A SHADOW OF THE SELF: THE ARCHETYPE OF THE SHADOW IN AARON
DOUGLAS'S ILLUSTRATIONS FOR JAMES WELDON JOHNSON'S
GOD'S TROMBONES
by
ANNE G. HARRIS
A THESIS
Presented to the Department of Art History
and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Master of Arts
March 2010
11
"A Shadow of the Self: The Archetype of the Shadow in Aaron Douglas's
Illustrations for James Weldon Johnson's God's Trombones," a thesis
prepared by Anne G. Harris in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
Master of Arts degree in the Department of Art History. This thesis has been
approved and accepted by:
Date
Committee in Charge:
Accepted by:
Dr. W. Sherwin Simmons, Chair
Dr. Kate Mondloch
Dr. Karen Ford
Dean of the Graduate School
111
An Abstract of the Thesis of
Anne G. Harris for the degree of Master of Arts
in the Department of Art History to be taken March 2010
Title: A SHADOW OF THE SELF: THE ARCHETYPE OF THE SHADOW IN
AARON DOUGLAS'S ILLUSTRATIONS FOR JAMES WELDON
JOHNSON'S GOD'S TROMBONES
Approved:
Dr. W. ~}lerwin Simmons
In 1927, James Weldon Johnson published God's Trombones: Seven
Negro Sermons in Verse, a book of poems based on sermons heard in the
African American Church. There are eight accompanying illustrations by Aaron
Douglas. These images visually interpret the subject matter of the poems in a
style that blends Cubism, Orphism, and Art Deco. Douglas depicted all the
figures in these images, human and supernatural, in the form of shadow
silhouettes, a stylistic practice he continued throughout his artistic career. The
shadow is an ancient archetype in human mythology and psychology. This
thesis looks at the depiction of shadows in a Jungian context. I explore the
possibility that the use of the shadow allows deeper communication between
the audience and the image by accessing the collective unconscious. I also
examine the shadow as a metaphor for the socio-political oppression of African
Americans rampant in the period between the wars.
CURRICULUM VITAE
NAME OF AUTHOR: Anne G. Harris
PLACE OF BIRTH: San Francisco, California
DATE OF BIRTH: July 4, 1980
GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED:
University of Oregon, Eugene
University of California, Davis
DEGREES AWARDED:
Master of Arts, Art History, 2010, University of Oregon
Bachelor of Arts, English, 2002, University of California, Davis
AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST:
African American Art
Polynesian Art
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
Graduate Teaching Fellow, Visual Resources Center, University of
Oregon, Eugene, 2007
IV
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
A SHADOW OF THE SELF............. 1
BIBLIOGRAPHy..... 59
v
VI
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1. Baseball Cartoon from the San Francisco Chronicle 15
2. Egyptian Papyrus.................................................................................. 18
3. Dan Mask from the Ivory Coast............ 19
4. The Process of Creating a Silhouette 25
5. A Diagram of Facial Profiles 26
6. Listen, Lord-A Prayer 32
7. The Creation......................................................................................... 34
8. The Prodigal Son 37
9. Go Down Death--A Funeral Sermon...................................................... 41
10.Noah Built the Ark................................................................................ 44
11.The CrucifIxion..................................................................................... 47
12.Let My People Go 51
13.The Judgment Day................................................................................ 54
IA SHADOW OF THE SELF
The dates of the Harlem Renaissance vary depending on the source. The
movement began after the end of World War I, when African American soldiers
who fought overseas, and experienced a more racially egalitarian society,
returned to America and were confronted with prejudice and violence.l The
leaders of the African American community, including W.E.B. DuBois, Alain
Locke, and James Weldon Johnson, responded with the New Negro movement,
the idea that fostering and developing unique African American culture and art
could help to remove the oppression and negative perceptions placed on African
Americans at the time. David Levering Lewis describes the Harlem Renaissance
as a "... forced phenomenon, a cultural nationalism of the parlor, institutionally
encouraged and directed by the leaders of the national civil rights
establishment for the paramount purpose of improving race relations in a time
of extreme national backlash... "2 The New Negro artistic movement flowed
through the 1920s, slowing when the financial crisis hit in 1929. The Harlem
Renaissance ended during the Great Depression, many citing 1935, when
Harlem experienced riots, as the final year, though, again, the dates are
1 Mark Robert Schneider, African Americans in the Jazz Age: A Decade of Struggle and
Promise (Lanham, M.D.: Rowan and Littlefield Publishers, 2006), 7.
2 David Levering Lewis, ed., The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader (New York:
Penguin Books, 1994), xiii.
2
debatable.3 The Harlem Renaissance included all varieties of cultural
expression: music, dance, painting and drawing, sculpture, poetry, literature,
drama, and editorial prose.
One of the most well-known Harlem Renaissance painters and
illustrators is Aaron Douglas. The work of Aaron Douglas has always interested
me, especially in the broader context of the artistic flourishing of the post-World
War I period. After reading Johnson's God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons
in Verse and seeing the accompanying images, I was fascinated by how the
illustrations functioned in a larger cultural context. Looking into the topic, I
found these images, along with many of his other illustrations, to be less
researched and discussed than his murals and paintings. In the multiple
copies of a book, they would have been more widely available to both an African
American and a white American audience and their impact would have been
greater. These images needed to be further explored and more seriously
considered.
Aaron Douglas was born in Kansas in 1899 and is one of the most
celebrated artists of the Harlem Renaissance. He studied art in college,
receiving his BFA from the University of Kansas in 1923. He then taught art in
high school before moving to New York in 1925.4 Once in New York, he was
introduced to Winold Reiss, who became an important mentor. Right away,
Douglas did drawings and illustrations for magazines and books. His images
3 Lewis, xv.
4 Romare Bearden and Harry Henderson, A History ofAfrican-American Artists from
1792 to the Present (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), 127.
3
for Johnson's God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sennons in Verse are an example
of this early work. 5 Douglas also did murals and continued his studies as the
New Negro movement progressed. He traveled to Pennsylvania and Paris to
study, and traveled in Tennessee and Chicago while completing commissions. 6
Douglas articulated his main intentions as wanting "to establish and maintain
recognition of our essential humanity, in other words, complete social and
political equality."7 This objective facilitated his participation in the Harlem
Renaissance, which strove to utilize art to eliminate racism and prejudice. As
can be seen in his illustrations for God's Trombones, Douglas intended his work
to "present a unified portrait of black people in relation to their spirituality."
Douglas purposely utilized mythic symbols to facilitate communication between
the races.8
James Weldon Johnson, originally from Florida, was a well-known leader
in the New Negro movement. Immensely talented, Johnson practiced law,
started a newspaper, wrote musicals and songs, acted as an official United
States diplomat, was head of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, and wrote novels and collections of poetry, including God's
Trombones: Seven Negro Sennons in Verse in 1927.9 God's Trombones was
5 Bearden, 128.
6 Ibid., 130.
7 Ibid., 132-3.
8 Ibid., 134.
9 Lewis, 753.
4
extremely popular and the verses were often read or recited at large artistic
and literary gatherings in Harlem. 10
In Europe during the period between the wars, the ideas of Freud and his
followers were well known and widely accepted. William A. Shack notes that
"during these 'crazy years' of 1919-1929... surrealism, gaiety, and bodily
abandonment swept aside old ideas of dignity and tradition... Freud's advice to
get rid of inhibitions was accepted... "l1 It was during that decade that artists
and writers from Harlem traveled to Paris and other parts of Europe to live and
study, including Aaron Douglas.
Jung began developing the concept of the shadow self in 1913, when he
was still amicably involved with Freud and Freudian practice and theory. 12 The
behaviors, thoughts, and urges that a person has that are not acceptable to
society are rejected, but they do not disappear. They remain a part of the self,
stored in a part of the psyche known as the shadow. It is the embodiment of all
that a person represses. "Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is
embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is .. .it is
repressed and isolated from consciousness... [it] is liable to burst forth suddenly
in a moment of unawareness."13 Jung continued to expand upon this initial
formulation throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. 14
10 Ibid., 754.
11 William A. Shack, Harlem in Montmartre: A Paris Jazz Story between the Great Wars
(Berkeley, C.A.: University of California Press, 2001), 50.
12 Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, ed. Aniela Jaffe, trans. Richard and
Clara Winston (New York: Pantheon, 1962), 181.
