Harlem Renaissance Common Thread
To wrap up our overview of the Harlem Renaissance, you will be asked to look more closely at the work of several artists from different media. A lot of the artists from this movement had similar backgrounds and experience, and those ideas found their way into their work. You will be asked to produce a Google slide presentation that addresses a unifying idea that you see running through the works of a writer, visual artist, and musician. Essentially, you are looking for a common theme that comes out, whether it is the message of a poem, the image in a painting, or the lyrics of a song.
For example, you may have a Langston Hughes poem that discusses the social inequality that the speaker experienced in America at the time, a Jacob Lawrence painting from the Migration Series that also depicts that feeling of inequality, and a Bessie Smith lyric that echoes those same feelings.
The list below, while not exhaustive, is a good sampling of the key artists that you may choose from and whose work is easily accessible online. I would also suggest doing a little exploration to find work that you enjoy, or at the very least, stands out to you in some way. Please do not select any work that we have covered as a class.
Influential Figures of the Harlem Renaissance
Writers
Musicians
Artists
Sterling Brown
James Weldon Johnson
Claude McKay
Countee Cullen
Arna Bontemps
Jean Toomer
Georgia Douglas Johnson
Langston Hughes
Zora Neale Hurston
Duke Ellington
Count Basie
Ma Rainey
Bessie Smith
Cab Calloway
Lil Armstrong
James P. Johnson
Billie Holiday
Chick Webb
Fats Waller
Aaron Douglas
Selma Burke
Palmer Hayden
Augusta Savage
James VanDerZee
Lois Mailou Jones
Jacob Lawrence
Richmond Barthé
Charles Alston
Sargent Johnson
Archibald Motley
William Johnson
Meta Warwick Fuller
Requirements:
Slide 1: State the common theme that you have found across the three works of art. This can be worded similarly to a thesis statement, and your following slides will work to prove it.
Ex: In the works of many Harlem Renaissance artists across genres, the idea of remaining resilient in the face of injustice resurfaces in various forms.
Slide 2: Music – Slide should contain samples of the lyrics, a statement of the theme, and specific textual evidence from the song that illustrates the theme.
Slide 3: Art – The slide should contain the image of the art work as well as a detailed discussion of how that artist depicted the theme visually.
Slide 4: Literature – If reasonable, paste the complete poem on the slide; if it is longer, a representative selection of lines will be sufficient. Also, include a discussion of the poem’s key stylistic choices as well as textual evidence and how it illustrates the chosen theme.
For all slides, be sure to explain your thinking. Do not assume that I will see/read the same connections that you did!
As with all slides, consistency of design should be evident, as well as attention to aesthetic appeal – visually interesting without being excessively cluttered.