Black Arts & Black Aesthetic Essay Example for Free

opaque Arts stern work gentlemans gentlemanic EssayLarry Neals dreary Arts Movements and Addison Gayles The sour Aesthetic argon two identical mission statements for the lightlessness audience set yourself apart from the white socialization and give your culture the recognition it deserves. The two pieces are similar in ideas and purposes. The morose communities were tired of always adapting to the ways of the white culture because it was the right way to act. The black community wanted to define their confess culture and these pieces were words of encouragement for blacks to step outside the white ways of thinking and acting and step into an acceptance of their own urbanity. Once the differences were accepted thats when you start seeing the different relationships between whites and blacks. These written pieces were signifi arouset changes in thoughts and actions at this time, and they werent useless. The blacks were really hoping to set themselves apart from the res t, to rescue people bang they were different from the white oppressive mind set, and it worked. Larry Neals The blackness Arts Movement, written in 1968, speaks containly to the needs and ambitions of Black America at the time.The main goal in The Black Arts Movement is to emphasize the necessity for black culture to define their world in their own terms. Larry Neal asks the challenge in his piece, whose mass of the world is more meaningful, ours or the white oppressors? (Neal page 2040). He is asking his audience to move away from a white oppressor reverie of the world and create their own vision of the world a vision that has their own beliefs, thoughts, and ideas a vision that stands out from the white patterns that have consisted years prior. The Black artists primary duty is to express the needs of the Black people.Neal explains this idea by saying, main thrust of his new breed of contemporary writers to confront the contradictions arising out of the Black mans experien ce in the raciest West (Neal page 2039). In other words, the goals of these new artists is to use a concept of protest books (page 2040) and direct this new literature directly towards black people to summon hope and awaken Black people to the meaning of their lives (Neal page 2042). The Black community had been living in an oppressive parliamentary procedure for years prior to this new endeavor.Neal believed The Black Aesthetic was the destruction of white ideas, and the destruction of white ways of looking at their world. Addison Gayle junior was another of these contemporary artists who encouraged a new way of life to the black community in his piece, The Black Aesthetic. The Black Aesthetic movement was the practice that helped those seeking to navigate and understand the experiences of black peoples. Gayle explains the Black Aesthetic movement The question for the black critic today is not how beautiful is a melody, a play, a poem, a novel, tho how much more beautiful has the poemmade the life of a single black man?The Black Aesthetic, then, as conceived by this writeris a means of helping black people out of the polluted mainstream of Americanism (Gayle 1916). This is a significant quote because Gayle, and many of the Black Aesthetic artists at the time, really believe that these works of art are not for the critics entertainment. Instead they are gritty stories of these Black Peoples experiences and they are intended to palliate the Black Man of an oppressive white America. They are to encourage these black men and women to stop conforming to the white culture and instead embrace their own.The black aesthetic period is so significant because it was a time where the artists made a significant shift in the opinions of the white culture towards the black culture, and withal more, it gave a chance to the Black community to find their voice in the madness and be able to stand out amongst the white, oppressive view points of the society they were livin g in at the time. These two pieces of work connect really well with each other. Essentially I could connect Gayles piece to close any Black Aesthetic piece just because they all have similar viewpoints in regards to the alleviatedom of the oppressive white American culture.However, Larry Neal directly comments on the Black Aesthetics. He describes the Black Arts Movement and the Black Aesthetic as one. Neal says, Black Art is the aesthetic and spiritual sister of the Black indicator concept. As such, it envisions an art that speaks directly to the needs and aspirations of Black America (Neal page 2039). This goes with Gayles beliefs that the Black Aesthetic is directly made for the needs of the black peoples. Gayle says, A critical methodology has no relevance to the black community unless it aids men in becoming better than they are (page 1917).Gayle and Neal both have this vision for Black Americans that they be freed from this movement, not pushed further into oppression, and they believe the arts can advocate them into being better. The encouragement the artists have for the rest of their brothers and sisters is what makes these two pieces so important, especially when theyre being compared. The black people, whether they are the creators or just regular middle-class folks, share visions of positivity during hardships. They want their brothers to come out and top, so they support together.The Black Aesthetic movement was a time period where the black Americans, whom had the privilege to create and share poems, stories, and plays, were able to share their creations with the rest of the population to egg on them. Gayle and Neals goals are the same they want the blacks to find their own identity, present themselves differently, and stop following in the footsteps of the whites. They believe that these works of art really can do wonders of change for their brothers and sisters. These stories and creations, poem and plays, arent just useless, fictional wor ds that these artist create out of air.They are real life accounts of the battles the black culture have fought in hopes that the oppressive layer of the white America finally comes off their backs. In the following quote, Neal demonstrates how the arts can really be significant. Neal says, numbers is a concrete function, actionsPoems are physical entities fists, daggers, airplane poems, and poems that shoot guns. Poems are transformed into personal forces (Page 2041). In relationship to Neal, Gayle compares the oppression to war. These two works are compatible to each other. Gayle believes the two cultures are at war, while Neal has the perfect appliance works of art.Gayle explains the societys conditions by saying, The serious black artist of today is at war with the American society as hardly a(prenominal) have been throughout American history (Gayle page 1914). Gayle and Neal agree upon this. The Black American culture was at a war with the white American culture and the blac k artists were doing everything in their power to free themselves of this war using the one weapon they were best at using words. Using these words of hope and encouragement, and visions of freedom and opportunities, the artists created possibilities. Neal and Gayle had similar visions for the future, as well.They both believed this movement was growing and they believed that growth had been evident in white peoples eyes already. Gayle states this growth by saying, The white academiciancalls upon a black man to write the introduction. The editor then declares that his anthology represents the best black literature or that he has chosen these works which rank the best in American artistic production. (Gayle page 1918). In saying that a black man can write an introduction and rank the best in production is a significant amount of change for the Black community.The white editors are judge of the different writing styles and topics, and still finding that its quality literature even w hen its unlike theirs a goal the black aesthetic writers have worked to achieve. Neal has a similar idea on hope, but he also adds his beliefs on the growth of this movement by saying, Afro-American life and history is near of creative possibilities, and the movement is just beginning to perceive them. Just beginning to understand that the most meaningful statementsmust come from the Third World of which Black America is a part (Neal page 2050).This statement is quite similar to Gayles in that the white society in America is starting to have a go at it the importance in black arts which is a significant change because its one that they worked towards for many years. At the time, progress was still being made, but some progress had been made and it was enough to make them feel happy and even more hopeful for the future of the movement. The significance in the pieces is that they set their black community apart from the rest of America. Years prior the whites oppressed the blacks an d so at this point in time, the black people were trying desperately to free themselves.In comparing these two pieces you really start to see the similar ideas the black people had about their community. These ideas werent just small things a few people decided to write about. They were words of hope for the future. A mission statement to set themselves apart from the rest, testimonies of what the artists have been through, and explanations of why theyre different and why they should be recognized as that. The incredible thing about it it worked. Gayle, Addison, Jr. , and Larry Neal. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York u. a. Norton, 2004. Print.