Final Jump Across Borders

This blog assignment has forced our class to extend our knowledge beyond the West and into the world of the colonies and their cultures. These blogs have illustrated how economically lucrative the colonization efforts were for European countries. Not only with inanimate objects, such as the red coral, but with people as well. The slave trade was highly profitable but extremely dangerous for the African population. Millions of citizens were displaced from their homes, sold into the trade, and died due to long journeys and horrible conditions. Although the colonization efforts produced negative side effects such as the slave trade, it did provide the exchange of commodities and cultural enlightenment across borders.

This has been a very interesting topic as it has pertained to other classes I have taken in my last few years of college. It is funny how experiences and new tasks can connect back to previous assignments, which creates a sense of familiarity and reaffirms your knowledge concerning a topic. This happened as one student decided to discus the economic value and history of red coral. I had learned about the material in a previous class about African colonialism that taught me the cultural and royal significance of the precious material. It was used for jewelry and other decorations adorned by the Oba or king of the Benin kingdom. Once the Portuguese arrived, it intrigued the Europeans who started exporting the coral. As Cecelia Harold indicates in her posts, the use of red coral as a merchandise commodity was highly coveted by Europeans colonizers. Red coral has profound cultural significant in the Benin kingdom. To this day, the Oba or king uses the product as jewelry and personal ornamentation in order to display status and wealth to the rest of his people. Thus, when the Europeans arrived, the material’s value and appeal grew exponentially. Red coral became a potential source of revenue for the colonizers while the material still retained its traditional significance for the Benin people.

Overall, these blogs have covered a range of topics that have sought to cross borders from contemporary society into the era of colonization. Subjects such as the depiction of Ottoman soldiers as powerful warriors, the relationship between white females and their slaves as depicted in portraitures (specifically in Portrait of the Duchess of Portsmouth by Pierre Mignard, 1682), the life in harems as illustrated in Gustave Boulanger’s painting The Harem, and the compositional contradictions between white and black female skin and their sexulization for a male audience in the French artist Gérôme’s painting, have been researched by our class. Collectively, these blogs have successfully entered the realm of the “Orient” and the European colonies, which I hope will educate and entice people to further consider the historical period of the colonies and their influences on European art.

Personally, this project has taught me to be more critical when examining art. My own research has focused on European artists using elements of the “Orient” to produce a composition aimed at entertaining audiences outside its depicted culture. Thus, these paintings become an imaginative image that functions as a stage performances instead of reflecting realistic cultural practices but rather European fantasy. This project has taught me to not instantly accept a painting’s subject matter as truthfully depicting a culture.