Aaron Douglas
...s were published in Alain Looke's survey of the Harlem Renaissance, The New Negro. Publisher Looke called Douglas a "pioneering Africanist," and that stamp of praise and approval for the artist influenced future historians to describe Douglas as "the father of Black American art." His fame quickly spread beyond Harlem, and began to mount painting exhibitions in Chicago and Nashville, among the numerous other cities, and to paint murals and historical narratives interpreting black history and racial pride. During the mid- 1920's, Douglas was an important illustrator for Crisis, Vanity Fair, Opportunity, Theatre Arts Monthly, Fire and Harlem. In 1927, after illustrating an anthology of verse by black poets, Caroling Dusk, Douglas completed a series of paintings for poet James Weldon Johnson's book of poems, God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. Douglas's images for the book were inspired by Negro Spirituals, customs of Africans and black history. The series soon to became among the most celebrated of Douglas's work. It defined figures with the language of Synthetic Cubism and borrowed from the lyrical style of Reiss and the forms of African sculpture. Through his drawings for the series, Douglas came close to inventing his own painting style by this combination of elements in his work. During this time, Douglas collaborated with various poets. It was also his desire to capture the black expression through the use of paint. He spent a lot of time watching patrons of area nightclubs in Harlem. Douglas said that most of his paintings that were captured in these particular nightclubs were mainly inspired through music that was played. According to Douglas, the sounds of the music was heard everywhere and were created mostly during the Harlem Renaissance by well-trained artists. Douglas's work was looked upon by most critics as a breath of fresh air. His work symbolized geometric formulas, circles, triangles, rectangles, and squares became the dominant design motifs for Douglas. It was in Douglas's series of paintings called God Trombones that Douglas first expressed his commitment through the use of geometric shapes for Black artists. The faces and limbs in these series of paintings are carefully drawn to reveal African features and recognizable Black poses. In God's Trombones, Douglas achieved his mastery of hard- edge painting using symbolized features and lines. Through his use of these things he was able to bring to life the stiffness in the figures which symbolized Art Deco. But, unlike the decorative programs that exist in Art Deco, most of Douglas's work capitalized on the movement that was influenced by the rhythms of Art Nouveau. Each of the paintings in the God's Trombone series expresses the humanist concerns of Douglas. For example, in Judgment Day, one of the seven Negro sermons Douglas illustrated for James Weldon Johnson, he planned to place emphasize on the positive appearance of Black power. In this painting, Gabriel, who represents the archangel, sounds the trumpet to awaken the dead from their spiritual rest. He is portrayed in this Painting as a lean Black man from whom the last earthly vocal sound is heard. The sound, which is perceived to travel across the world, is the inventive music of the Black man, and his blues. The music, which is perceived to waken all nations, is the song of a bluesman or famous trumpet player. The musician, who is...