13 Carl Jung, "The History and Psychology of a Natural Symbol," in The Collected Works
of C. G. Jung: Psychology and Religion: West and East, Vol. 11, ed. Sir Herbert Read,
5
It is Jung's concept of the shadow that will inform part of my
exploration of Douglas's images. I will be examining Douglas's use of the
shadow as a visual symbol in his illustrations as well as how the shadow in
these works of art acts as an archetype to help access the viewers' unconscious
minds, another Jungian concept. Jung's concepts provide a way to analyze the
images, but I do not want to claim a formal Jungian analysis, as I am far from
knowledgeable enough to do one. Another part of my approach is to look at
how the interplay of light and dark in the illustrations could communicate ideas
of racial equality as outlined by the leaders of the New Negro movement. I will
explore how the use of the shadow and the use of the combinations of dark and
light in the visual representations communicate Harlem Renaissance ideals.
The Harlem Renaissance was a concentrated blossoming of the arts in
the years in between the World Wars. Houston A. Baker, Jr. defined this idea of
'renaissancism' as a "spirit of nationalistic engagement that begins with
intellectuals, artists, and spokespersons at the turn of the century and receives
extensive definition and expression during the 1920s. This spirit is one that
prompts the black artist's awareness that his or her only possible foundation
for authentic and modern expressivity resides in a discursive field marked by
Michael Fordham, Gerhard Adler, and William McGuire (New York: Bollingen
Foundation, 1958), 76.
14 Jung discussed the shadow in several essays including "Psychotherapists or the
Clergy" in 1932, "A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity" in 1948, and
"The Shadow" in 1951. The first two essays can be found in The Collected Works ofe.G.
Jung: Psychology and Religion: West and East, Vol. 11. The final one can be found in
The Collected Works of e. G. Jung: Aion, Vol. 9, Part II
6
formal mastery... "15 Along those lines, an important factor in the burgeoning
artistic production and recognition of African American artists was the idea that
achievement in the arts could establish a collective, proud racial identity for
African Americans while correcting the prejudicial and oppressive treatment
that was common in America during that time period. As Amy Helene Kirschke
has stated, "white power was maintained by telling history through white
historical memory."16 The leaders of the African American cultural world
believed that art could visually reclaim African American history and express it
in a way that was powerful, uplifting, and dignified. W.E.B. DuBois, Alain
Locke, and others urged young artists to look to their artistic heritage as they
saw it: African artistic traditions and the rural folk-culture that developed in
America. By appropriating the themes, designs, and iconographies of the past,
African Americans could create a collective identity that instilled racial pride
and participated equally in American life.
But African American art, like all the other art of the period, was not
created, viewed, and interpreted in a vacuum. The Harlem Renaissance artists,
while actively part of the New Negro movement and its racial aims, were also
American artists and beyond that part of the international artistic community
during the 1920's. They operated within the context of the stated objectives of
the Harlem Renaissance, but also within the post-World War I atmosphere
present in America and Europe. They were a part of all the artistic changes and
15 Houston A. Baker, Jr., Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1987), 91.
16 Amy Helene Kirschke, Art in Crisis: W.E.B. DuBois and the Struggle for African
American Identity and Memory (Bloomington, LN.: Indiana University Press, 2007), 6.
7
experimentation that flourished globally, as well as the various traditions,
motifs, and styles that had been explored and practiced for millennia. To be
able to understand the art of the Harlem Renaissance in the broadest way, it
must be analyzed in multiple ways: as African American art created by an
oppressed portion of American society to further the advancement of a
segregated race; as American art showing the influences of American art trends,
the fascination with the idea of "the exotic," the issues raised by participation in
a devastating war, the social atmosphere of a shifting demographic, and the
beginnings of American experimentation with visual abstraction; and finally, as
a part of the changing context of the global art world, incorporating various
themes, methods, materials, and psychological processes.
In the first half of the 20th century, the written word and the visual arts
both began to explore non-realistic expression. Stream of consciousness
novels; cubist paintings and collages; poems filled with angst, vulgarity, and
free-form verse--all danced within the new context of globalization, nationalism,
disillusionment, and celebration. This was also the period of the widening of
psychoanalytic psychology's influence. Sigmund Freud and his disciples
introduced ideas of the subconscious, neuroses, psychoses, the unconscious,
and the experience of repression and sublimation into the culture of the
Western world.
Carl Jung, once a favorite disciple of Freud, developed these ideas
further on his own, exploring notions of a collective unconscious and mythical
universal archetypes that provided symbols and stories to modern man's
myths. He then related these ideas to the practice of art. The issue of the
interaction between art and psychology was discussed in his 1922 essay "On
the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry": "Although the two things
cannot be compared, the close connections which undoubtedly exist between
them call for investigation. These connections arise from the fact that the
practice of art is a psychological activity and, as such, can be approached from
a psychological angle."17 This psychological angle can be applied to a locally-
produced work of art, facilitating an analysis that stretches beyond one group
or location.
Jung's psychological approach has supported the idea of a collective
mythic unconscious, which can be explored by comparative mythology and
frequently supported through references to works of art. The key underlying
concept of common or global myths is the idea that all human societies share
basic, inherited archetypes and archetypal stories that repeat across time.
These myths and characters common to human culture are then depicted in
visual and verbal symbols, in literature, music, and art. Joseph Campbell
states that "symbols stem from the psyche; they speak from and to the
spirit... they are in fact the vehicles of communication between the deeper
depths of our spiritual life and this relatively thin layer of consciousness by
which we govern our daylight existences... Out of the myths, cultural forms are
founded."18 Art is a vehicle for the mythic tradition, communicating with both
the present and the past:
17 Carl Jung, "On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry," in The Spirit in Man,
Art, and Literature, trans. R.F.C. Hull (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1972),65.
18 Joseph Campbell, Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation, ed.
David Kudler (Novato, C.A.: New World Library, 2004), 23-4.
8
9
But to this end communicative signs must be employed:
words, images, motions, rhythms, colors, and perfumes,
sensations of all kinds, which, however, come to the creative
artist from without and inevitably bear associations, not only
colored by the past but also relevant to the commerce of the
day. 19
Art communicates on a personal level, on a societal level, and on a cross-
cultural level, commenting on the present while accessing the past.
In God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse, James Weldon
Johnson looked to the local religious traditions of the South to create his
poems. His inspiration was drawn from folk sermons common within the
African American Christian church, "sermons," Johnson explained, "that
passed with only slight modifications from preacher to preacher and from
locality to locality."20 This subject matter appears on the surface to be local and
racially specific in impact; it is an American collection of poems based on
African American religious interpretations. However, by selecting Christian
subject matter for his poems, Johnson broadens the scope of his expression.
Christian myth has played a part in the visual and poetic language of much of
the Western world for millennia. Any use of this subject immediately and
inexorably connects Johnson to a large portion of Western society and Western
psyches.
To illustrate the book, Johnson enlisted the services of Aaron Douglas, a
painter and illustrator well-known in the Harlem publishing world. Douglas's
eight illustrations not only provided imagery for these poems and their
19 Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Creative Mythology (New York: Penguin, 1991),
93.
20 James Weldon Johnson, God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (New York:
Penguin Books, 1990), 1.
10
Christian subjects, but they visually and symbolically expanded on Johnson's
mythological verses. The eight illustrations depicting Christian myths and
practices became a part of a vast mythic and artistic tradition.
God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse was published in 1927
by the Viking Press in New York. Aaron Douglas provided an image for each of
the verses and for the prayer that began the volume. The volume started, after
a preface by Johnson, with "Listen, Lord--A Prayer," included to "factor in the
creation of atmosphere."21 This was then followed with verses entitled "The
Creation," "The Prodigal Son," "Go Down Death--A Funeral Sermon," "Noah
Built the Ark," "The Crucifixion," "Let My People Go," and "The Judgment Day."
The book was well-received, praised by the critics, including W.E.B. DuBois
who stated that Douglas's illustrations were "wild with beauty, unconventional,
daringly and yet effectively done."22 Douglas himself considered these works to
be his best up to that point and later reworked the images as full-color
paintings on masonite. These were the only early illustrations that Douglas
revisited in this manner.23
Each of these eight illustrations demonstrated Douglas's blending
elements of the traditions of the African, the African American, and the
Christian experience. The original illustrations published in 1927 were full-
page images placed on the page facing the beginning of each verse. They were
colored in tonal gradations of black and white. The figures in the images were
21 Johnson, 11.
22 Caroline Goeser, Picturing the New Negro: Harlem Renaissance Print Culture and
Modern Black Identity (Lawrence, K.S.: University of Kansas Press, 2007), 152.
