Aaron Douglas “Surrender”
I decided to do my African American Art project on Aaron Douglas. Aaron was born in Topeka, Kansas in 1899. As he grew older Aaron got his degrees from Univ. of Nebraska and Univ. of Kansas he moved to Harlem where he studied with Winold Reiss then later became very popular during the Harlem Renaissance and was known for a signature style that forged elements of African Art with a modern European aesthetic. The painting I chose to recreate was “Emperor Jones” which was a series of four paintings (Bravado, Defiance, Flight, and Surrender).
These four paintings were inspired by the play “The Emperor Jones“by Eugene O’Neil. This plat tells the tale of Brutus Jones, who was an African American with the respect work of a Pullman Porter, that visits a Caribbean Island and there he stabbed a local man, goes to prison, escapes, and then goes about setting himself up as a emperor and he has to make his way through the jungle in an attempt to escape former subjects that rebelled against him. I recreated the Surrender because it stood out from all the others and my drawings lean towards the more abstract side of art. It was a more abstract painting with different shapes and figures that was well put together. The painting showed Brutus Jones encountering an animal in the jungle.
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The painting is very smooth with no really significant textures and it uses almost the whole canvas with the exception of the white background which I think makes the black figures, shapes, and lines stand out more that way you won’t miss the focal point. The way the animal and man is placed you can almost picture what’s going to happen next because the animal looks like it’s about to jump and attack the man that’s on his knees in the