ROBESON ON NEGRO ART: ALLIED TO THE MAORIS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20648, 24 June 1935, Page 6

ROBESON ON NEGRO ART: ALLIED TO THE MAORIS.

To-day’s Special Article

Starts From an Emotional Quality: European Culture Chiefly Rational.

’‘The negro brain is simple—but it is also subtle. And the subtlety is often forgotten,” said Paul Robeson in a dissertation on the negro, his mind, and his contribution to art. ‘‘Many plays written by white men about negroes merely give us the ‘stage-negro’—as there used to be the ‘stage-irishman’—and 'hey might as well be played by vhite men blacking up their faces. Green Pastures’ was nearly genuine —just genuine enough! But it overdid the simplicity. It made out that because a negro liked fish and custard and cigars, he imagined heaven as a place where there was more fish and more custard and larger cigars. But it is a mistake to make the negro too much of a child.”

the London production of the American play “ Stevedore ” as a starting point he made the following observations to “ H.G.” for the “ Observer.” “ No negroes,” he said “ are just as sweet as the Spirituals make them out. You’ve got to add to their mentality the ‘ St Louis Blues,’ and Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong, wild with excitement, blowing into his trumpet. . . “ The present play, ‘ Stevedore,’ gets very near to the negro mentality—it is one of the nearest. It is written by two men who lived and worked with negroes all over the South. But it deals with the mentality of the negro labourer—not with the mentality, say, of a negro physician. “ But what interests me—what is a burning interest with me—is the quality of the negro’s brain. Its emotional capacity! All European culture is different from ours. It is, speaking very generally, founded on French culture—French culture—brainpower—reasoning! The negro starts from a completely different end. He starts from the point of view of emotion! Art Allied to the Maoris. " The folk-songs of almost all people are completely emotional —Hungarian, Hebridean, Irish (I can understand Irish songs and the Irish theatre). They come easily and naturallv to me. And I believe that Africa is the root of everything we American negroes have of art of any kind. And African art (which means my art) is allied to the art of Boli (the Malay States) and the Maoris —and that, in turn, is allied to the art of China and Japan. You think this a very surprising statement? The art of China and Japan has reached very sophisticated heights—but both are built on natural and simple traditions. The language itself is the same in feeling. The languages both of Africa and China are built on sound, accent, and rhythm, rather than on anything that can be written down in black and white. “ Language of Tone.” “Any single syllable that you like in Chinese, say, the word ‘ wha.’ said in a high voice means one thing, but said in a low voice the same word means something entirely different. I have recently been studying some West African dialects. The same rule applies. It is a language of tone. (Here Mr Robeson demonstrates.) these svllables said in a tenor voice mean one thing; said deeper down in the chest thev mean something completely different. If a modern African poet were to arise he would not use the method of Shakespeare,; he would use the method of Bach. . . "We are very much the same in many

other respects. Everyone has Chinese art. Who has ever heard of Chinese science? The Chinese, before they build a house, even in these days, want to know that the wind and the tides of the water are favourable! Theirs is not a rational culture. It is a culture of emotion. Ana the burning thing for me is to save, for the negro this terrific thing that he has this terrific power of emotion. , , “For the negro art is an expression of what he feels. For the European it is an expression of what he thinks. Negro “ Thinks ” Melody. And what the European always insists on giving the negro—when he is trying to educate him—is European art. which is not really an emotional product at all. I am what is called an ' educated' negro. But I recognise that Duke Ellington with his orchestra, which is really a continuation of the African drum—means a great deal to me. So many negroes try to spend tneir lives in proving that they can absorb Western European culture. I. having provea that I can absorb it, have got over my shame of the elemental thing. I can say boldly that Beethoven actually means less, to me than a good African folk-song. I don't now want to know what a man thinks. I want to know what he feels. I’m not interested in any European culture; not even the culture of Moscow—but 1 am interested in the culture of Uzbekistan. “ I like early European music. The early Church music—the music ot, Palestrina, and the music going backwards from Bach All this is music founded on melody. Bacll part in it has its own tune. If you strike harmony, you only strike it by accident. The negro 4 thinks ’ melody—not harmony. You lift your eyebrows at the idea of negro and Chinese art being the same! °" e da X go into the British Museum and walk from the Chinese section to the African section, and vice versa. You'll be surprised at the similarity. Especially at the things called the Benin bronzes from Africa. They might be pure Chinese! . . . European Rationalists. All European art is rational—or. where it is not, it is trying to escape. Blake was trying to escape. Epstein feels somtthing really primeval. Epstein would be much appreciated in Africa. Shelley was a rationalist —who decided that he ought to feel. Wagner is a rationalist, who. deciding that he must feel, becomes a sentimentalist. What I want to preserve for the negro is this thing that he can give to European art—this capacity of feeling. This is the burning thing with me. I woula like to found a -negro theatre —plays by negroes and acted for negroes.