23 Goeser, 167.
11
all depicted in silhouettes, mirroring the flatness of the text on the facing
pages. Douglas utilized a halftone process to create the images. 24
Douglas utilized settings, figures, and symbols from Africa in his
pictures to illustrate the racial heritage of African Americans all the way back to
Biblical times. Douglas's art must be viewed in triplicate. The illustrations
were paired with text drawn from African American folk culture as it was in the
early 20th century demonstrating local and racial relevance. They incorporated
plentiful visual references to Africa and elements of African arts, along with
traditional Christian imagery. The style in which Douglas worked references
the artistic developments of the period as well as incorporating Jungian
psychological concepts that were issuing from Europe. Each of these analytic
areas contributed to the effectiveness of the images. His work successfully
demonstrates the artistic attitudes put forth by the Harlem Renaissance
leaders, reflects social and emotional situations present in America, and creates
a group heritage through the intricate melange of his visual vocabulary.
Jung, when applying his analytic process to art, stated:
all pictoral [sic.] representations of processes and effects in the
psychic background are symbolic. They point, in a rough and
approximate way, to a meaning that for the time being is unknown.
It is, accordingly, altogether impossible to determine anything with
any degree of certainty in a single, isolated instance.25
Jung correctly asserts that there is no possible way to ascertain precisely what
a painting means. The viewers each have their own individual interaction with
the work; the artist is as unreliable an asserter of meaning as the audience. A
24 Ibid., 166.
25 Carl Jung, "Picasso" in The Spirit in Man, Art, and Literature (see note 17), 136.
12
work is created in one context but viewed in many. The meaning is variable
and that variability is continually changing with time. An exploration of
artwork, as will be done here with Douglas's illustrations, is just that: an
exploration. The meaning cannot be concretely stated, but it can be discussed
and propositions made. This thesis will concern itself with a discussion of
possible racial and historical implications of the images and the psychological
and mythological references within the pictures that connect these works to a
larger collective tradition. The images will be viewed within the context of the
New Negro movement. They will be considered in relation to the goals and
proscriptions outlined by the leaders of the "talented tenth"26 in regards to art
and literature. The analysis will also expand into the socio-historical context of
the intra-war period, considering the impact that would have been made in a
segregated society.
Some of the terms utilized in this analysis will seem overly general or
potentially offense in their lack of nuance. Any discussion involving the
thoughts or behaviors of more than one person will raise the issue of the
veracity and usefulness of collective terminology. Groups are made of
individuals and as such cannot ever truly be said to have one opinion or belief
and socially constructed delineations are often misleading, naIve, or obsolete.
Terms I will be using, such as "African American community" or "Western
26 W.E.B. DuBois conceived of the term "the talented tenth" to describe the top ten
percent of the African American population that were educated and middle class as well
as potential artistic, social, or political leaders. This group he called upon to, as Sharon
F. Patton states in African American Art, "lead the way, and consequently prove their
worthiness as American citizens, and provide role models for less fortunate African
Americans." Sharon F. Patton, African American Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1998), 114.
13
Christian tradition" have these problems of generalization. However, as this
thesis involves race, local communities, and religious groups and traditions,
terms inherently prone to controversy have to be employed. I have tried to work
within the context of the material I am using: the African American community
as it was thought of by the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance; the traditions
and religious practices as they were viewed by the artists articulating them; the
racial groupings and labels as they were applied contemporary to the period.
In the first essay in The New Negro, Alain Locke discussed the developing
culture of African Americans at the time, drawing both on America and Africa
as sources of black artistic lineage. Harlem, he claimed, was the center of the
"sense of a mission of rehabilitating the race in world esteem from that loss of
prestige for which fate and conditions of slavery have so largely been
responsible."27 The "New Negro" embodied the African American imbued with
racial consciousness and pride, making social and political contributions, living
without the inner psychology of an oppressed race. The New Negro was "keenly
responsive as an augury of a new democracy in American culture."28 He was a
product of both Africa and America and was an active participant in both
heritages.
Locke extended this definition into the field of artistic influence. In his
essay "The Negro Youth Speaks," also in The New Negro, Locke urged the
developing generation of artists to utilize their "instinctive love and pride of
27 Alain Locke, "The New Negro," in The New Negro (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1997), 14.
28 Ibid., 9.
14
race" to "offer through art an emancipating vision to America." The New
Negro artist, by Locke's definition, had an "ardent respect and love of Africa, the
motherland." By drawing upon domestic and African sources, "the brands and
wounds of social persecution are being the proud stigmata of spiritual
immunity and moral victory."29 The African American, as today's racial label
suggests, was the product of both Africa and America. Incorporating elements
of both cultures, Locke suggested, enabled the artist and his audience to
change prevailing perceptions of race, allowing a more positive definition of the
"negro" and ultimately activating positive changes in society. The African
American culture could trace its lineage back to Africa, beyond the suffering
experienced in America, allowing the population to overcome racial obstacles.
While the rediscovery of African heritage was highly advocated by the
leading intellectuals of the movement, whatever course the artistic journey took,
the ultimate goal was one of art inspiring social change and progress. The
images of African Americans in American art of the 1920s and 1930s were rife
with stereotypes and caricatures: large, colored lips; protruding eyes;
excessively large smiles with bright, white teeth; awkward physicality of figures;
and frequent dancing or expressions of confusion in the figures' movements
(Figure 1).30
29 Locke, "The Negro Youth Speaks," in The New Negro (see note 27), 53.
30 This line of thought is developed much more thoroughly in Phoebe Wolfskill's article
"Caricature and the New Negro in the Work of Archibald Motley Jr. and Palmer Hayden"
in The Art Bulletin 91 (Sept. 2009): 343-365.
15
"1l\J~ ,
~"I" I
~It"f <d'(\:
:t;Ir.
~.k-i
i"·.'~·'~·'II.~ -t-~"
~ -.
,:-oc .
.... /
~'{F,
Figure 1. Baseball Cartoon from the October 11, 1924 San Francisco
Chronic1e31
It was these culturally popular and racially detrimental representations that
prompted Locke to advocate the usefulness of African American artists
depicting their subjects as capable, complex people instead of propagating the
exaggeration and distortion common to the time. He writes in his book Negro
Art: Past and Present of 1936:
31 Authentic History Center, "Stereotypes of African Americans: Essays and Images," the
Authentic History Center, http:j jwww.authentichistory.comjdiversity j africanj
engravings j 0 1.htm!.
16
There is a double duty and function to Negro art--and by that
we mean the proper development of the Negro subject as an
artistic theme--the role of interpreting the Negro in the American
scene to America at large is important, but more important still if
the interpretation of the Negro to himself... the Negro's own
conception of himself has been warped by prejudice and the
common American stereotypes. To these there is no better or
(more) effective antidote than a more representative Negro art of
wider range and deeper penetration.32
This was the context of the God's Trombones illustrations in the local
microcosm, within the African American community. The images should
function to uplift and inspire the African American race. Their effect upon
American society at large is secondary.
Aaron Douglas moved to Harlem in 1925, in the early years of the New
Negro movement, and played an important role in creating a new artistic
identity of African Americans, utilizing the suggested methods of the Harlem
Renaissance intelligentsia. Early on, he was introduced to Winold Reiss, a
German artist who took great interest in ethnography and artistically
representing racial groups.33 Reiss urged Douglas to consider African art as the
racial heritage of African Americans. Both Reiss and Locke, with whom
Douglas also became acquainted, advocated African art, along with Douglas's
own experiences, as sources for him to draw upon. 34 Douglas studied African
art and even did a year-long internship with the Barnes Foundation and its
extensive African art collection.35
32 Alain Locke, Negro Art: Past and Present (Albany, N.Y.: J.B. Lyon Press, 1936), 12.
33 Amy Helene Kirschke, Aaron Douglas: Art, Race, and the Harlem Renaissance
(Jackson, M.S.: University Press of Mississippi, 1995), 28.
34 Ibid., 29.
35 Ibid., 45.
17
The continuous influence of African culture can be seen in Douglas's
works, as can African American culture. While Africa presented an artistic
heritage, Douglas was a thoroughly modern American. Douglas believed the
African American artist should "transmit the African suggestion through the
medium of his own personality and background."36 Douglas utilized aspects of
modernism and African art in combination with the African American
experience to create a unique artistic style that came to embody the New Negro
movement.
