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Photo by Tim Hursley ©
Aspacio Atrium
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The Art of the Negro
murals were painted by Hale Aspacio Woodruff (1900-1980) and
consist of six canvas panels housed in the atrium of Trevor Arnett
Hall. Woodruff, art professor and founder of the Atlanta University
art department and permanent collections painted the series between
1950-1951. Woodruff intended to provide students of an historically
black university, and its visitors, with images of black Americans'
cultural past. Referring to his motive for painting the murals,
Woodruff stated:
"It portrays what I call
the Art of the Negro. This has to do with a kind of interpretive
treatment of African art. ... I look at the African artist certainly
as one of my ancestors regardless of how we feel about each other
today. I've always had a high regard and respect for the African
artist and his art. So this mural, ... is for me, a kind of token
of my esteem for African art." - Hale Aspacio Woodruff |
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Panel One: Native Forms
portrays interpretation various African icons found in cave paintings,
sculpture and masks, and their relationship to cultural activities
of African people. It implies an affinity African artists have
with nature.
(click on the image for
an enlarged view) |
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Panel Two: Interchange
refers to the ongoing cultural exchange among Africans and Europeans,
and the subsequent influences that shaped Western civilization.
(click on the image for
an enlarged view) |
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Panel Three: Dissipation
dramatizes the colonization and subjugation of Africa by European
cultures with specific reference to the British burning of the
city Benin in 1897 and the looting of all their art.
(click on the image for
an enlarged view) |
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Panel Four: Parallels illustrates
the relationships and commonalities among the ancient and traditional
art forms of non-European cultures (i.e., Mayans, Aztecs, African,
New Guinea and Amercian Indians).
(click on the image for
an enlarged view) |
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Panel Five: Influences
conveys the impact of traditional art forms (assigning African
art the central role) on the development of Western art in the
20th Century.
(click on the image for
an enlarged view) |
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Panel Six: Muses symbolizes
the involuntary marriage of African and European cultures and
the evolution of the African artist (as represented in the center)
in the Western hemisphere. Seventeen important artists of color
who symbolize this cultural background represent Woodruff's notion
including Iqueigha, 13th century sculptor, 20th Century primitive,
Joshua Johnston, colonial portraitist; Henry O. Tanner, religious
painter and Jacob Lawrence, a contemporary narrative serial painter.
(click on the image for
an enlarged view) |
