In Tropical Aesthetics of Black Modernism, Samantha A. Noel investigates how Black Caribbean and American artists of the early twentieth century responded to and challenged colonial and other white dominant regimes through tropicalist representation. With depictions of tropical scenery and landscapes situated throughout the African Diaspora, performances staged in a tropical setting, and bodily expression of tropicality during Carnival, artists such as Aaron Douglas, Wifredo Lam, Josephine Baker, and Maya Angelou developed what Noel calls "tropical aesthetics"-using art to name and reclaim spaces of Black sovereignty. As a unifying element in the Caribbean modern art movement and the Harlem Renaissance, tropical aesthetics became a way for visual artists and performers to express their sense of belonging and a rootedness to a place. Tropical aesthetics, Noel contends, became central to these artists' identities and creative processes while serving as a means of crafting alternative Black Diasporic histories. In outlining the centrality of tropical aesthetics in the artistic and cultural practices of Black modernist art, Noel recasts understandings of African-diasporic art.

Book Information
ISBN 9781478010333
Author Samantha A. Noel
Format Hardback
Page Count 272
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 152g