Post #4 Putting it all together: Oppression and borders

1530s Paris Bordone (Italian painter, 1500-1571) Portrait of a Man in Armor with Two Pages.

Throughout this blog project I have analyzed the picture above to get a sense of this idea of "borders" and how African and European cultures interact and how it affects portraiture. I first described the phenomena of including African's in portraits, then looked at the specifics and the logistics involved in such a portrait, and then took a step back and looked at how the motif of the black page came about.

In this post, I am going to be connecting this to the overall treatment of how these cultures interact and what my peers came up with throughout their blog posts. One that jumped out at me right away was that all the African and foreign components we were discussing so intently in these works had absolutely no background information. For example, I dedicated this entire project to the above painting, but I have found nothing except the most standard cursory information on the African child above. It becomes much more interesting when we look at this blog project as a whole and find that in the vast majority of these posts there is little information about these foreign components at all, and that their value as a whole in these artworks is not as individuals, but simply because of their origin. Or even worse, most of the time it isn't because of their culture or origin, but simply because of the color of their skin! One of my peers studied Blackamoor figures for example, these of course vary and are myriad in all types of furniture, sculpture, and art-form. By today's standard they are obscenely racist, because they are so extremely dark and portray caricature-esque features that were considered prevalent among Africans. None of these blackamoor figures are identifiable as a person, or most of the times even a specific African culture, they are simply blanketly identified as "African" with the most stereotypical features possible. Most of the time they are even portrayed as servants, or holding products, like sugar, that are traditionally harvested by slaves.  Many of my peers similarly studied how Africans were portrayed in various artworks, and we all came to the similar conclusion that their value was simply their race. most of the time because it was in fashion to have such things around because they were a status symbol. 

Essentially what all of our blogs have in common is that the interaction between these cultural borders was not "a give and take" relationship, more or less the African culture and people were being systematically exploited and this is prevalent in the art of the time. Even if, most of the time, the African's portrayed were not enslaved they were indentured in forms where they were completely subservient. The portrayal in these art-forms of Africans as uncivilized in subservient contributes to this idea of political and cultural hegemony that leads to these types of art-forms being not only deemed acceptable, but highly desired.  All of these artworks, in least in the form they were intended to be (Intention of commission, ownership etc.), can simply be described as culturally oppressive. 


What I think others should take away from our combined efforts is simple. I think we should view these artworks and see them as what they are- a product of cultural hegemony from a society when oppression was not only acceptable, but in fashion. These works of art should stand as a reminder of the systematic oppression of the past to help us not repeat similar mistakes in the future and to spread cultural awareness. 

Post #3 Investigation of the origin of the black page in portraiture

Investigating the origins of the phenomena of the black page in portraiture.

1530s Paris Bordone (Italian painter, 1500-1571) Portrait of a Man in Armor with Two Pages.

In this post I plan on taking a step back and looking at the motif that would lead to the commission of this painting.  In my first post, I took a look at the phenomena itself, and took a cursory try at analyzing the painting for motive of its creation, and balanced that against some facts of the time and talked about how it was oppressive in nature. I related it to the idea of borders in a philosophical sense through talking about how the "exotic" culture is being used in the work. In my second post I wanted to "take a step closer" and look at some specifics of the painting. Who was the artist, what can we learn about the location, zeitgeist of the time, and other information about specifics of the painting. I connected it to the idea of borders in a physical sense in talking about the actual distances between Milan and the slave trade. In this, I plan on taking a larger step back, and looking at the origin of the motif of this style of painting, how the idea of using the idea of borders and other cultures in this sense came about.

As mentioned previously, Bordone was an apprentice of the great painter Titian. Titian is quite famous for a portrait of Laura Dianti, which similarly shows a noblewoman with her hand on a black page. Laura Dianti was a very rich noblewoman who was well respected, and maintained a small court until her death. I have learned that keeping black retainers was a fashionable Italian practice, and the blacker the servants the more "valuable" they were as retainers. They were often given as gifts between noble households, often as part of estates. Essentially blacks were "expensive and rare imports" and it has been said "None but a princess in those days could indulge in the luxury of a European page". As the slave trade to Italy began to decline, owning black slaves became more expensive, and by this time many slaves were being freed. They would often work as gondoliers, rowing small ships throughout canals, and as they adapted to this role every person of "value" would own at least one gondolier for transportation purposes, thus we can infer that owning a black page or gondolier became a status symbol because of this necessity of transportation, along with the  preconception that having black retainers or slaves meant extreme wealth, We can then easily see how this would translate into portraiture, people usually pose with things that make them seem more cultured, intelligent, or wealthy. If a black page was a well known symbol of those things, the idea that they would be in portraiture, the same as posing with a book or a neoclassical column, follows. Obviously, this relates to the idea of borders because of the cultural exploitation of this race, the cultural impression they have on this important artform is essentially as an object, like how one would pose with a prized horse or vase. Throughout all of these portaits of rich noblemen with black pages the origin of the pages, beyond the most cursory information, is unknown. Simply because it was not relevant, the purpose of the page in the portrait is simply to exist to show their "exoticism". 

