Seeing History:Using Art with Historical Documents

as Teaching Tools

UCI Teacher WorkshopWednesday, December 9, 2009

Bridget R. Cooks, Ph.D.

The Harlem Renaissance• The Great Migration (1913-1946)

• More than 400K African Americans fled the Jim Crow South to points North and West.

• Largest migration in American history.

• Thousands moved to Harlem, New York

• New multiethnic Black community formed a new consciousness of what it meant to be American.

 

The Harlem Renaissance

This period of new consciousness, the formation of new art forms in music, art, literature, poetry, performance, and celebration of Black culture is called the Harlem Renaissance (1919-1929).

Presentation Objectives

• Examine visual art and literature as resources for learning about history.

• Introduce some basic visual analysis skills such as reading composition, color, line to “de-code” a work of art.

• Take into consideration the subject, audience, and the author of an image to understand different historical perspectives.

1. Elements of composition- How did the artist use color, line, and shape to make an impact

on the viewer?

2. Size- Is the work of art life size? Larger than life? Small and intimate? Can it be viewed by only one viewer or more than one viewer at the same time?

3. Iconography- What is the subject matter of the work of art?

4. Iconology- What are the meanings and purposes of symbols?

5. Presentation of the figure- Notice the posture, eye contact, dress, etc.

6. What is the relationship between the figure/s and environment?

7. Consider social context.What is the time period in which it was made?In which country was it made?Who it was made by?Who it was made for?Why it was made? How did it function in its viewing context originally (i.e. private viewing, public viewing, mass reproduction)? How is it viewed today?

8. What does the title of the work of art mean?

What do you see when you look at a work of art?How to Read an Image

How do we get students to talk about pictures?

• What is going on in this picture?• What do we see here?• What is the figure doing?• What feeling do you get from this picture?• What do you see that makes you feel that way?• Why do you think the figure is doing ___?• What is the relationship between the picture and

the title?• What is the relationship between the picture and

the text? (when applicable)• What do you think the artist wants us to think

about this person/place/event?

Do not be afraid of silence after asking a question.

Allow students the time to answer the question.

Unique advantages of discussing art in the classroom:

• Great approach to group work, even for students who usually dislike group work.

• Students’ individual perspectives can be validated by others.

• Allows students to hear each other and see what the other students see.

• Multiple points of view can be engaged at once.

More Advantages:• Awareness of complexity and multiple possibilities.

• Not necessarily one right answer.

• Encourages focus. The more you look the more you see.

• Brings history alive through a different sensory approach. Can help visual learners understand literary texts better.

• Tool for encouraging analysis. Can practice making an assertion and backing it up with evidence.

11th grade: Harlem Renaissance

History- Social Sciences Content Standard:• 11.5: Students analyze the major political,

social, economic, technological, and cultural

developments of the 1920s.

5. Describe the Harlem Renaissance and new trends in literature, music, and art, with special attention to the works of

writers (e.g., Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes).

Ethiopia Awakening (1914)

by Meta Fuller

New York Customs House

(now the New York Museum of the American Indian)

Africa (c.1904) by Daniel Chester French

America (c.1904)

by Daniel Chester French

Asia (c.1904)

by Daniel Chester French

Europe (c.1904) by Daniel Chester French

National American Indian Museum today

The Ascent of Ethiopia (1932)

by Lois Mailou Jones

“The New Negro” (1925)by Alain Locke

Who is Alain Locke?

Philosopher and AuthorProfessor at Howard UniversityAuthor of the manifesto essay

of the Harlem Renaissance

What is a Negro?

• Term used to refer to people of African ancestry. Used in the 20th century through the Civil Rights Movement. The term is no longer acceptable in contemporary speech.

Main Points of the Essay

• New attitude and determination of African Americans

• New interest in African American traditions and African history

• Belief in the beauty and talents of Black people

The Old Negro versus

The New Negro

The Old Negro Characteristics

• Mythology of Black people as backward

• Image of stereotypes of the 19th century (mammy, coon, sambo)

• Caricatures of Black people

• The Black person who believes these myths about himself

The New Negro Characteristics

• Modern

• Has self-respect and self-dependence

• Excited about the future

• Breaks from a past of subservience

• Leads boldly away from the past

The Legacy of the Ancestral Arts (1925)

by Alain Locke

Main Points of the Essay

• African Americans have rich ancestral histories in Africa

• Africans have art traditions

• African art is the rightful heritage of African Americans.

• African Americans should create a distinct art in America influenced by African art

Heritage (1925)by Countee Cullen

Who is Countee Cullen? Prolific poet

Began writing seriously

as a young student Taught French to junior

high school students Wrote about African

American life

Heritagehttp://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jenglish/Courses/Spring02/104/Cullen_Heritage.htm

Main Pointsl

Repeated question “What is Africa to Me?” Imagined exploration of his African ancestry is his

answer to the question. Writes of Africa as a jungle, with wild animals, and

beating drums that torment him. (Where did he get this from?)

Considers religious differences between Africans and African Americans

Torn between his African (Black) and American (White) selves.

Heritage

• Africa a topic for daydreams.• Can discuss with the students that African

Americans were removed from knowledge about their past because of violence of slavery and the distancing of time and geographic space.

• Harlem Renaissance was an opportunity for African Americans to try to connect with a past of which they had no direct experience.

The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain (1926)

Who is Langston Hughes?

• Poet and novelist

• Cultural critic

• Wrote about ordinary

Black people and

Black folk culture

The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain

Main Points

• Value of everyday people

• Critical of middle class African Americans

• Embraces the cultural differences between Blacks and Whites

• Encourages the right of Blacks to have full humanity (to be beautiful and ugly too).

If We Must Die (1919)

Who is Claude McKay? Jamaican immigrant Poet at age 10 Novelist and journalist Wrote about Black life,

violence, and political

injustice

If We Must Die

• Poem that addresses not going down without a fight

• Often discussed in the context of war and most recently in relationship to lynching

• Pride of who you are

• Not afraid to die, but unwilling to die in vain