Dox Thrash - Relation To Alain Locke and The New Negro Movement

Relation To Alain Locke and The New Negro Movement

Alain Locke, an intellectual, professor and author cried out to his fellow African Americans, specifically artists, to capture the personality, lives, and essence of their people in The New Negro. He explained “The Negro physiognomy must be freshly and objectively conceived on its own patterns if it is ever to be seriously and importantly interpreted. Art must discover and reveal the beauty which prejudice and caricature have overlaid, (Locke 54)”. What Locke is expressing here is not only the call for black artists to overcome racial prejudices via positive artistic representations of blacks, but that the actual African American individual needs to be acknowledged as beautiful, inside and out. The “New Negro” is therefore an altered self-perception, viewing one’s blackness as a positive, unique quality that does not hinder creativity, accomplishment, or intelligence. Artists like Thrash portrayed the lives of fellow blacks, and had the power to propagate this idea of the New Negro, as Locke explains, “There is the possibility that the sensitive artistic mind of the American Negro, stimulated by a cultural pride and interest, will receive…a profound and galvanizing influence,” (Locke, “Bridging Identities” 36).

In his shadowy carborundum mezzotint Cabin Days (Fig. 1), Thrash depicts a southern black family on the porch of their shack-like home in a rural landscape. The man, woman, and child, clutched tenderly to the female figure’s breast, create an intimate scene highlighted by the bright cleanliness of the laundry hanging behind them. Placed in front of the drying laundry, they are framed by one aspect of the hard work accomplished during the day. Close to one another, staring collectively outward at the Southern landscape, they, and their laudable priorities of cleanliness and family, are made the bright focal point in the poor, unstable atmosphere. Such inner warmth is seemingly incompatible with the family’s crooked and disheveled surroundings, and their fuzzy appearance with a lack of facial detail makes the scene into a general archetype for rural southern blacks living conditions and qualities. Thrash was referencing an experience common to thousands of black families in rural occupations at the turn of the 20th century, often forced into slavery-like tenant farming as their only means of livelihood in the racist South. The “uneven clapboards, leaning porch, broken shutter, and uprooted fence” are rife with instability, much like the post-slavery economic and social systems of the South, making it clear that for African Americans, “the house is not the home; rather, the figures on the porch represent family unity and continuity,” (Brigham 32). In this way, Thrash is able to not only champion the positive qualities of blacks in the family setting but underscore this with a symbolic look at their disadvantaged situation, making it all the more impressive that they persevere. Thrash symbolically depicted harsh realities for the African American at this transitional point in history while conferring a sensitive rendering of their humanity, akin to any other race, despite its utter denial by American society.

Through softer tempura washes like A New Day (Fig. 2), he literally and figuratively paints a picture of a black family transitioning from the South to the North during the Great Migration, making a hopeful, daring leap to attempt to be equal members of the society that has historically oppressed them. On the left side of the canvas lie muddled farm houses and plow handles, embodiments of their rural life of tedious hard labor behind them, fading to gray. Their hopeful gazes “…convey the optimism of the scores of African Americans who left the countryside to pursue better job opportunities, health care, and education in urban centers,” (Ittmann 71). The stance of the figures, with their chins raised in a dignified gesture towards cityscape ahead suggest a confidence and ambitiousness in their collective futures in this new northern industrial terrain. Even the child, clutched securely in the arm of the mother figure against her breast is not only serenely grinning, but calm enough to appear to gently doze, confident in that the journey ahead will result positively, poses no threat. The exposed arm of the woman is notable as well, being unusually thick and muscular, along with the general proportions of the kneeling father, who position on the ground appears not pleading but rather in a slightly exhausted, but upright gratefulness for the promise ahead. Thrash makes it clear that this family has traveled a long way, but is not depleted; rather they are strong and preparing for further hard work and hopeful success ahead. They are the quintessence of the New Negro, in that they are not only journeying forward to seize previously unobtainable opportunities that will enhance their lives, but the manner with which they hold themselves provokes a certain level of warranted respect for their humanity, from the viewer.

In fact it was the strength of his fellow African Americans that Thrash often emphasized, amongst other positive characteristics in the face of adversity in personal portraits. Through his carborundum print Life (Fig. 3), he depicts a neatly dressed black girl reading what appears to be a newspaper or magazine. The subject stares intently at her material, fixated on the abundance of text. Art historian Richard Powell describes it best, stating that Life’s “non-racial genre scene, soft sells that Black children, too, experience the thrills and tender moments of youth. These underlying themes of commonalities and unity contribute to an aesthetic of being part of a larger system as opposed to being separate from it, (Brigham 34)”. Thrash’s conscious decision to not only give specific attention to a black subject through a portrait, but to place the child as engaging in an intellectual pursuit that crosses racial borders enforces a positive view of African Americans as intelligent, integral members of society akin to whites. The lighting of the print adds to this effect as well. The room in which the girl sits is dark and shadowy, however, the light source shines directly upon her face and lap, emphasizing her beautifully carved young features engrossed in the reading material. In addition, her social status is touched upon by her clean, well-tailored, and fashionable dress of the day. Her literacy is therefore inextricably interwoven with her personal and familial success. She is the antithesis to Locke’s idea of the caricature of blacks whose poses and exaggerated features were made to dehumanize and convey a diminished sense of intelligence and capability.

Thrash also acknowledged common cultural clashes and challenges faced by African Americans through his portraiture as well. In his etching Saturday Night (Fig. 4), he depicts a female hairdresser readying herself for a night on the town. Her facial features and coloring distinctly label her as African American, and it is the act she is engaging in that is of utmost importance. The woman is straightening her naturally curly hair with a hot iron. She is conforming to physical standards foisted upon her by the dominant white society where straight hair is a marker of beauty. Though muscular, shapely, and attractive, she feels the need to engage in the laborious task of making her tightly coiled hair straight in order to prepare for the night in the public sphere. In fact, weariness at the task is written all over her face, the scratchy lines of the etching giving heavy shadow to the area underneath her eyes and the lines touching from her nostrils till the outsides of her lips. This technique of etching lends a weariness or faded quality to the entire piece, the woman and her world appearing to be worn down to a mere skeleton of their realities. Her left leg casually draped across her right and the ease with which she appears to hold the straightening tool signify the routine quality of this preparation, despite her apparent dissatisfaction at the procedure. Throughout all of this, she directly confronts the viewer with a strong gaze, as if the audience is her mirror. It is as if Thrash was literally reflecting his African American audience back at themselves, hinting at the psychological expense of attempting to conform to pre-existing white norms. Such an activity, though on the surface merely a shallow process of beautification, carries with it the idea of rejecting your natural physical state, or rather one’s blackness. To Locke and Thrash, this was not viewed as positive for African Americans considering that it the connotation of such an act of conforming to the aesthetical norms of white society puts the natural condition of blacks in a categorization of less than optimal, or ugly. Such a sentiment does not produce pride for the community or bolster the idea of the New Negro. However, Thrash’s acknowledgement of the common practice, reflecting it back to the community, is a step towards progressing towards a more positive, independent state.