Overall, what should be taken from this project is the manner Africans were exploited in portraiture. They existed to show the wealth and importance of the rich nobleman that commissioned their portraits, and essentially because they were in fashion they were included. If Neoclassical columns were in fashion, the black page could easily be replaced by a column or pretty much any other object. The effect of the clashing of Italian and African borders in this sense of portraiture as an expression of this combination of cultures is rather sad, the main impression of African culture is essentially as objects of prestige. It is symbolic of not just a physical, economic, or humanitarian oppression, but also philosophically, in that these people were exploited just because of their location of origin and color of their skin, and were fundamentally replaceable in these portraits with ordinary everyday inanimate objects. 

Sources:

Kaplan, Paul H.D. "Titian's "Laura Dianti" and The Origins Of The Motif Of The Black Page In Portraiture." Antichita Viva (1982): n. pag. Print.

Blog Post 4

Blog Post 4

The first building block for all our blog posts was the theme of borders.  The “borders” we focused on were between European countries and North or Sub-Saharan Africa in the 19^th and 20^th century.  Each student began their blog by choosing one artwork and selecting one particular aspect within the artwork to research further.  By partaking in these blog posts everyone was able to explore elements of their own choosing and which interested them, yet remain under the same theme.  The topics that were researched in these various posts ranged anywhere from various portraiture to trade, racism, gender, and even social class.  Exploring these topics gave a better understanding and explanation of ideas, which existed within Europe because of these exchanges with outside countries, and are present in these artworks. 

Although most individuals’ posts looked at different artworks, one of the themes I saw across the blog posts was how Europeans poorly represented aspects and people that were outside their own culture.  This is because Westerners were intrigued by this “exoticness”, which is why it was a popular subject when it came to artworks.   For example, my blog post discussed how Africans were placed in portraits of elite women simply as a social marker, their skin color made them different and therefore, they were portrayed at items of luxury.  While another post discussed the misrepresentation of the harems in artworks of the Orient by Europeans.  This occurred because they had never truly seen a harem and created images on what they believed to be and look like. A third blog researched the differences in portraiture of soldiers in the Ottoman army and how the European artists chose to represent each soldier based on their race.     

If a reader is to take anything away from these blog posts it should be the various relationships, between Europe countries and African at this time.  When studying these paintings, one is able to learn much about society and culture of not only Europe, but also Africa.  These societies are not simple and straightforward; instead, they were complex and multidimensional, with many different layers to interpret and study.  While studying this time period paintings allowed researches a visual illustration of what society was like then.  In today’s culture, we use television and newspapers to learn about society and culture; while in the 19^th and 20^th century, paintings were the version of mass media and it was how people developed ideas and opinions of outside cultures.

For the class Royalty to Revolution these blog posts projects granted students the ability to further study visual aspects of European culture just as the course already entails, but also being able to bring in another element of their interest, which was how the European culture changed because of these exchanges and interaction with African countries.  By doing this we were able to see how these cultures interacted and eventually became forcefully meshed together and how this is represented in the art world.  

Post #4

In this project I decided to focus on the portraiture of the Duchess of Portsmouth, named The Duchess of Portrsmouth. The research in this project allowed me to understand why these portraits are made, as well as why they include certain objects (and in this case slaves) in the paintings. The project addresses the theme of borders, showing portraits of European elites with slaves brought from Africa and precious objects that were used in trade, sometimes even to acquire slaves. One of the most shocking insights I got was the lack of information on the slave in the portrait. There is a lot of information on the Duchess on the painting, which is not surprising. But I expected to at least find the young slave’s name in my research, which I didn’t. This is evident that the slave had no importance to the Duchess; she was only treated as an object that represented wealth at the time. After reading the other blog posts in this project, I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the main ideas is of racialized exotica during the 20^th century in Europe.

