black art

black art

Exploring the Intriguing World of Black Art: History, Significance, and Impact

1. Introduction to Black Art

Since the first African-American artists came into existence, they have struggled to define and establish themselves through the creation of their own art. They have searched for alternatives both to the need to hide their interests by adhering to Western art traditions and to living through an aggressively dominant culture. Black pride became prominent and efforts were made to look beyond current events toward ancient traditions for a sense of black identity. One solution was to resurrect the arts, literature, and culture of African forebears and to incorporate them into the black artistic environment. At the same time, African-American artists also explored the socioeconomic realms that helped to shape their own existence, and for both reassurance and definition, they turned to these topics as well. Literary Expressionists began this sensitive expansion of black art by producing both prose and poetry. The visual arts swiftly followed by using their representational content, highly expressed sociological acquaintance, and increasingly complex environments, which repeatedly documented the emergence of African-American historical consciousness. However, time elapsed before black American art more faintly showed the entire range of cultural discourses. At present, what appeared at first to contain a narrow and remote focus has been able to include themes applicable to the interests, needs, and concerns of art lovers around the world. To be sure, contemporary African-American art now encompasses the numerous socio-historical, political, and ethical qualities that give it an extensive universal appeal.

Black art, often called African-American art, refers to the many types and expressions of art brought forth by United States blacks, whose African forbears were brought to America against their will. Some people are of African or mixed ancestry and were born in this country, and some are newly arrived residents who carry the traditions and culture of the great African continent. ‘African-American’ is a term widely used for people who are native to any of the world’s pre- or post-colonial nations, regions, or territories wherever black people of African descent live. The creation of art reflects not only the history of a specific country but also its population. As a consequence, art reflects the various backgrounds, beliefs, habits, customs, and also the socioeconomic environments of the people who create it. Because African-American art is connected to a population that has had to overcome severe difficulties, the growth and development of black art has been different from art produced by any other group or on any other continent.

2. Historical Evolution of Black Art

No longer did they attempt to conform to the dictates of the larger American art world or the standards of white society. Instead, they continued the fight for Civil Rights, creating an aesthetic commensurate with the joy, pain, anger, hope, and determination of a people black, and in the process ushering in the period still recognized worldwide as Revolution in Black Art. Black Art Movement artists stood in stark contrast to the majority of their African American predecessors for whom poverty and the utilitarian traditions in the visual arts prevented them from weighing a ‘state of consciousness” in their representation of color, line, and form. Indeed, African American artists possessed the self-determining character and motivation for artistic change, and the Black Art aesthetic was further refined and defined, shaped, and institutionalized in the age of the Hip Hop generation.

The historical evolution of Black Art dates back to as far as the 1860s, with the Modern Black Art Movement preceding the Harlem Renaissance, a period seen as the first major step forward for African American artists hopeful for acceptance and distinction in the American Art world. Prior to these movements, the notion of Black culture and art was ignored, suppressed, and disregarded in the United States. The cultural and racial perspective shifted and was forever changed by the events of the Black Art Movement in the 1960s and 1970s, involving a social platform of Black pride, Black self-determination, and Black power questioning, for the first time in history, the white middle-class notion of “American” art and culture. Derived from the social foundation of the Civil Rights/Black Power era of the sixties, the Black Art Movement influenced a profound shift in the consciousness of African American visual artists.

3. Themes and Styles in Black Art

Many different styles such as WPA (Works Progress Administration) art of the 1930s and 1940s, art and mural movements of the 1960s and 1970s, Outsider art, and the contemporary arts of Native Americans, and immigrants from Mexico, the Caribbean Islands, and Africa. In-depth analyses of the work of African American artists such as Edward M. Bannister, Elizabeth Catlett, Aaron Douglas, Meta Warrick Fuller, Palmer Hayden, Richard Hunt, Sargent Johnson, Jacob Lawrence, Malvin Gray-Johnson, Clint Martin, Horace Pippin, Betye Saar, Augusta Savage, Henry O. Tanner, Bob Thompson, Dox Thrash, and Patrick Waldemar.

As African art was taught and studied more in universities and academies in Europe and the United States, it began to have a profound impact on the development of art in Europe, particularly in the early phases of “Modern Art,” sometimes dated to perhaps 1913 after Marcel Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase,” a work profoundly influenced by African sculpture. Students can study a variety of aspects of the intriguing world of Black art, including but not limited to the religious purposes for which African art was often made, the qualities of African art that have made it a significant influence on Western art, themes and styles in Black art in the United States during slavery times, as well as before and after the Civil War, the “Negro Renaissance” in the 1920s, and the art of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, the art of Native Americans and immigrants from Mexico, Caribbean Islands, and Africa of the last century.

4. The Significance of Black Art in Society

Black art often reflects the beliefs, aspirations, and social/psychological preoccupations of the African American psyche. The exhibition “The Image of the Black in Western Art” at Harvard University’s DuBois Institute points to several of these psychological preoccupations. A portion of the exhibition deals with issues related to transitioning from African culture and writing about the African culture to understanding the psychology of enslavement. The artists directly explore psychological preoccupations and conflict popular with African Americans in collective and comprehensive works such as Jacob Lawrence’s “Migration Series” and Romare Bearden’s “The Prevalence of Ritual: Tidings”. However, psychological issues presented in black artwork can also be introspective and individualized such as those found in Faith Ringgold’s “Die: The Murder of Malcolm X”.

Black art is a reflection of the African American experience. Although no two artists capture the experience in the same way, their work has been used to coordinate the struggle of African Americans, to promote the idea of black beauty, and to combat abiding racial stereotypes. These themes were particularly popular during the period of the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s. However, expressing the African American experience can still be seen in popular art movements such as Afrosurrealism and in the lyrics of hip hop artists.

5. The Impact and Influence of Black Art Today

Cultural artifacts also have a way of tying people to memories and a shared African American experience across time and geography. This capacity for nearly universal identification can be attributed to specific genres (for example, portraiture and music), as well as to the unique threads (for instance, the Great Migration, HBCUs, and African-American domestic workers). Also, signs of the divine in Fine and Folk Art work from Africa and its Diaspora may yield moments of connection regarding spirituality, struggle, celebration, and creativity among peoples with rather different family, educational, and employment experiences. Regardless of the inspiration that attracts viewers, the art they view may change individual, communal, and national experiences. Indeed, it is through cultural artifacts – including Black art – that our collective national and global understandings of history, society, and self are so often constructed, and at times, illusioned.

The contemporary impact of Black art is significant, due in part to its influence beyond the art world. People of various cultures and communities have taken interest in the artistic contributions of the African diaspora to American fine art. This popularity can translate into increased visibility and financial gain for these Black artists. Approximately fifty percent of the artists represented in private contemporary art collections identify as African American. However, many of the highlights of these private collections are quite removed from public exhibition or scholarship. This common situation may change, or at least improve, if collectors donate works to museums or provide loans to them often. An increased intergenerational interest in up-to-moment iterations of Black art may lead to new inclusion formulas and frameworks at arts institutions that have relatively few contemporary and recent works by African American artists in their collections.