Douglas q.escribed his own style as follows: "1 wanted to create something
new and modern...with Art Deco and the other things that were taking the
country by storm. That is how 1 came upon the notion of using a number of
things such as Cubism and a style with straight lines."37 Douglas blended
elements from the global art scene, such as Art Deco, Cubism, and Orphism,
and incorporated geometric design elements and African iconography to create
his individual brand of African American modernism.38 A variety of terms have
been used to label Douglas's stylistic amalgamation and the one that suits best,
in my opinion, is "Afro-Deco," coined by Richard Powell.39 Douglas's figures
were admittedly deliberate appropriations from African art (Figure 2). "1 used
36 Mary Ann Calo, Distinction and Denial: Race, Nation, and the Critical Construction of
the African American Artist, 1920-1940 (Ann Arbor, M.l.: University of Michigan Press,
2007), 145.
37 David C. Driskell, "Some Observations on Aaron Douglas as Tastemaker in the
Renaissance Movement," in Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist, ed. Susan Earle
(New Haven, C.T.: Yale University Press, 2007), 89-90.
38 Renee Ater "Creating a 'Usable Past' and a 'Future Perfect Society': Aaron Douglas's
Murals for the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition" in Aaron Douglas: African American
Modernist (see note 37), 106.
39 Goeser, 18.
18
the Egyptian form," Douglas explained, "the head was in profile flat view, the
body, shoulders down to the waist turned halfway, the legs were done also from
the side and the feet were also done in a broad perspective."40
Figure 2. Egyptian Papyrus (c. 1400 B.C.E.)41
Douglas also used stylized slit-eyes in his figures (Figure 3). This artistic
convention was borrowed from African masks, most likely the masks of the Dan
peoples of the Ivory Coast and Liberia. 42
40 Ater, 106.
41 Victor I. Stoichita, A Short History of the Shadow (London: Reaktion Books, 1997), 13.
42 Amy Helene Kirschke, "The Fisk Murals Revealed: Memories of Africa, Hope for the
Future," in Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist (see note 37), 116.
Figure 3. Dan Mask from the Ivory Coast43
Elements of African scenery, flora, and fauna can also be seen in some of the
illustrations. Douglas became a leader in the advocated practice of
incorporating African art into Harlem Renaissance art.
43 Jennifer Eisele, "Multicultural Resource Center," Saint Paul Public Schools,
http://www.mrc.spps.org.
19
20
While the utilization of African motifs may have been a deliberate act
by Douglas in accordance with the New Negro movement's artistic philosophies,
it was also an act which draws upon the collective unconscious and links
mythic traditions through their visual symbols. The African arts that
influenced Douglas, namely the Egyptian and West African, are ancient artistic
traditions. Africa is the birthplace of the human race. The myths and
corresponding images that arose from that continent are among some of the
oldest in the world. By transferring them into a modern context, the symbols
are reoriented while still visually triggering a connection to the unconscious
residing within the audience's minds.
The Egyptian form is one of the most prominent appropriations utilized
by Douglas, and is seen in each of the illustrations he completed for God's
Trombones. This borrowing seems especially appropriate for illustrations of
Christian myths. Jung stated, "the Christian era owes its name and
significance to another antique mystery, that of the god-man, which has its
roots in the archetypal Osiris-Horus myth of ancient Egypt."44 The Christian
mythic tradition developed out of several ancient systems, including those from
Africa. Jung also believed the use of religious material could be utilized also to
heal a split within society of the time. "Archetypes create myths, religions, and
philosophical ideas that influence and set their stamp on whole nations and
epochs...myths of a religious nature can be interpreted as a sort of mental
44 Carl Jung, quoted in Robert A. Segal, Encountering Jung: Jung ofMythology
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998), 95.
21
therapy for the sufferings of mankind... "45 Jung's theory on the healing
power of myth is copasetic with the aims of the New Negro movement. Art,
which depicts myths and their symbols, can be used to heal the social rifts
between races as well as to redress the sufferings of a portion of the population
and uplift them.
Another "guideline" for New Negro artists was the use and complimentary
depiction of African American folk culture as it was viewed by the participants
of the New Negro movement. Johnson's folk sermon poems are an example of
the glorification of African American culture. The introduction Johnson penned
for the book explains his deliberate use of a neglected part of African American
culture: "A good deal has been written on the folk creations of the American
Negro: his music, sacred and secular; his plantation tales, and his dances; but
that there are folk sermons, as well, is a fact that has passed unnoticed."46 All
these aspects of the culture along with the people who practiced them were
subject to comic depictions, exploitations, or caricatures. Johnson, in a
manner that would have greatly pleased Locke, took the "old-time Negro
preacher" who had only been shown as a "semi-comic figure" and introduced
him to the world as serious and important part to African American life.
Johnson argues that "it was through him that the people of diverse languages
and customs who were brought here from diverse parts of Africa and thrown
into slavery were given their first sense of unity and solidarity. He was the first
45 Ibid.
46 Johnson, 1.
22
shepherd of this bewildered flock."47 Johnson takes a neglected and
misrepresented part of African American history and uses it to promote a
positive and inspirational image to both his white and black readers.
The subject of the poems and images, the African American church, was
a pervasive part of many African Americans' lives, and thus a theme that was
easily identified with by a large portion of black readers. It was also a common
African American cultural tradition recognized by American white society.
DuBois stated that "The Negro church of to-day is the social centre of Negro life
in the United States, and the most characteristic expression of African
character."48 As multiple parts of the American population would be familiar
with the importance of the church to the African American community, the use
by Johnson of church sermons for poetic versification was an effective way to
communicate ideas of New Negro art to a broad audience. God's Trombones
was published by Viking Press, which was a national, white-run publishing
company. The audience of the book thus included both African American and
white American readers.
The images that illustrated these poems are intimately related to the
subject matter and thus to the source of the verses. Douglas created pictures
that would be forever tied to African American folk culture, while being
available to America as whole. Most of the images focused on Biblical scenes,
which could be viewed in a local or a broader Western context, but as they are
literally bound to folk-based poems, they will, at least superficially, be viewed in
47 Ibid., 2.
48 W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls ofBlack Folk, ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Terri Hume
Oliver (New York: Norton and Company, 1999), 121.
23
the New Negro/African American tradition. By simply creating such images
as illustrations, regardless of the content, Douglas endorsed the Harlem
Renaissance theories of racial advancement through art.
W.E.B. DuBois's writings shaped a great deal of the explanations and the
aims of the New Negro movement. In The Souls ofBlack Folk, DuBois posits his
theory of the veil of double-consciousness felt by African Americans:
After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton
and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a
veil, gifted with second-sight in this American world, -a world
which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see
himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar
sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking
at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by
the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.
One ever feel his two-ness, -an American, a Negro; two souls, two
thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one
dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn
asunder.49
The idea of a second self and a darkness that covers the true self of an
oppressed and misunderstood man conceptually coincides with the concept of a
repressed shadow self. In fact, DuBois frequently compared the African
American to a shadow. He stated that heritage of the black race contains "the
shadow of a mighty Negro past."50 The current situation of the black man is
dark due to the presence of "the shadow of a vast despair."51 DuBois's personal
memories are colored by the "awful shadow of the veil."52 The power of this
visual metaphor was vast. This concept of the shadow self, the double of a man
49Ibid., 10-11.
50 Ibid.
51 Ibid., 14.
52 Ibid., 48.
24
who contains all that society hates and shuns, was also conceptualized by
Jung and his followers. This image of an oppressed shadow figure is a mythic
archetype and the depiction of shadow figures could facilitate the viewer's
access to a pan-human unconsciousness.
Many parts of the world associated the shadow/silhouette with black
people. Just as many young Harlem Renaissance artists traveled to France to
study and to experience a place without Jim Crow laws, many of the New York
jazz musicians toured in France and settled in Paris. The clubs that sprung up
in Montmartre marketed themselves to capitalize on the popularity of Jazz and
its predominantly black musicians. The names reflected this fascination with
the idea of the New Negro and his culture: Swing Club, Cotton Club, The Don
Juan, Big Apple, and Club Harlem.53 One of these clubs was La Silhouette,
located in "the heart of... Harlem in Montmartre."54 The image of the silhouette
was linked closely enough to black culture that the Parisian public would
understand the association. The implied blackness in a shadow or a silhouette
was a universal concept, stretching across New York, America, and even the
Atlantic Ocean.
