Field Trip to the DIA

I wish I had taken a picture of the nameplate. :(
I attempted to find the name of the painting afterwards
(through Google, very strenuous work), but to no avail.
Update: The painting is "Savoy Ballroom" by Reginald Marsh

On Friday, I went on the Spanish field trip to the DIA.

 “Ha!”, I thought, “I’ll miss English! Yippee!”

However, as I walked through the museum, I came upon a painting of African-Americans dancing in a jazz club during the 1920’s. I examined the faces of the men and women dancing in the picture. Gaiety exuded from every aspect of the picture, from the facial expressions and body language to the vividly colored finery worn by the black men and women. I began to feel a nagging suspicion that I wasn’t going to engage in the thought-free day I had expected.

I was attacked by a rush of thoughts about the poems we read in class -- Langston Hughes’s “Harlem” and “The Weary Blues” depict a much different view of life for African Americans, a life that “festers like a sore”. He documents the hardships that blacks faced and the heavy burden that society places on them because of their race. In contrast to the painter who portrayed the blacks’ lives as enjoyable, carefree, and even glamorous, Hughes portrayed the life of a black as melancholy and tiresome.

However, In the piece by Zora Neale Hurston that we read this weekend, the author seemed to reflect on her heritage in a more positive light, embracing her blackness and seeming to expect others to embrace it as well.

“[The orchestra] constricts the thorax and splits the heart with its tempo and narcotic harmonies...I dance wildly inside myself; I yell within, I whoop; I shake my assegai above my head, I hurl it true to the mark yeeeeooww! I am in the jungle and living in the jungle way.”
I can almost imagine Hurston dancing alongside the people in this painting.

Also, I was just kidding about missing English and the yippee.