Blog Post #2

            For my second blog project, I decided to change my focus from the Portrait of the Duchess of Portsmouth to focus on the decorative art of blackamoor. Blackamoor is the term used to describe pictorial representations of Africans in paintings, sculptures, jewelry and other forms of decorative art.  The piece in particular I chose to focus on was  the Mantle Clock created by Jean Baptiste Andre Furet in France in 1784.

            I chose to focus on this piece for a couple of reasons. For one, it was visually intriguing and I wanted to find out more about why someone would create a piece like this in this time period. I also was taken aback by the sheer detail the artist was able to put into this piece. The gold/bronze leaf is so intricate and the marble is very high quality and beautiful.

            In my research, I found out the clock belonged to Baron J.L. Léopold Double in his home until it was sold in 1881. However, there was not a lot of information available about how and why this was created. So I started to research more about blackamoor in general.

            Blackamoor was so popular in this time because dark-skinned people were thought of as exotic and it showed that the owner was worldly and well traveled.  And most examples, of blackamoor show a black male covered in jewels and gold and most examples have a turban covering their head. Most of the examples are of servants holding something like a tray or fruit, presumably for a master or owner. These servants were also in very difficult positions to hold that showed off the muscle tone these servants would have from man hours of labor.

            I was surprised to see that so many examples of blackamoor were done by German artists. One example of this is the Moor with Emerald Clusters by Grunes Gewolbe in 1724. I was surprisd their were so many German artists because I was  so focused on England and French artists because they take up the scope of our class. However, it makes sense that signs of wealth and status would be similar no matter where in Europe the artist was located.

            Also, in my research there was a large number of articles about how offensive certain pieces of blackamoor were and how upset the contemporary populations are about these pieces. It seems that because of how offensive these pieces were many different sculptures and paintings were destroyed. Also, many of the original names of pieces contained offensive words within the title and were changed in order to make it more palatable to the audiences.

            Lastly, I found a few articles that showed how there was a lot more discrimination occurring in England at this time than was previously thought. For example, Immigrants were expelled, there were policies that penalized the Jews and pieces of blackamoor were abundant in wealthy families homes. One article argued that the use of blackamoor helped construct the racism in England, which than carried further to France and beyond.

            I found the names of some of these pieces and the poses they were in very unsettling. And I also didn’t like how common these were. They seem to be in poor taste in my contemporary opinion.