African American Dreams: Visual and Verbal

Created Jan. 24, 2024 by Caroline Wray

African American Dreams: Visual and Verbal Art & Literature Extension

Created Dec. 9, 2019 by userCaroline Wray

In remixing this work, the importance of the question does art mimic life or life mimic art comes to mind?  Reviewing the context of the images here, examine whether that statement is true in looking at works of art with works of literature written by African American Authors or written about African Americans.  Perhaps there is a piece you are reading and you can locate a piece of art that either contrasts or compliments the work that you are reading.  Is it the colors the author uses?  Is it the subject matter that motivates your response.  Include an image of the artwork and share a Google Doc explaining why you chose the artwork to align or contradict with the literature you are reading.  Be very specific and refer to the literature passages that directly relate to your persuasive argument of whether the art imitates the literature or contradicts the literature you are reading and why.  


Helpful questions to consider:

  1. Was the artwork created at the same time as the piece of literature is depicting?   
  2. Does the history or biography of the artist give you clues to the piece?
  3. Have there been any reviews of the artwork online you can review and relate? 


Original post:  Baranyk, Samantha. "African American Dreams: Visual and Verbal". OER Commons. Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education, 29 Nov. 2019. Web. 12 Dec. 2019. <https://goopenva.org/authoring/429-african-american-dreams-visual-and-verbal>.

African American Dreams


VMFA website
aadreams_JnlCarD.JPGVMFA website

VMFA website




Visit Virginia Museum of Fine Art's African American Dreams Art in Depth page to find eight American artworks from the Colonial period through Interwar period.   Each artwork is shown alongside contextual information and is paired with a text from the same historical period as the artwork.  


Ideas for classroom use:

Students may use in conjunction with the Library of Congress Primary Source Analysis Tool 

The resource may also be useful as a conversation starter or tool for personal reflection. 

Challenge older students to find other examples of art in VMFA's extensive collection of African American Art to explore the African American experience throughout history.  Can they find primary source texts that could effectively be paired with these works? 



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