THE MIGRATION OF ARTISTS
In the south, Jim Crow laws separated blacks from mainstream America, which blocked artists’ path to fame. The agricultural lifestyle didn’t fit the whole cultural and creative theme of art, which stifled them. However, the pride that surged through black communities in the north, especially Harlem, motivated them, liberated them.
ARTISTIC INSPIRATIONS
Black artists were inspired by negritude and a powerful sense of racial consciousness. They had the opportunity to have serious careers in art, earning a living and receiving critiques, even. There grew a need to identify and use African and African American tales, spiritual songs, and customs, and display their heritage to others, and manifest it the way they saw or imagined it. African American visual artists were influenced by the rejection of what was normal or moral, which caused a craze for exotic lifestyles— mainstream was boring. Although writers, poets, and dramatists were more recognized than painters and sculptors, black art was still praised.