The shadow and the silhouette, essentially a depiction of one's shadow,
have been associated with lower classes and oppressed people for hundreds of
years in Western societies and their cultural traditions. "Scientific research" in
the 18th and 19th centuries utilized silhouettes to illustrate racist physiognomic
treatises. One of the pioneers of physiognomy was Johann Caspar Lavater, an
53 Shack, 100.
54 Ibid., 109.
25
authority on the practice of utilizing physical features to determine the
intangible character of a person. Lavater's methods and books employed
silhouettes traced from the projected shadows of individual faces (Figure 4).
Figure 4. The Process of Creating a Silhouette55
To this end, Lavater collected silhouettes to be used for interpretation. His
collection numbered approximately 22,000 shadow tracings. 56 Lavater believed
the outline of the profile was the truest depiction of man. He stated
"Physiognomy has no greater, more incontrovertible certainty of the truth of its
object than that imparted by shade." The shadow of a man's face was a
reflection of his soul. 57
Lavater published his theories in Physiognomische Fragmente, zur
Befordemng der Menschenkenntib und Menschenliebe, a four volume set
55 Stoichita, 156.
56 Richard T. Gray, About Face: German Physiognomic Thoughtfrom Lavater to
Auschwitz (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004), xxxiii.
57 Stoichita, 157.
26
released between 1775 and 1778. By 1810, there were 16 German, 15
French, 20 English, two Russian, one Dutch, and one Italian editions of the
works. 58 His work continued to be popular and influential in to the early
1900's; physiognomy, argues Richard T. Wayne, "became one of the primary
tools deployed by civil society for this fabrication of the individual according to
preordained ethical, characterological, national, or racial definitions."59 The
lowest racial group on Lavater's shadow hierarchy was the black race, including
Africans, black American slaves, and Moors (Figure 5). "The stub nose and the
protruding lips of the Moor testify... to a peculiar mixture of dull animality in the
intellectual sphere with powerful passions in the physical domain."6o
","
Figure 5. A Diagram of Facial Profiles Comparing the Facial Angles of Apes and
Blacks (1791)61
58 Gray, xxx.
59 Ibid., xlii.
60 Ibid., 107.
61 Michael D. Harris, Colored Pictures: Race and Visual Representation (Chapel Hill,
N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 26.
27
The denigration of the black race was a key element of physiognomic study.
The silhouette, the tracing of the void cast by a person's shadow, became the
image associated with this form of debasement.
The silhouette as an art form was wildly popular in Europe throughout
the 18th century, and by the beginning of the 1800s, silhouette cutters, the
people who operated the tracing machine and cut the image out of the paper,
were more prolific than painters. The practice of paper cutting quickly spread
to New England and the rest of America, where both blacks and whites became
silhouette cutters.62
One of the early American practitioners in silhouette cutting was the
painter and collector Charles Willson Peale. Peale owned a physiognotrace, a
machine that traced projected shadow profiles in a small size. The machine
could be operated by the sitter, but was most often operated by a silhouette-
cutter. The machine produced four identical small silhouettes. 63 Peale
acquired a physiognotrace in 1802 and placed it in his museum as an
attraction as well as a souvenir selling opportunity. Peale charged 1 cent for a
sitter to operate the machine and keep the resulting images, and 8 cents for his
professional silhouette artist do create and cut the images, which was by far the
most popular choice. This artist was Moses Williams, a former slave of Peale,
who earned his freedom by cutting silhouettes. 64
62 R. L. Megroz, Profile Art through the Ages: A Study of the Use and Significance ofProfile
and Silhouette from the Stone Age to Puppet Films (New York: Philosophical Library,
1949),91-2.
63 Charles Coleman Sellers, Charles Willson Peale (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
1969), 306.
64 Ibid.
28
Moses Williams was one of the best known paper-cutters (as they were
called at the time) in America. Williams was a slave until age 27, when he
began to work at Peale's museum operating the physiognotrace. Peale freed
him once he was able to support himself with silhouette art. He was gifted at
creating and cutting the profile images. It was said that he was so good, "his
eye could be better trusted than the machine."65 In 1803 alone, Williams cut
8,880 profiles and earned enough money to buy a large house and marry a
white woman.66 While physiognomy texts utilized silhouettes to intellectually
justify the oppression of the black race, the actual art of shadow tracing allowed
Williams and other early African American cutters to participate in white society
and in white artistic culture.
These contrasting experiences with silhouettes may have influenced
Douglas when he began to depict the figures in his art in profiled shadow form.
The shadow silhouette form was multifunctional. Within the New Negro
context, the similarity to African profile art referenced the artistic heritage of the
African American in accordance with the ideals put forth by the leaders of the
movement. It also more directly accessed the history of African American
artists, who were involved early on in America's silhouette trade. Within the
context of American art as a whole, the use of simplified profile forms
represented well the trends popular in the art world between the wars. It
incorporated an Art Deco streamlined finish with a reductive abstractionist
substance. Douglas's transformation of the figures in the images updated the
65 Ibid.
66 Ibid.
29
older motif being depicted, making it more accessible to contemporary
readers. The use of the shadow to depict black people taps into the Jungian
idea of the repressed shadow self, paralleling the predominant attitudes
towards black people at the time: dangerous, unpredictable, exotic, and
ultimately excluded and unincorporated. The simple use of a shadow figure
allows Douglas to depict black people as they exist within the context white
society applied to them. The application of shadow/profile figures also made a
connection to the popular beliefs propounded by physiognomy. The profile,
usually depicted in simplified silhouette, was used to analyze the facial and
cranial features in groups of people. The physical traits of the races were then
used to support the prejudices of the time. Physiognomic devotees pointed to
the shadow profiles of different races as justifications for prejudice. By taking
this form of image, Douglas appropriated the silhouette and utilized it to refute
stereotypes and ultimately to create a positive image of the race through his art.
He subverts the negative trope into a positive model of the New Negro.67
Listen, Lord-A Prayer is the first poem in the collection. It is written in
the manner of an invocation or an introduction to the poem sermons that
followed. Johnson describes the experience that inspired the piece and the
reason for its inclusion:
One factor in the creation of atmosphere I have included-the
preliminary prayer. ..It was the prayer leader who directly prepared
the way for the sermon, set the scene, as it were. However, a most
67 This approach to the utilization of shadow silhouettes in African American art was
further developed by contemporary artist Kara Walker. Walker's pieces employ solid
silhouette depictions of figures that incorporate the caricatured exaggeration of facial
features as a way of transforming the negative image. For information on Walker please
refer to Kara Walker's monograph, Kara Walker: Narratives of a Negress (Cambridge,
M.A.: M.LT. Press, 2003).
30
impressive concomitant of the prayer, the chorus of responses which
gave it an antiphonal quality, I have not attempted to set down.
These preliminary prayers were often products hardly less
remarkable than the sermons.58
This prayer was a key part to the African American church experience and thus
an essential part of this collection. This poem also includes the idea of the
shadow as a benevolent symbol. The middle of the prayer says, "And now 0
Lord, this man of God,jWho breaks the bread oflife this morning--jShadow
him in the hollow of thy hand,jAnd keep him out of the gunshot of the devil"
(22-5). The reference of God shadowing man in his hand as a form of protection
brings the concept of the shadow into the reader's mind in a positive light. The
shadow reference also echoes the shadow form seen at the beginning of the
poem, imparting continuity between the text and the image.
The accompanying image shows a dark, silhouetted figure, visible from
the knees up, in the Egyptian manner Douglas described (Figure 6). The figure
looks upwards, towards the unseen source of several rays of light. The man
raises one hand up while the other disappears into the ground. Jagged bolts of
lightning streak in from the right side of the picture. These waving streaks may
be suggestive of the sound waves contained in the antiphonal responses that
Johnson omitted from his verses. They may also highlight the presence of a
great power, itself responding to the verse of prayer directed towards it and to
the figure, partly in light, partly in shadow. The figure's mouth and eyes are
highlighted, with his lips parting as if speaking the prayer. The eye is depicted
as a slit, a practice that can be seen in most of Douglas's works. The very first
68 Johnson, 11.
31
image in the collection introduced both the artistic heritage of Africa,
embodied in the profiled depiction of the figure and in its features, and an
experience of African American culture, seen in the religious practice of prayer
depicted. Much like the poem it accompanies, the image is introductory,
previewing in a straightforward manner the artistic style and motifs seen in the
rest of the illustrations, and also essential, debuting the shadow symbol that
will trigger the viewer's conscious and unconscious associations throughout the
collection.
