[Download] "Art As Propaganda: Didacticism and Lived Experience." by Afro-Americans in New York Life and History ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Art As Propaganda: Didacticism and Lived Experience.
- Author : Afro-Americans in New York Life and History
- Release Date : January 01, 2005
- Genre: Social Science,Books,Nonfiction,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 222 KB
Description
W.E. Burghardt Du Bois' essay "Criteria of Negro Art" (1926) is remarkable because in it Du Bois voices what seems to be one of his strongest ideological beliefs, that art should be used for propaganda, and that this apparently ideological use of art can uplift and improve African Americans' social and racial conditions in the American society. However, what is also more interesting is the context or forum through which Du Bois voiced his famous speech. Indeed "Criteria of Negro Art" was originally delivered as a speech or an "address" by Dr. Du Bois at the Chicago Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, in 1926. (3) According to the editor of The Crisis, Du Bois' address was so popular to the extent that "so many people have asked" The Crisis' editor "for the complete text." (4) However, before I discuss the conference's context through which Du Bois delivered what became a landmark speech, I need to elaborate further on why art as propaganda was to become a controversial issue in the Harlem Renaissance. What is significant here is that this kind of propagandist vision of art created a tension between Du Bois, the "talented tenth" and other African American artists who wished to reflect the social, political, and historical realities that many African American citizens experienced. Indeed, many contemporary African American artists' reacted to Du Bois' call, and produced literary works that reveal a deeper ideological rift between the "talented tenth" and many African American artists, play wrights, poets, and novelists.