Rought Essay Ideas so far

• Reclamation of gold jewelry in modern Black Fashion.
• Significance of not naming the black subject within British art history
• Sexualisation & Exotisim of the black woman in the 19th/20th century
• The Black Madonna?

Black Africans In Renaissance Europe

White people think you are a savage if A. You Nakey* & B. U don't know or care about Christianity.

A Lot of black people fall into this category.

*nakey wasn't actually naked just not as many clothes as europeans thought they should have because they based wealth and superiority on material goods.

Lot of black african men had circumcised Dicks and christian europeans associated circumcision with judaism and that make u bad/the enemy ergo black people are the enemy. 

Lot of visual links and cultural association with Black people and Gold, Specifically Gold Jewelry in the Renaissance era. 

Gold showed the richness of Africa as a continent but the inferiority of the Africans who wore it.

?????

Only Jewish Girls and African people wore earrings meaning earrings are bad.

Usage of Gold and jewelry for decoration ie armlets chains anklets and collars began to represent the bonds of slavery. They used the accessories as a way of chaining up slaves and using the culture and fashion of a people and turning it into a symbol of oppression.


Something called "the laughing black" stereotype where a black slave was seen as carefree because they're too stupid to understand the misery of their own situation.

"Slaves are always happy they do nothing but laugh"(Oliveira 1578)

A Phrase Used before You can't change a leopard's spots. "To Wash an Ethiopian white is to labour in vain"

Black Skin = Deformity

For white to be considered beautiful black must be considered a deformity.

Mantegna and Correggio use of the subordinated dark skinned women

Isabella D'Este liked collecting young black children and wanted a young black girl between the ages of 1 1/2 & 4, who was 'As black as possible" (Kaplan 2005)

Andrea Mantegna depicted these fantasy loyal dark skinned servants egar to woek, exotasising black women and adding to the concept of otherness.

Contrast Albrecht Dürer's portrait of Katherine showed the harsher realities of a melancholic but dignified slave.

One of the rare depictions of a named black person

Image Of The Black In Western Art Volume 4

The Image of The Black In Western Art Volumes 4 part 1

• The images tend to use Black people as props or propaganda
• Lost of Glory day Empire Bullshit Britain was really big on depicting themselves as a savior. Comes int that white savior complex but for a whole country. 
• Big use of composition to show black inferiority.
• Also exaggeration of the black features to dehumanize
• All in all just really emphasizing my points made in last essay about the use of art to dehumanize the black to maintain the concept of white superiority within western Europe and the Americas. 
• 
  

Francesco Pezzicar's Statue of a freed slave at the Centennial Exhibition (1876) 

• This statue was slated by critics because the Man depicted was both active in his own freedom and had an expression of triumphant pride, which angered american art critics because they believed the man should look more humble and submissive. 

The Image of The Black In Western Art Volumes 4 part 2

Image Of Otherness

The Anonymity of the subject links this work with a number of portraits heads of the black's painted.

Gets rid of a sense of individuality 

There seems to be a big rise in the sexualisation and fetishisation of the black woman in art in the 19th century.  To Quote " By this date the physical allure of black women for white men was more readily admitted than before' (1989) 

Creepy Quote Of The Day : 'A Beauty that charms you, that makes you wish that the marble was a live woman" ( Castantino, 1877, statue fucker)

Using a white Cleopatra to represent Luxury and black servants to Juxtapose with their 'Savagery'.

Brotherton Library Leeds.- Initial Research

At the Leeds Uni Library looking to gain better footing on black image in western art pre-1700's. At the moment this is as narrow as I can kinda get. Still want to look at the significance of black British historians, maybe this is how i do it. Look at the black image in western art books look at the significance of them?? i don't really know right now but there is something there.

The Image of The Black in Western Art Vol 1:

• 'From 16th Century onward the historical ideas about the blacks were shaped by the development of the Triangular Trade and the growth of overseas slaver'(Bugner, 1976) p7
• Balthazar 'the black wise man' depiction as only black wise man seems to have originated 12th century however the people charged with preserving and restoring artwork (non-cited age) have striped of the blackness off thew statues and paintings to whiten him. 
• 'The importance of the evidence depends also on the place assigned to the clack within a representation. If he is there only as an "extra" in a scene in which the white man is the principal actor, it is clear that his part is secondary. Even if his role is not degrading, and he is not added simply for contrast, his insertion in a composition shows that his image is subordinate to the other factors in which he is only indirectly concerned. It may be thought that the periods during which such insertions occur most frequently thus seems the most unfavorable to the image of the black: instances would be the art of pharaonic Egypt and Christian Europe before the fifteenth Century' (Bugner, 1976) p11
• 'His image is more than a contrast: it represents the dissonant minority' p13

The Ethiopian Seems to be a running theme in this book. maybe look into it? 

• In Ancient Egypt blackness was a sign of fecundity (fruitfulness & fertility)
• Isis the black 

•  Greece also associated black with fertility 
• The European Black Madonnas were connected with the same kind of positive evaluation 

 Christian metaphor of the Ethiopian as a symbol for sin established the image of Africa being that of the devil.

Blackness = Death, Hell, Devil & Evil

How much did this change in the association of blackness lead to the degradation of the black image?

The use of blackness to mean evil in the beginning was not necessary directly related to African people. Most demons in early Christianity were black but did not have african features.

'The blackness that marked the Old Law is whitened in the New'

Trying to work Out my Disertation

Okay I don't really have an idea of what I want to do specifically. I'm trying at the moment to work towards what I think the lectures want to see and not something I'm specifically excited to do my dissertation on. I feel like for a maturer essay I need to focus on the contemporary black imagery but I would like to focus on historical aspect of the black image and underrepresented black historical european figures. The lack of documentation and acknowledgment of these figures is something that frustrates me greatly. I want to look into and research greatly historical black european figures in, either italian or english history who are significant but have been erased due to historical whitewashing, the atlantic slave trade and post 16th century racism.

Things I want to focus on in my dissertation

• 2-3 Black European Figures who have been Erased and underrepresented in european history
• Look at how Erasing these figures from european history is of form of anti-black racism 
• Find theories and methods used to slander/demonise a race of people
• Look into how the change in the way the black image was presented in art links to the acknowledgment and documentation of non-slave based black europeans. 
• Theories on art reflecting the mindset of a historical period as well as social, political and cultural biased rather than it being a true objective documentation format 

Black British Creatives

At the moment i'm trying to compose a database of black british poets, artists, filmmakers,authors, historians and look at how the are representing the black form in contemporary society.

It is only recently we have been able to represent ourselves and our portrayal to the media.

I also am looking in conjunction how the black image has been represented throughout british history in art.

Looking at both and gaining more knowledge on black image representation throughout history should help lead me to a cohesive and specific dissertation.

I've already begun to contact filmmaker Cecile Emeke and I hope to contact others and talk to them in regards to both their practice and how they feel the representation of the black briton has change over the years.

I want to look at the contrast between the black image represented by white men back in the day and the way black creatives represent the black image now.