 Locke is perhaps best known for his work in aesthetics, in particular, his role as both an intellectual purveyor of Negro art and literary critic. Locke managed to position himself at the forefront of one of the most significant and important artistic rebirths in American history. His seminal work, The New Negro, was ground-breaking in its presentation of Negro art as thoroughly self-expressive of the individual artist, and not as merely representative of aesthetic, cultural and social possibilities. Locke's publication of The New Negro was in many ways in direct defiance and contradiction of the black intellectual elite of his day, most notably W. E. B. Du Bois, as well as being the advance guard of the aesthetic sentiments of the average Negro of his day. There is evidence of his philosophical views, especially in the areas of axiology, culture, race and ethnicity throughout his writings on aesthetics. Major themes in Locke's aesthetics include: universal human appeal and the relationship of universal and particular; the transition from folk art to high art; the centrality of individual expressivity; and cross-cultural communicability through the aesthetic.