views. The political views of Black Art and Black Power subsequently leads to the development of black aesthetics. Resistance is a main aspect of developing black aesthetics, because the motive of black aesthetics is “the destruction of the white thing, the destruction of white ideas, and white ways of looking at the world.” (Neal 1968) With the understanding of how Black Power and Black Art relate and the motives of each, the critical understanding of the 1960s Black Arts and Black Power is
In the early twentieth century, it was nationally debated as to whether or not Negro art was a category of art in the United States. Even for some today, it remains a debate. George Schuyler, Langston Hughes, and W.E.B. DuBois, all had strong arguments for the concept of “Negro Art” in the mid-1920s. After reading the essays of each writer, each one offers a different perspective. Their arguments help to build off one another and to counter argue with one another. Negro Art is very much alive in America; and it deserves to be respected as American Art without leading to the stereotypical absolute difference between the white and black races. The art piece I selected is a fist painted by an Upper School Art 1 student at McDonogh School, that
As can be seen throughout history, art is a powerful expressive model that has the capacity to instruct and construct social change within a community. The art born out of the Chicano Movement of the 1960’s is a perfect example of this phenomenon. In response to the struggle for civil rights for Mexican-Americans immigrants, Chicanos and Chicanas created an art aesthetic that embodied the activist spirit of the movement. As Alicia Gaspar de Alba once stated, “the Chicano art movement functioned as the aesthetic representation of the political, historical, cultural and linguistic issues that constituted the agenda of the Chicano civil rights movement.” By taking an activist approach to challenge the stereotypes, economic inequality and xenophobic shortcomings of the dominant mainstream and by promoting awareness of history, culture and community the visual art of the Chicano Movement served as a political tool to enact social change for Mexican-American Immigrants of all generations.
Anger arises as a picture of segregation crosses the screen. You smile as you see a picture of a laughing child. Tears fall down your cheek as you watch a scene from a funeral. A picture is worth a thousand words, because even if you have never had a child of your own or seen segregation firsthand, you can have compassion for the people of those events because you have felt frustrated and happiness before. The emotion you arouse are sympathy for those currently going through these events. Dadaists was exploring these emotions in their work by evoking specific reactions in their audience. Dadaism changed the face of art, resulting in paradigm shifts about what was considered art, and even questioning ideas about human and national actions. Despite the audacity of Dada artists in their
When I was in high school, I was very involved in the arts. I took a band, choir and two years of visual art. During the years of high school, I knew that the fees for the art courses cost much more than other electives at my school. I also observed that the school focused more on their athletic and academics programs, than on their art programs. We had many fundraisers to raise more money for the art programs even after paying an already expensive fee to takes these electives. Schools are neglecting the visual arts programs and placing all of their money and focus on academics and athletics programs. I propose a balance between the arts, academics, and the athletics.
Throughout the ages art has played a crucial role in life. Art is universal and because art is everywhere, we experience it on a daily basis. From the houses we live in (architecture) to the movies we see (theatre) to the books that we read (literature). Even in ancient culture art has played a crucial role. In prehistoric times cave dwellers drew on the wall of caves to record history. In biblical times paintings recorded the life and death of Christ. Throughout time art has recorded history. Most art is created for a specific reason or purpose, it has a way of expressing ideas and beliefs, and it can record the experiences of all people.
In this age of technology, art is fundamentally essential for our society. Art brings beauty and creativity into the society. It is very important because it makes our society a better place. Art brings a sense of enjoyment and pleasure. Art allows for the expression of truth and beliefs. It portrays various ideas, feelings such as triumph, love, happiness, sorrow and boredom. Each and every message behind art shows ideas that are relevant to the society. The society can only be complete when there is a good balance between mechanical human capital and artistically inclined human capital. A healthy Malaysia is not only requires a good number of engineers, doctors, IT consultants, but also artists, designers, poets and singers to emerge as