Aaron Douglass Aspiration

“A picture is worth a thousand words,” is a common thought of art examiners. Nonetheless, people may not realize that art’s words extend beyond the canvas. A painting converses with an admirer about its artistic qualities, but it says much more. The words a painting evokes describe the social, economic, and political conditions of its time. Aspiration (1936) (Figure 1), a piece created in the United States by native Aaron Douglas, follows this ideology. This piece not only portrays Douglas’ own African-American heritage but also the wider political, economic, and artistic values of the first half of the twentieth century. After World War I, the world questioned humanity with a sense of nihilism. The war mandated soldiers of various countries
The Work’s Progress Administration’s support of public art projects like Douglas’ demonstrates it was supportive of the Harlem Renaissance and the new embrace of culture after World War I. Aspiration (1936) depicts three elevated individuals, two males and one female, looking and moving onward towards a technologically advanced society of tall buildings and factories. They are moving toward this future, which Douglas painted under a star’s resounding light, with the tools of education. The book in the woman’s hand, the ruler and compass in the man’s hands, and the globe on the far left foreground signifies how these individuals are taking their knowledge with them into an industrialized society. Douglas employs the use of geometric angles throughout the skyline, which coincides with the post-World War I idea of using shape as a common language. Yet, his piece is primarily naturalistic in a variety of
While the three main figures travel to an advanced society, they leave behind those who are who are in chains. The ethnicities of these two economic classes are not completely clear, but the viewer can assume the painting contrasts the social positions of enslaved African Americans and free whites. Douglas was a prominent African-American leader of the Harlem Renaissance (Coleman, n.d.). In addition, he painted the hands of the slaves with a darker tone than the bodies of the individuals that are free. While this painting was effective in renewing awareness of the plight of the African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance, the idea that Douglas did not give the people a definite ethnicity allows the work to last beyond its