Barbara W. Coles Trader
Art helps to shape ideas, define social attitudes and fix stereotypes. Hopes, fears, prejudices and different types of moral assumptions are focused through images that serve as instruments of persuasion and control. Hence, an image or a masterful presentation can distract from its social content and may even appear unrecognizable in a visual sense. This procedure was often used by defenders of
social realistic art
to argue that art has its own autonomous development; art is outside the boundary of political and social inquiry.
There are other sets of images that can settle the questions by demonstrating visual ideas, with linguistic principles which can be studied as a text to embody opinions and reinforce family institutional priorities. This is the category of African Americans, especially in the nineteenth century; even though, the African slave trade began in the midfifteenth century and continued for the next four hundred years. The African American art contents and formal qualities were regulated by the dialectical tension between slavery, economics (slaveowners) and abolition.
Fortunately, Caucasian English and North American abolitionists’ artists connected and preserved the pictures of
Artists’
prevailing views “for” or “against” slavery. Hence, the students and I will explore the broad themes familiar to both partisans and opponents of the slavery institution.
#1 The inhumanity of the system and its dehumanizing effect on both, slave masters and slaves. #2 The question of African American people’s competency, and their capacity to integrate into the dominant society. #3 The potential of the slaveowners to rise above the inhumane status and attain the level of spiritual/moral enlightenment. These issues have been fundamental components of the abolitionists’ debates since the beginning of African slaves.
The Western art of the
Invisible Man
was written by Freeman Henry Morris Murray. He was the first African American art historian. Murray studied the imagery of African American people from several viewpoints, and how they survived until World War I. I will read Henry Murray’s book more in depth by October, 1990. Since African Americans have been neglected in the history of American Art during the earlier centuries, Murray’s penetrating criticism will help my students and I to resolve some lingering questions with enlightenment.
I will examine some major works of art depicting African Americans in paintings during the early centuries such as:
Adoration of the
Magi, 1464 by Andrea Mantegna. I find the picture very interesting, because the pervasive appearance of the
black
wise man in the painting of the midfifteenth century signifies an element of realism coinciding with the missionary expeditions to Africa and the beginnings of the slave trade. The
black
man of royalty was garbed in magnificent splendor, and he came to pay homage to the founder of Christianity. The painter found ways of giving him subordinate status; he walks to the rear of the other two kings and genuflects. The
black
man is further removed from the infant Christ. I will reread William Wells Brown’s book, an African American author, who wrote shortly after the Civil War. In Brown’s book, he stated “a noble and wise ‘black’ ruler comes of his own volition to the ‘white’ man’s land and lays down his wealth and power at the feet of the Christ Child instead of actually depicting the missionaries and slavers invading the black man’s land to plunder its wealth and subjugate its people by force.”3 The
black
Magus (man) is depicted and defined as a defeated Ethiopian in the critical theological writings and paintings.
Watson and the Shark
, 1778 by John Singleton Copley and
Gulf Stream
, 1889 by Winslow Hormer are strikingly similar paintings. The students and the teacher will compare the two paintings with teacher-directed activities.
A.
|
Watson and the Shark
painting illustrates the water in Cuba’s Havana Harbor. The painting depicted an incident that occurred in 1749 when young Brook Watson was attacked by a shark while swimming in the Havana Harbor. The most of the nine men were sailors and they were crowded in a lifeboat. The men diligently tried to rescue the youth, Brook Watson. One of the sailors appeared to have distinct functions while trying to rescue the youth from the shark. One man shouted orders. Two men leaned over the side of the lifeboat to grab Watson; one navigated the boat; three others rowed; one held a towline; the harpooner held his weapon to strike the shark. The towline, that the African man held reeled down the side of the boat, which wrapped Watson’s right arm. The African appeared to have a
primary
role in the rescue operation which established a direct connection with the Caucasian victim (a positive position in the painting for an African person during that era).
|
B.
|
Gulf Stream
painting depicted a helpless sailor drifting perilous circumstances near Key West, Florida in 1899. The painting depicted a solitary African man modeled with a powerful physique who was lying on the deck of a fishing boat. It was damaged by a tropical storm and severe waves. The man’s life was threatened by sharks. One school of thought was that the two above paintings were influential in breaking the artistic stereotypes of African ethnic groups as followed: the cottonpatch and back porch tradition. The paintings were the beginning of artistic emancipation with African families/people in American art. The students will view both pictures and answer oral/written questions when? what? how? why? where?
|
Semantic Mapping
|
Compare
|
Contrast Cause
|
Effect
|