As governments changed to give citizens more freedom, it became more important to justify enslaving or discriminating against a certain portion of the population. This was the cause for the belief that blacks were scientifically inferior to whites. Many paintings made during the nineteenth century only include blacks for symbolic reasons. In two paintings in this exhibit, this is manifested in the fetisization of black women because they were believed to have larger genitalia and a baser sexual nature. The creation of the photograph in the 19th century marked the beginning of the end of this belief because of its relative objectivity.
Marie Guillemine Benoist, Portrait d'une négresse, 1800,
Oil on Canvas, The Louvre
In her painting, Portrait d’une négresse, Benoist attempts to join the conversation on whether or not blacks should be treated the same as whites taking place around the time of the French Revolution. The painting was controversial because of its lone black subject; most contemporary paintings only portrayed blacks as extras in paintings and instead focused on the black’s master. Benoist paints her subject in typical slave garb. She is not given a name because Benoist wants her to be representational of all enslaved blacks. Benoist’s painting is also meant to draw attention to the inequality of women, both white and black, in a country supposedly founded on equality. Despite the liberal attitude of this painting, Benoist makes the decision to paint the woman with a bare breast, which is interpreted by some as a reference to black’s hypersexuality. Benoist’s capitulation to the racist tendencies of the west during the 1800’s shows how permeating these beliefs were.
Theodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa, 1818-1819
Oil on Canvas, The Louvre
J.T. Zealy, Jack, 1850
Daguerreotype, Peabody Museum of Art, Archeology and Ethnology (Harvard)
Édouard Manet, Olympia, 1863
Oil on Canvas, Museé d’Orsay (Paris)
Manet’s portrait of a French prostitute is rife with sexual symbols. Everything in the painting is meant to have a sexual connotation, including the black woman standing behind the prostitute. Manet uses a black female to represent sexual allure in the same way that Ingres uses a black male in Odalisque with Slave, alluding to the belief that blacks were of a hypersexual nature. Manet sexualizes the painting further by surrounding the black woman with a bouquet of flowers and a black cat. The flowers are an unattached depiction of the prostitute’s genitals that she covers with her hand. The black cat recalls slang for black women’s genitalia. Both of these elements add to the sexualization of both the white woman and the black woman.
Henry Ossawa Taylor, The Banjo Lesson, 1893
Oil on Canvas, Hampton University Museum
The Banjo Lesson shows the heartwarming scene of a grandfather teaching his grandson how to play the banjo. Tanner was based in France, but painted this scene while visiting his home state of Pennsylvania. This painting is the only one in this exhibit painted by a black artist, and because of this, it portrays blacks more positively than the rest of the paintings. The Banjo Lesson focuses on a specific situation and place in time in an everyday scene. Unlike Benoist’s painting, the grandfather and his grandson are meant to be specific people, avoiding a generalization of all blacks. The skill used to paint the characters and scene of the painting make it obvious that Tanner is attempting to show a specific pair of real people. Through its specificity, the painting intentionally avoids the long running stereotype that blacks who played instruments were only jokes included in minstrel shows.
Winslow Homer, The Gulf Stream, 1899
Oil on Canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 06.1234
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