Analyzing Aaron Douglas’ Art

Aaron Douglas was a prominent painter during the Harlem Renaissance movement. Through his artwork, Douglas hoped to convey the struggles and triumphs of African Americans from their roots in Africa to their modern day fight  for equality. Choose a piece of artwork below to analyze how Douglas hoped to portray that journey through the questions below.

 

 

 

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Aspects of a Negro Life:  Song of the Towers

1. Describe the silhouettes in the painting. Who are they and what emotions do they represent?
2. Describe the background of the painting. I.e. What could the rock formations represent?   How about the stairs?
3. What do you think the goal is of the silhouettes in the painting?

Symbolic Negro History

1. Describe the shadow figure in the painting. What is he or she holding?
2. Describe the background of the painting. What greater meaning could it represent?
3. What could this painting be encouraging African Americans to do?

Building More Stately Mansions

1. Describe the silhouettes in the image? What different professions do they have?
2. Describe the images in the background. How is architecture from the past and present blended?
3. What do you think Aaron Douglas’ message would be for African American innovators of the future?

The Prodigal Son

1. What are the silhouettes of the painting doing? What could they be celebrating?
2. What different aspects of Harlem Renaissance culture are blended?
3. What do you think the overall message of the painting is?

Aspects of a Negro Life: From Slavery Through Reconstruction

1. How are the past, present and future represented through this painting?
2. Describe the shadow figures in this painting. How do they differ in the way they dress and act? Why do you think that is?
3. How does danger and hope exist simultaneously through this picture?

 

 

 

 

Warning Letter Prompt

Prompt: You are going to assume the identity of Joby from “The Drummer Boy of Shiloh,” Ashton from “A Glimpse of Heaven,” or the unnamed child soldier from “Blue Child: A Civil War Poem” and write a letter warning a friend (one of the other characters) about how a certain symbol can serve as a danger in their lives and how you learned the hard way about a symbol in your life.  Remember that a symbol can come in the form of an animal, abstract idea or physical object.

Requirements: 

• Choose one symbol from the short story or poem that you chose.
• Choose one symbol from one additional short story or poem.
• At least 3-4 pieces of textual evidence that show the danger of the two symbols.
• A minimum of 2-3 paragraphs that explain the danger of the two symbols.

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10/31/1861

Dear Ashton:

I risk mailing these letters behind enemy lines because I believe the bond of friendship is stronger than the brute of men who wage this war. I still remember the days in which we picked peaches in your grandmother’s backyard and ate them under the river birch trees while we watched the train chug past the plantation. I still remember the days before our fathers sent us off to the army to enlist in a cause they believed in, but were too old and weak to fight for. That memory helps me dream of days in which you and I are no longer defined by the colors blue and gray. I want you to see those days too, but if you don’t stop avoiding the reality of death like I did, I fear those days will be only bitter, meaningless dreams.

I too feared death before I stepped foot onto the battlefield. I feared death so much that I felt the moths and peach blossoms at my campsite were taunting me with reminders that “nothing had a name” and “nothing was as it once was” (Bradbury 320). The world around me was changing rapidly and I feared that I could be taken from that world at any given moment. I feared that I “was only a toy in a game to be played tomorrow or some day much too soon” (321). Then, I met a General who had reminded me that I was much more than a target because the drummer boy is “‘the heart of the army”‘ and can command an entire army with the single stroke of my drum. He said that if I  upheld my duties and faced death on the front lines, I could tell the story of being the drummer boy at owl creek “‘many years from now”‘ (323).

You need to face death too before it greets you unexpectedly. When you told me in your last letter about the conversation you had with your comrade Kimble on the afterlife, it seemed you were avoiding the conversation of death with him. It seemed you “couldn’t really comprehend what was happening in the war” (Trammell 1). Death represents your inability to accept the process as a natural part of war or life itself. Death represents your inability to “face reality” on the subject (2). You can neither fight death though, nor hide from it, however. You don’t have to accept the idea that there is an afterlife, but you shouldn’t cower from it either.

I hope this letter finds you well before the “sunset never arri[ves]” and you are left to die  “on enemy soil” (6).

Sincerely,

Joby

 

 

Symbol Journal Prompt

Prompt: You are going to assume the identity of Joby from “The Drummer Boy of Shiloh,” Ashton from “A Glimpse of Heaven,” or the unnamed child soldier from “Blue Child: A Civil War Poem” and create a journal entry discussing a symbol that is important to you in your life and how that symbol differs from a friend you met on your journey during The Civil War (one of the other two characters).  Remember that a symbol can come in the form of an animal, abstract idea or physical object.

Requirements: 

• Choose one symbol from the short story or poem that you chose.
• Choose one symbol from one additional short story or poem.
• At least 3-4 pieces of textual evidence that show the importance of the two symbols.
• A minimum of 2-3 paragraphs that explain the importance of the two symbols.

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10/31/1861

Dear Journal:

I fear as if I do not have much time left. I spend my waking moments knowing that time is precious and when I fall asleep tonight, I may not wake in the morning.  I have known this cold reality since I developed an infection on the battlefield a few weeks ago. The medical personnel in my regiment told me I would have to wait like the other blacks on the front lines in order to receive treatment. Once I waited too long and the infection spread,  I abandoned my regiment in order to find refuge in the home of my former master whose wife is a nurse. The thought of coming face to face with him again caused many sleepless, miserable nights, but I swallowed my pride and dragged my ailing body to his doorstep. While my former master was bewildered to see me, he and his wife reluctantly  decided to take me in because they felt indebted to my years of service. Now, I write from an old, withered bed with only an old friend’s story about his drum and the touch of my blue uniform to keep me going.

During my travels with the Union army, I met a 14-year-old drummer boy by the name of Joby on the eve before the Battle of Gettysburg. Although we are the same age, he stands barely half my size and is scrawnier than a field mouse. Joby, nonetheless, banged his drum as if he were a giant and carried himself that way too. Growing more ill and weary by the minute from my infection, I begged Joby to tell me how he managed to carry himself so tall. Without hesitation, he informed me that by carrying his drum, he represented “‘the heart of the army”‘ (Bradbury 322). With a single stroke of that drum, he could command an entire army and see the “waves [of men] rolling [into battle] like a  well-ordered calvary” (323).  He possessed so much power in  a single instrument. Before I left on the journey to my former master’s home, Joby reminded me that I needed to find that one special symbol like his drum so I could stand as tall as him during my travels.

As I lay here with “expiring eyes,” I am weak, but know that I am not “wearing the burden of blue” like my former master believes I am (Gotthardt 19,22). When I escaped for my freedom, I was “freer” than he was (17). I was free from the mindset that slavery is a necessary evil. I was free from the plantation he will have to tend to without his slaves. Soon, I may be free from the ignorant people of this world. If I die soon though, I know the color blue will still live on in the hearts and minds of many men and women like me. If I die soon, I know the color blue will echo its cries of freedom loudly throughout this great nation. Blue is not a burden. Blue is hope. Blue is freedom. Blue is the color of empathy that allowed my former master to see that my tears “look[ed] like his” (2).  Blue is the color that will help the world look at their darker brothers for the flesh and blood they share.