This concept of racialized exotica is perfect to describe the mentality in the cultures of Europe during this period. Where the European powers exploited their colonies in Africa and controlled the colonies’ product, which include even the Afrikano[1] race.  Slaves, animals, and precious materials were considered the most exotic possessions available. Having these showed that the people were part of the higher-classes. In this idea, the most interesting exotic “objects” addressed are slaves. Slave’s importance in society was irrelevant. They were just a property of white people, doing all the hard work for them, while the white people just enjoyed them.

In the case of the portraiture of The Duchess of Portsmouth, the Duchess appears with a slave at her side. The fact that the slave is there shows that the Duchess has access to a lot of wealth, but another very important aspect that is not well addressed is the extent to which she exposes her skin in the painting. Her chest is exposed, revealing her extremely white skin. This showed that she was never out in the sun since she has her slaves perform the work outside, in the sun. At this time, darker skin symbolized a lower economic class.

Another image used by other students in this project is the portraiture of Mademoiselle de Blois and Mademoiselle de Nantes. This painting includes a young African slave and a small black dog. The dog and the young slave are gazing at each other. This connection in the painting seems to be showing that the dog and the slave have the same importance in society, further diminishing the importance of the race in the world at this point in time. In a way the meaning of this or my interpretation is that the black African and the dog are both viewed as animals (wild not equal to with Europeans) and below the white Europeans in social standing.

The shared idea in the blog posts for this project is the theme of trade across borders. But a common subtheme/concept found in them is recialized exotica in Europe during the 20^th century. Slaves were just exotic “objects” that represented the high-class status of the owners.

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[1] Afrikano: The term use in Africa by the African countries and its people to refer to the African continent.

"Why We Say “New Afrikan”." Malcolm X Grassroots Movement RSS. Malcom X Grassroots Movement, n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.

Blog Post 4

     As I look at all of my fellow classmates work it is clear to see some similarities shown throughout our work.  

      It seems to me, that Europeans came into contact with Africans through trade, exploration,  and the slave trade. For example, Cecilia talked about how trade was used to connect Europe and Africa in terms of red coral import. Other examples of trade connecting Europe and Africa include the paintings depicting materials that were native to the colonies like certain types of fabrics.  Explorers also got in contact with Africa through the merchant trade to bring new goods to Europe. In terms of the slave trade, Europeans imported slaves and came into contact with the Africans that way. 

      

     One of the main similarities I saw between all of my classmates and my projects was the relation between Africans and status symbols. In the Duchess of Portsmouth, the little black girl in the painting was a status symbol. She was given to the Duchess as a present like a pair of shoes, not a person. Many elite patrons had servants or slaves that showed their wealth and status. 

     Another connection between Africans and status symbols is the use of coral. Coral is a status symbol as well. And blackamoor, was used to promote the owner's wealth as well. Blackamoor was usually seen in the homes of the wealthy and elite to show how cultured they were. All of these items are used by the Europeans to promote their status while suppressing the African people. 

     One of the next themes I saw was the theme of superiority over the African people. All the Africans pictured in blackamoor or paintings were all shown to be serving the Europeans. For example in the blackamoor piece Negress with a Basket shows a black woman gesturing to figuratively serve the owner of the piece sugar out of the sugar bowl. The clock mantle piece also uses Africans as tools to help the Europeans live. Also, the Duchess of Portsmouth shows a little African girl helping a Duchess get dressed. 

     After all of these blog posts it seems clear to me that it is impossible to easily understand the relationship between Europe and Africa. It is convoluted and confusing. However, it does seem clear to me that the Africans were clearly exploited by the Europeans and their culture was usurped and used as decor for European homes. This project was over all very insightful and interesting and I really learned a lot about the relation between countries in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. 

     

Final Blog

In my previous blog posts, I have talked about how Ottoman empire did not discriminate between races and how every single person was offered roughly the same opportunities to succeed, at least in the military. Furthermore, I talked about how Ottoman Military would not be able to practice discrimination practices because how spread the country was. I also highlighted that in the artwork I presented in my previous posts Caucasian man was possibly less prestigious or respected than an African man because of his clothes or his weapon. Therefore, the point that I was trying to make was that Ottoman Empire was not in a position to discriminate between people because its location created an environment in which black and white men were force to live together, which means that they learned how live together, and knowing that there were dark skinned humans did not threaten ottoman civilians. In this blog post, I will try to examine my peers works and try to highlight similarities that were important to me.