32
Figure 6. Listen, Lord-A Prayer69
69 James Weldon Johnson, God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse
(Documenting the American South, 2004), http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/johnson/
johnson.html. All of the images used in Figures 1-8 in this thesis are sourced from this
site. © This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It
may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as
this statement of availability is included in the text.
33
The first official poem in the book is The Creation, a telling of the
creation of the world and man as described in the Book of Genesis.
Fundamental to the creation of the world was the division of light and dark.
The poem emphasizes this dichotomy. Early in the process God smiled, "And
the light broke,/And the darkness rolled up on one side,!And the light stood
shining on the other,/And God said: That's good!" (10-13). A few lines later,
God creates the earth. "Then down between/The darkness and the light/He
hurled the world;/And God said: That's good!" (22-5). The universe was created
to include both dark and light; the world is placed by God at their juncture.
This is not only an account of the Biblical creation myth, but it could also be an
argument for the peaceful co-existence of white and black races. As God
created it, neither is dominant, neither is deemed better than the other, both
are in equal harmony stamped with God's approval.
Douglas's illustration for this poem continues the motif of the shadow
figure, while accessing African and African American traditions and
appropriating white Christian traditions and visually transforming them (Figure
7). The illustration shows the silhouetted profiled shadow figure Adam
standing in Eden looking up at a giant hand of God extending down from the
heavens. God's hand, which is also depicted in dark shadow form, delicately
drops nine orbs into the sky, which is suggestive of the planets of our solar
system. A rainbow, a symbol of the covenant between God and man, arcs
across the background. A small plant reaches upwards next to the silhouetted
figure of Adam and wavy lines of water flow across the ground. Adam is shown
in pitch black silhouette, darker than the praying figure in Listen, Lord-A
34
Prayer, which has tones of grey incorporated. God's shadowy hand is a
lighter grey. This pairing of dark and light suggests that God embodies the light
of the universe and man embodies the darkness. Both are needed to complete
God's vision.
Figure 7. The Creation
35
The profiled features again referenced Africa, allowing the viewer to see
Douglas's Adam as an African, as a black man. Goeser argued that Douglas's
"application of African features to this biblical figure mark a radical
appropriation, visually shifting the location of Judeo-Christian origins from a
white Garden of Eden to a black African setting."70 This artistic interpretation
challenged the traditional Christian iconography that was frequently utilized to
justify prejudice and racism.
The hopeful and traditional creation theme is followed by a modern
update to the New Testament story of the Prodigal Son. Johnson's version
transfers the setting into a contemporary Jazz-Age city, a modern-day Babylon
with similar temptations: drinking, women, and gambling. Early in the poem,
Johnson refers to boxing, a popular sport among the African American
community in the first half on the 20 th century.7 1 It is clear that this poem is a
transformation of the old myth, a relocation of the story into a modern setting
and context. This process is discussed by Campbell in The Masks of God:
Primitive Mythology:
... a mythological process--seldom mentioned in the textbooks of
our subject but of considerable force and importance nevertheless-
-to which the late Dr. Ananda K. Coomaraswarmy referred as
land-nama, "land-naming" or "land-taking." Through land-
nama... the features of a newly entered land are assimilated by an
immigrant people to its imported heritage of myth.72
70 Goeser, 207.
71 Johnson, 21.
72 Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology (New York: Penguin, 1991),
199.
36
The Biblical myth is reoriented into an American, specifically an African
American, location. The myth is millennia old, but through the process
relocating it to modern Harlem, through this process of land-nama, the story
develops a closer relationship with the New Negro experience.
The Prodigal Son illustration is a modern, Jazz Age image set in an urban
cabaret (Figure 8). The Prodigal Son dances in the center of the illustration
with two women. All figures are depicted in black shadow silhouettes. They are
surrounded by the symbols of Harlem-era vice: dice, cards, horns, money, and
neon signs. The only light source is man-made, a swinging overhead lamp.
This is a scene of humanity and not divinity. The setting of the image suits the
content of the verse, which updates the parable by describing Babylon as
having "brass bands" and "drinking dens" along with dancing, gambling, and
"sweet-sinning women."73 The image reflects this modernization of the parable
by showing it as an experience of modern African American life. Underneath
the surface of the image, though, again lies the mythic unconscious. The
shadows are again symbols that the viewer's unconscious would recognize and
thus connect the image to a larger mythic tradition. The mythic importance lies
within the human symbols, a very Jungian depiction. Robert Segal explains
that "the heart of religion for Jung is neither belief nor practice but experience,
and myth provides the best entree to the experience of God, which means to the
unconscious."74 The utilization of one's own human experiences allows the
person to access the mythic/religious material that lies within his unconscious
73 Johnson, 23-24.
74 Segal, 35.
37
mind, inherited from the collective unconscious. Douglas's choice of a
modern setting for the scene creates an immediate relevance to the viewer and
allows easy access to the symbols that will then access the archetypes that can
communicate the mythic importance of the parable.
•
Figure 8. The Prodigal Son
38
A distinction should be made here concerning Jung's terminology
about the psychology of myth. In Jung's interpretative labeling, "archetypes are
not themselves pictures but rather the inclination to form them in typical ways.
Symbols are the actual pictures formed... Each archetype requires an infinite
number of symbols."75 An archetype, for example, could be the hero on a quest.
The symbol of this would be Odysseus. Further, "archetypes are transmitted by
heredity; symbols, by acculturation. Archetypes are the same universally;
symbols vary from culture to culture."76 The human race has an inherent
concept of the hero's journey. Odysseus was a symbol of that archetype for the
Greeks, Rama was a hero for India's Vedic tradition, Jonah's adventures in the
digestive tract of a whale exemplified the Christian version of the hero's journey
into the unknown.
Johnson and Douglas are working with symbols. The stories Johnson
recounts in his poems (Noah and the flood, the creation of the world, Moses
leading the Jews out of Egypt, etc.) are all myths, full of the Christian symbols
for universal archetypes. Douglas takes these verbal symbols and translates
them into images. The artistic interpretations also function to stimulate the
unconscious and allow it to access the archetypal databank. The viewer
beholds only the symbols. The associations and subsequent meanings all occur
on an unconscious level.
The universal experience of death and loss is explored in Johnson's next
poem, Go Down Death: A Funeral Sermon. The poem tells of God's summoning
75 Ibid., 40.
76 Ibid.
39
of the angel of death to go down to earth and collect a woman to take her to
rest with Jesus in Heaven. Again in the text we are presented with imagery of
light and dark and with references to shadows. God calls upon Death, his voice
"reached away back to that shadowy place,/Where Death waits with his pale,
white horses" (22-3). Death rides a white horse and he lives in the dark, in the
shadows. This is the same contrast seen in The Creation, when light and dark
separate into the coexisting night and day. Also, the shadow is utilized as a
symbol of the unknown, feared, repressed part of life. No one knows what
death is like, most don't spend much time dwelling on thoughts of death and
what is involved after the last breathe leaves the body. Even the poem shows
the reluctance and denial expressed around the concept of death. The poem
ends with "Weep not-weep not,/She is not dead;/She's resting in the bosom of
Jesus" (77-9). Death remains a shadow, repressed and avoided, even when it is
clearly the destination of the deceased.
The image Douglas created for Go Down Death--A Funeral Sennon was
the only one in the series that did not contain a human figure (Figure 9). This
illustration is filled with movement and anticipation, drawing the viewer into
the poem that followed. The background is dark. Concentric, circular
geometric forms fill the bottom of the illustration. The largest circle appears
volumetric and thus resembles a keystone in an arch. This could be an
interpretation of the "pearly gates" that Death rides out of on his way to collect
Sister Caroline (45). Douglas adapted the traditional imagery of the gates to his
own geometric, Art Deco style. Above them, highlighted by a beam of light, is
winged Death galloping across the picture on his horse. Streaking along with
40
Death, as described in the poem, "the foam from the horse was like a comet
in the sky" (48). The figures of Death and of his horse are indistinct; Death is
associated in the poem with darkness and the horse is "pale, white" (23) and yet
Douglas blends the forms into one grey-toned shadow. In death, the
distinctions and dichotomies of life are nonexistent. The conjoined shape of
Death and his mount are placed in front of a striking contrast between light
and dark. A wide beam of white light radiates out from the lower left side of the
picture, punctuating the black background in the upper half of the image.
