Music creates its own language. It can contain many different kinds of genres and appeals to a variety of people. In Langston Hughes “The Blues I’m Playing,” Mrs. Ellswood, an older white women, and Oceola, a young black female musician who Mrs. Ellswood is sponsoring, have contrasting opinions on how to enjoy and experience art. These characters disagree on what art is, with Mrs. Ellswood taking a more professional standpoint. In addition, how art should be done, as Oceola sees it as a way to express her-self while Mrs. Ellswood sees art as a job. Lastly, Mrs. Ellswood and Oceola have different viewpoints on what they love about art.
Music, painting, and even reading can represent Art. In “The Blues I’m Playing,” art is represented by music…show more content… Oceola takes on a casual approach to her art form: originally playing at home, parties, or church. Oceola earns her money by tutoring and playing the piano at various events. When Mrs. Ellsworth and Oceola first meet Mrs. Ellsworth learns about all Oceola does, “Oceola had said she was busy every day. It seemed that she had pupils, rehearsed a church choir, and played almost nightly for coloured house parties or dances. She made quite a good deal of money” (Hughes 98). Once Oceola meets Mrs. Ellswood, Oceola starts playing in reception halls and no longer is working at her outside jobs as Mrs. Ellswood is paying for Oceola rent, lessons, and clothes. Mrs. Ellswood believes that art needs to be practiced, and shaped by those will advanced the skill, even going as far as sending Oceola to places rich in culture, “So for two years then, Oceola lived abroad at Mrs. Ellsworth’s expense. She studied with Philippe, had the little apartment on the Left Bank, and learned about Debussy’s African background” (Hughes 109). Mrs. Ellsworth has the vision that musicians must be playing in concerts and leads Oceola toward white culture instead of letting Oceola play in her Harlem houses. When Mrs. Ellsworth discovers that Oceola is playing at these parties she is quite upset, finding that “This rather disturbed Mrs. Ellsworth, who still believed in art of the old school, portraits that really and truly looked like people, poems about…show more content… Ellswood even have different ideas of what they love about art. Oceola likes that her music can be a broadcast of her culture while Mrs. Ellswood likes the classic and uniform part of art. Oceola loves that her music can be her hobby, something casual to do while also having a husband and a family. When Oceola is writing to Mrs. Ellsworth, “she wrote back that she didn’t see why children and music couldn’t go together. Anyway during the present depression, it was hard for a beginning artist like herself to book a concert tour- so she might just as well be married awhile” (Hughes 114). Oceola loves more than the art and wants more in life. Mrs. Ellswood loves that art can make the artist into something, even potentially famous, “You could shake the stars with your music, Oceola. Depression or no depression, I could make you great” (Hughes 118). Mrs. Ellswood also seems to like the art more than the actual artist. In the introduction of the text, it is written, “Except that she was sometimes confused as to where beauty lay- in the youngsters or in what they made, in the creator or the creation” (Hughes 96). After Mrs. Ellswood and Oceola have a falling out, Mrs. Ellswood is able to move onto another artist. Mrs. Ellsworth tells Oceola, “And Oceola, my dear, I’ve decided to spend the whole winter in Europe. I sail on December eighteenth. Christmas –while you are marrying –I shall be in Paris with my precious Antonio Bas” (Hughes 117). This indicates that Mrs.