After reading all of the posts that my peers have produced, one thing is clear; almost all of the artwork created during colonization era conveyed the conflicting cultural and physical differences Europeans and Africans had through military conflict and/or international trade. Almost all of the posts reveal that Europeans who traveled to Africa during the era of colonization were surprised by the existence of men that were complete opposite to European appearance.  Furthermore, most of my peers posts revolved around how European people treated or viewed Africans. Given that slave trade was common in colonized world, it is safe to assume that lot of the Africans were not treated fairly by the Europeans. However, as my peers' post convey, there are vast amount of friendly and/or forced but good interaction between Europeans and Africans. During colonization, African countries and European nations traded among each other. Such activities made Europeans interested in people that were complete opposite to them. Artistic work that was produced in colonized world represented the cultural implications that trading with African nations had. In Portrait of the Duchess of Portsmouth (1682), the artist tries to convey the relationship between the royalty white European woman, and an African slave. However, contrary to the opposite believes it is in a friendly manner. All of the posts highlight that African culture had significant effects on the European culture at the time because European people were interested in different cultures. On the other hand, my personal take away from the posts is that European people felt threatened by the African culture and the people and that is the reason that European people tried to suppress or degrade African communities. As Cecelia pointed out in her third post, trade was a big factor in cultural exchange between African and European nations. If we dig deep and try to read between the lines of every post, we see that there is cultural interaction between African and European people mostly because of the trade that they were involved in. Furthermore, almost in every post, I can see that there were certain amounts of surprise element among European people. African art, shapes or the African way of presenting themselves was very strange to European cultures, which lead them to take these artworks or habits back to their own country to present it as a gift of their bravery to explore far away lands. In Portrait of a Man in Armor with Two Pages, we can see that African male is holding an armor for the European soldier and he is doing it with a great pride. This picture is a representation that there were certain admiration elements within European people towards African societies. In his post, Shane talks about how the artist of the work paid great attention to portraying this exotic African male in the picture, and Shane also highlights that the older European man in the picture put lot of effort into the process to make sure that African child was under his official employ not his slave.


All in all, all of my peers’ posts talked about the cultural interaction between African and European communities. Further, these interactions were conducted in a way that European people were in charge. However, all of my peers pointed out that there was a certain amount of sympathy towards the African culture among Europeans, and despite the atrocities that happened because of unfortunate circumstances, African culture, and art greatly affected the European artistic style as well as daily life. 

Blog Post 3

      In my first post I was discussing the portrait of the Duchess of Portsmouth, however, I decided to switch my focus to blackamoor. The specific piece I became intrigued with was the Mantle Clock created by Jean Baptiste Andre Furet in France in 1784.

Blackamoor is the term to describe a decorative art used to describe pictorial representations of Africans in paintings, sculptures, jewelry. It is a very controversial form of art popular in the Rocco Europe, and for good reason (Childs 1987). It was usually placed in the homes of the wealthy and elite (Childs 1987). Some examples of items with blackamoor adorning it are “sugar boxes, sweetmeat bowls, coffee pots, and steering elephants (Childs 1987).”

After further research I learned that blackamoor was more than just decorated trinkets. It dealt with the “concept of race, black servants in the colonies and the concept of black slaves in the homes of the wealthy (Childs 1987).” What I took this to mean, that blackamoor really embodied how the people of Rocco Europe didn’t give these African rights however, they would use their culture, their people, and even depictions of their form to decorate their homes. This just shows how taken advantage of these people were by Europeans.

Another piece I was intrigued by was Negress with a Basket by Johann Joachim Kandler and Johann Friedrich Eberlin 1741. This piece uses a covered sugar bowl decorated with a black woman in a skirt without a blouse and decorative flowers decorate the sugar bowl.  The woman’s “offering gesture and direct gaze” makes her not just décor but more like a servant (Childs 1987). I think this really demonstrates the relationship between Africans and the Europeans at the time, much like the mantle clock.

            This relationship is further discussed by Child when she talks about how humans were thought of as different based on race and they began being classified (Child 1987).  She says that “humans were brought into a system of taxonomic classification that include flora and fauna (Child 1987).” People were classified by climate and geography and the Europeans started being fascinated with the Africans because their physical appearance was in stark contrast to the predominantly white or Caucasian people found in Europe (Child 1987).

  This makes sense to me for a number of reasons. For one, people are always curious about things and people different from them. Also, Europeans were known to use art to show their wealth and status. So by displaying replicas of Africans in their homes the Europeans could show how cultured and important they are.  The reason I believe this is from my research of the Dutchess of Portsmouth. I found out that the wealthy and elite were often given little black children as gifts. These children were usually used as women’s servants and would be kept almost like pets. They were used as status symbols just like the blackamoor pieces because you had to be so powerful and rich to afford one, to go to Africa to get one, or be given one as a gift in order to gain your political favor.