Again, the pairing of light and darkness is emphasized; the two coexistent
sections are linked by the shadow figure incorporated into both visual fields.
41
Figure 9. Go Down Death--A Funeral Sermon
The repression of black peoples by whites was a global phenomenon.
The justifications for this kind of prejudicial and often cruel treatment included
the science of Lavater and the approval of God, via the stories of the Bible. The
42
next poem and corresponding image, Noah Built the Ark, would have been
especially significant to an African American reader. The story of Noah was
frequently cited as Biblical justification for slavery, prejudice, and oppression of
black people. Noah, after having safely steered the ark to dry land, planted a
vineyard, and subsequently passed out drunk and naked. His son Ham, the
father of Canaan, saw him and told his brothers about it. His brothers, hiding
their eyes, went and covered him with a garment. Because Ham had seen him
naked, Noah cursed Ham's descendants to be "servant[s] of servants," or slaves
(Gen. 9:20-27). White oppressors argued that black people, believed to be the
descendants of Ham, were intended for slavery by God,77 This Biblical curse
was also used in folktales to link black people to the Jews, another persecuted
group,78 While the text of the poem "Noah Built the Ark" related the story of
Noah building the ark and waiting out the deluge, the African American
readers, who were by-and-Iarge Christian, would be well aware of the episode
that followed this scene in the Bible. The racial significance was implicit.
On a mythic level, any reference to waters, a deluge, or flooding is a
symbol. In general, water is associated with regeneration or transformation.
According to Campbell, the concept of water in myth is intimately linked with
the process of birth or rebirth:
In the imagery of mythology and religion this birth (or more often
rebirth) theme is extremely prominent; in fact, every threshold
passage.. .is comparable to a birth and has been ritually
represented, practically everywhere, through an imagery of re-
77 Goeser, 215.
78 Nella Larsen, Passing, Norton Critical Edition (New York: Norton and Company,
2007), 19.
----------
43
entry into the womb. This is one of those mythological universals
that surely merit interpretation, rather from a psychological than
from an ethnological point ofview,79
The flood in the Biblical tale wiped away the sins and sinners on earth that God
found so offensive and allowed the earth to start over, to be reborn, with
another chance to realize its positive potential. As the New Negro movement
was oriented around re-creating the image of African Americans and erasing the
negative stereotypes and attitudes that were common for the time, Johnson's
inclusion of this mythic metaphor of the Biblical deluge is highly appropriate.
Douglas's accompanying image, Noah Built the Ark, is filled with activity
and no water (Figure 10). A massive ark occupies most of the picture plane. At
the prow of the ship is the figure of Noah, directing the loading of the vessel.
Animals walk up a ramp into the belly of the ark while Noah's sons load
supplies. Birds fly in from the right and lightning streaks down on the left side
of the picture, hinting at the rapidly approaching storm. Light shines down
from the heavens, highlighting Noah and the pair of animals. These animals
appear to be lions or some form of big cat, which would be a clear reference to
Africa. Douglas's selection of an animal indigenous to Africa as well as sacred
to many African religions and thus to ancestors of African Americans connects
the Christian myth to universal mythic traditions. The collective unconscious
is once again being visually triggered by his selection of symbols. In the bottom
right corner, a dark shadow profile of a man observes the scene before him, a
79 Campbell, Primitive Mythology, 61-2.
figure, it has been speculated, perhaps intended to represent author James
Weldon Johnson. 8o
Figure 10. Noah Built the Ark
80 Kirschke, Aaron Douglas, 100.
44
45
The figures in Noah Built the Ark are all portrayed in Douglas's
Egyptian-style silhouettes with West African slit eyes. These figures again
connect the viewer to the idea of the shadow self, while they also continue the
artistic theme of converting Biblical figures into African people. With Noah
shown as a black man, along with all of his sons, the story of Ham as
justification for prejudice is countered. The racial recasting of the Christian
characters also places Noah's act of salvation of the human race in the hands of
a black man. "For Douglas," Goeser writes, "African Americans needed to
reconceive religious tradition, creating Christian gods in their own image."
Douglas himself wrote in a letter to poet Langston Hughes, "Let's also make
gods. Black gods. Disconcertingly black. Variations of black."81 Throughout
these illustrations, Douglas did just that. He erased the popular notions of a
Bible populated by white characters and, in so doing, he also broadened the
scope of the transformation.
The next poem in the series centers on the last night of and the
crucifixion of Jesus. The CruciflXion begins with Jesus walking in the garden
before being betrayed by Judas and follows the subsequent events up to the
point of Jesus's death on the cross. Throughout the poem settings are
described as "dark," again emphasizing the presence of darkness in the world
as a counterpart to lightness. Johnson introduces Jesus as he is "walking in
the dark of the Garden" (2) and "praying in the dark of the Garden" (10). Judas
enters the scene "sneaking through the dark of the Garden" (27). He is
described as "black-hearted" (26). Johnson places both Jesus, the human
81 Goeser, 220.
46
embodiment of the light of God, and Judas, the epitome of man's capability to
commit evil, dark deeds, in a context containing both light and dark. The white
of Jesus in the black garden and the black heart of Judas in the light of a life as
a devoted disciple create a complete yin-yang symbol. Both are neither wholly
dark nor wholly light; their interaction exemplifies the required coexistence of
dark and light in the world.
Douglas's illustration for The Crucifvcion brings the contrast of dark and
light again into a visual demonstration, while also creating an artistic emphasis
on the role of a black man, Simon of Cyrene (Figure 11). The cross is vibrant
black, a white beam of light shines down past it. The figure of Jesus, so vividly
white it is hard to distinguish by the viewer, is framed by black silhouettes of a
Roman soldier and his horse. Simon is done in a dark grey. The contrasts
create a visually balanced composition while symbolically reminding the
audience that darkness and light co-exist and are present in each of us.
\ 1
Figure 11. The Cruciftxion
Douglas's interpretation of this processional scene inverted the
traditional Christian iconography. The haloed ftgure of Jesus is placed just
below the center of the picture, silhouetted in white. Jesus, while normally
47
48
portrayed as the main subject of his crucifIXion in Western artistic tradition,
is one of the smallest figures in Douglas's scene. Towering above him, filling
the picture plane from left to right and almost top to bottom is the figure of
Simon of Cyrene, the black man who carried Christ's cross for him. Simon,
done in a dark grey shadow form, drags the cross along in both of his arms as
he looks up towards heaven, his brow seemingly furrowed in the effort of the
task. Light shines down from above, landing on Jesus, and concentric tonal
circles radiate out from the figure of Christ, but the focus is on Simon. The
spears that poke in from the edges of the illustration point beyond the figure of
Christ to Simon above him. Douglas highlights Simon as a concurrent symbol,
along with Jesus, of suffering, linking Christ's sacrifice to the struggles endured
by African Americans.82
In both the verse and the image, the role of a black Biblical character
was emphasized. Douglas visually highlighted him and Johnson states "... they
lay hold on Simon,/Black Simon, yes, black Simon;/They put the cross on
Simon,/And Simon bore the cross" (58-61). The audience would receive
reinforcement in image and in verse of the importance of this black man in the
story of Jesus becoming Christ. As a way of combating the racist
interpretations of Christian stories, some African American Biblical scholars
interpreted the Bible to highlight the roles of characters described as being
African or dark-skinned, such as one of the Magi in the Christmas story or
Simon of Cyrene.83 This approach was known as Ethiopianism, which African
82 Goeser, 218.
83 Ibid., 212.
49
theologians began to develop around the turn of the 19th century. Passages
that indicated a rise to power for Africa were also cited. Psalm 68 prophesized
"Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands
unto God" (Psalms 68:31). The ideas of Ethiopianism, which Douglas had
studied through the work of Edward W. Blyden, were incorporated into slave
narratives and Negro sermons. 84
The next sermon and illustration, Let My People Go, tell the tale of Moses
and the Exodus out of slavery in Egypt. This tale of the end of slavery and the
salvation of a group of people was a popular one in the African American
church, for obvious reasons. The story and even the phrase "let my people go"
were utilized by African American activists well into the 1960's Civil Rights
Movement. The local cultural context is implicit, as it is a story of triumph over
discrimination and oppression. Darkness again plays a part in the story and
also in Johnson's selection of imagery. In the Biblical story, there are plagues
visited upon the Egyptians, including a plague of darkness. Darkness in this
situation is filled with fear and the unknown, the potential for horrendous
danger. These qualities in a human are all associated with the shadow self.
