Langston Hughes and Pablo Picasso. Visual & Performing Arts

Langston Hughes and Pablo Picasso
Name
Institution
Langston Hughes and Pablo Picasso
Introduction
Throughout history, writers and artists have tried to influence society with their works that communicate important messages. A writer whose work has been influential in society is Langston Hughes. Hughes was part of the Harlem Renaissance, an artistic movement that celebrated the life and culture of African American people in the 1920s. Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter whose paintings had a significant influence on history and society. The pieces of art of these two great individuals were instrumental in influencing the society positively. This paper examines Hughes and Picasso and their works as well as how they influenced society.
Brief Discussion of Hughes and Picasso
Born in 1902, Hughes is one of the most celebrated writers of the Harlem Renaissance, a movement that involved African American artists and writers expressing themselves through music, literature, art, and stage performance (History, 2009). His creativity was influenced by his upbringing in Harlem, a primarily black neighborhood in New York City. His poems such as “Negro Speaks of Rivers” and “The Weary Blues” communicated important messages for society (Kelley & Bloom, 2010). Picasso, on the other hand, was born in Spain in 1881 and is considered one of the most influential and greatest artists of the 20th century (Biography, 2019). Just like Hughes, he was part of an art movement, Cubism, which he created alongside Georges Braque at the beginning of the 20th century. Therefore, they both had significant influences on society through their works.
Hughes
Hughes was a famous black poet, essayist novelist, playwright and political commentator. As described above, he was an outstanding representative of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and was known as the "Black Laureate Poet". Hughes's literary activities throughout his life were closely linked to the African American movement of his time and were closely related to the fate of the vast majority of black people. Hughes's creations truly and profoundly reflect the social life of black Americans and talk about their suffering and bitterness, joy and hope, as well as the pursuit and desire for freedom and democracy.
Love of his own nation and pride in the civilization and dignity of his race are most fully manifested in his famous early poem “Negro Speaks of Rivers” The poem was written in one go by Hughes, 18, on his journey to Mexico. He said, "it took ten minutes to a quarter of an hour" (also the first poem published by the poet). When talking about the writing process of the poem, the poet described his father's "weird aversion" to his compatriots, and said that he did not understand his father's thoughts because "I am a black man and I like black people very much." Then, the poet talked about the train slowly passing over the iron bridge over the Mississippi River. He thought of the fate of the black people from this ancient river and thought that President Lincoln himself took a raft down the Mississippi River in order to abolish slavery. In New Orleans, he thought of the other rivers that black people used to live in the Congo, Niger, and the N...