Later in the poem, Johnson chooses to incorporate darkness once again, and in
that description, he expands the negative aspects of the dark onto all
participants in the tale. As Moses and the Jews flee through the Red Sea, they
are chased by the Pharaoh and his army. Johnson describes the scene as thus:
"Now, the Children ofIsrael, looking back,ISaw Pharaoh's army coming. lAnd
the rumble of the chariots was like a thunder storm, IAnd the whirring of the
84 Ibid., 215.
50
wheels was like a rushing wind,/And the dust from the horses made a cloud
that darked the day" (155-59). In these lines, Johnson casts the oppressors as
the creators of darkness. The darkness, the shadow, is inherent; everyone has
a part of themselves that they repress for various reasons. The use of darkness
in association with both the oppressed and the oppressors may have functioned
to highlight the common aspects of both groups demonstrating equality
between them.
In the accompanying image, Douglas again plays with the interaction of
light and dark (Figure 12). The figures are all portrayed in shadow profile form.
Given the setting of the poem, the Egyptian style that Douglas appropriated is
perfectly fitting. The gradations of dark and light are applied to accent the
commonality of darkness in all groups of people. The soldiers and their horses
are done in black silhouettes. The Jews on the lower right-hand side crossing
through the parted Red Sea are done in the same shade. While the viewer may
have positive associations with those fleeing and negative associations with
those pursuing, both are identical in their darkness. All people have shadow
selves, a part of the unconscious that cannot be pigeonholed into "good" or
"bad."
51
Figure 12. Let My People Go
In Let My People Go, Douglas also took his interest in Ethiopianism one
step further and visually recast Biblical characters generally thought of as white
as black. In this picture, Douglas depicted all the figures, Moses, along with
the Pharaoh's soldiers, as black men. The soldiers, shown in dark silhouette
52
and wearing Egyptian headdresses, are being swallowed by the stylized
curves of the Red Sea as it crashed back upon itself. The figure of Moses, also
silhouetted, kneels on the other side, looking up to heaven and bathed in a holy
ray of light. His arms reach out to the sides, a practice seen in African
American church worship, waiting to embrace the Holy Spirit. 85 Douglas not
only references Africa, with his Egyptian and Western African stylistic
borrowings and his casting of Moses as a black man, but he also references
contemporary African American experience, utilizing worshipping practices
common in the African American church. This image activates multiple
contextual realms in the minds of the audience.
The final poem in this sequence is entitled The Judgment Day and tells of
the end of days, when God and Jesus call souls to them and place them in
Heaven or in Hell for the rest of eternity. The end of the world nicely rounds
out the end of the book, which had begun with The Creation, mirroring the
layout of the tales in the Bible. The use oflight and dark in this poem is fairly
predictable and traditional: light and whiteness are illustrative of the contents
of Heaven and Hell is depicted black and dark. These are associations that
would be archetypically appropriate. Both light and dark are present at the
beginning of the world and at its ending. They coexist throughout the
progression of stories as they coexist in each person's psyche. The associations
of the two sides in this poem are not innovative, but they do reinforce the motif
and message seen throughout Johnson's words.
85 Ibid., 224.
53
Douglas's final image in the collection was for The Judgment Day
(Figure 13). This image is filled with the figure of the angel Gabriel blowing his
trumpet. His legs span the entire space and his wings extend beyond the
frame. He is presented in dark silhouette. Concentric circles radiate from the
ground and rays of light shine from the top edge. Smaller figures, also in
shadow form, cower beneath Gabriel's figure, while one kneels, arms
outstretched on the right. This is a reference to the African American church
practice of worshippers raising their hands to receive God's spirit. Through this
image, the viewer can see that in Douglas's eyes the angels were black. The
prominence of light shades at the top of the image and darker shades towards
the bottom reinforces the association found in the poem and in the mythic
tradition of Heaven containing lightness and Hell containing darkness.
54
Figure 13. The Judgment Day
Jung believed both art and language were symbols of activity within our
inner selves, within our souls. He stated that "language.. .is simply a system of
signs and symbols that denote real occurrences or their echo in the human
55
soul."86 In a work like this, an illustrated book of poetry, Jung would have
analyzed both the images and the text with an interactive approach. While this
thesis is an examination of the images Douglas created, the pictures would not
exist without the text. The subject matter of each may have been addressed by
Douglas in his artistic career at some point, but the group of images in a
certain order with certain themes is completely dependant upon the text.
Taken together they enhance and reinforce one another.
The psychology of creative work is bound to mythological experience and
thinking. Words and images evoke symbols which represent archetypes.
Archetypes are the letters of the mythic language of humanity. Communication
of universal themes requires a universal language. "It is therefore to be
expected," argued Jung, "that the poet will turn to mythological figures in order
to give suitable expression to his experience."87 Johnson expressed himself
through the stories of Christian myth, an ancient tradition of myth making.
Throughout these poems the pairing of light and dark as well as the use of the
shadow as a symbol is noticeable. In the illustrations, they are not only
noticeable, but the dominant feature. Obviously, there is not a single meaning
to any work of art, whether in pictorial or linguistic form. I am presenting one
possibility of the meaning behind this book, a possibility heretofore unexplored.
The stories are myths; this requires no argument as they are directly
drawn from the Biblical and Christian traditions. Johnson himself begins the
work with an explanation of their source: the African American Christian
86 Carl Jung cited in Segal, 111.
87 Ibid., 179.
56
church. The poems are Christian myth being re-voiced by a Harlem
Renaissance poet. This selection of material enabled Johnson to connect with
an ancient mythic tradition. While he was an example of the New Negro and a
proponent of the movement's agenda, Johnson reached a broader audience by
utilizing core Western myths. As Douglas's images are illustrations of this
mythic subject matter, he too had access to a larger audience. And the strictly
visual nature of these works could provide an even broader forum, for example
to an audience that was illiterate. The use of myth in God's Trombones created
a broad stage on which the varied meanings of the work could be accessed and
explored.
Once the minds of the audience were stimulated by the mythic stories
and familiar symbols, the underlying archetypes could be accessed to enable
the communication of deeper meaning. This is where the recurrent idea of the
shadow comes into play. In the pictures, the shadow becomes real in the
silhouetted forms of Douglas's imagination. The figures in the images are based
on artistic technique that utilized shadows to create pictures. They look like a
person's shadow placed within a picture plane laced with the interplay of light
and dark tones. The contrasts of light and dark and the use of the shadow are
omnipresent in Douglas's illustrations. They are important elements to the
interpretations of the works, although they are not necessarily interdependent
or mutually informing.
In Jungian thought and analysis, the shadow is the part of the self that
has been repressed, ignored, or abused. It is unwanted, unpredictable, and
undesirable. It is not a great leap to look at the attitudes of much of white
57
American society during the Harlem Renaissance in regards to blacks and see
the same treatment. Ever since the first slaves arrived in America, African
Americans have been treated maliciously, oppressed, neglected, feared, and
degraded. If America was metaphorically a person, African Americans could be
viewed as the shadow of that self. The dark side of a person, the shadow, is a
universal archetype, lying within the collective unconscious present in all
humans. Douglas utilized this symbol. It cannot be determined if it was a
deliberate or unconscious act, but either way the use of that symbol is relevant.
The New Negro movement stated in its goals that art should be used to
create a new racial identity, one that was proud and equal to the racial identity
of white Americans. Art would show the capabilities of African Americans, the
inherent goodness within them, the dignity that they have and should be
treated with. Art would address the horrendous treatment often bestowed upon
the African American community and seek to amend it. Douglas's images used
the shadow symbol. By placing this powerful symbol within the context of a
mythic tradition of the Western world, Douglas symbolically asserts African
American's right to be an equal part of this culture and community. The ideals
expounded by the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance were certainly being
illustrated in these images.
God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse contained beautiful,
fertile poetry and vivid, inspiring images. What each person takes away from
this complex work of art is unique, but it can be said that both Johnson and
Douglas created moving vehicles for communicating their ideas and the form
58
these communications took enabled them to echo out into the micro- and the
macrocosm of our world.
59
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