Race In American Art Exam 1

John Locke theory on race

1) All people have natural rights 2) Governments exist to protect people's rights 3) People have the right to revolt and change the government if it fails to protect their rights People start out on a level playing field, but not all people reach their full potential Locke owned stock in slave trading companies and was secretary of the Lords Proprietors of the Carolinas, where slavery was constitutionally permitted. He had two notions of slavery: legitimate slavery was captivity with forced labor imposed by the just winning side in a war; illegitimate slavery was an authoritarian deprivation of natural rights. Locke did not try to justify either black slavery or the oppression of Amerindians. In The Two Treatises of Government, Locke argued against the advocates of absolute monarchy. The arguments for absolute monarchy and colonial slavery turn out to be the same. So in arguing against the one, Locke could not help but argue against the other. Examining the natural rights tradition to which Locke's work belongs confirms this. Locke could have defended colonial slavery by building on popular ideas of his colleagues and predecessors, but there is no textual evidence that he did that or that he advocated seizing Indian agricultural land.

Iowa "common soldier" monument at Craven's House, Lookout Mtn

1906 http://www.iowacivilwarmonuments.com/images/1286993076.jpg sculpture Inscription reads: "Greater love hath..." Not focused on why he fought but that he fought

Louis Agassiz theory on race

Agassiz's belief in special creation also extended to perceptions of race. He posited in his lectures at the Lowell Institute in 1846 that the different races of humanity were created independently, each descending from different ancestors (polygenism) and originating in separate zoological provinces at the beginning of time. Agassiz was heavily influenced by research into human cranial capacity conducted by American anthropologist Samuel George Morton, who possessed an extensive collection of skulls from people of many races. Using measurements taken from many of the skulls' brain pans, Morton had developed an intellectual hierarchy that placed Caucasians (or whites, who had the largest cranial capacity in Morton's collection, and thus were presumed to possess the greatest intelligence) at the top and placed Ethiopians (or blacks, who possessed the lowest cranial capacity in Morton's collection) on the bottom. Agassiz agreed, as he was also affected by his own feelings of pity arising from his initial experiences with African Americans in Philadelphia during his 1846 tour. There he observed the physical traits and behaviour of a small group of African American hotel servants and concluded that they made up a "degraded and degenerate race." Agassiz was also an opponent of miscegenation. At a lecture at the Charleston Literary Club in South Carolina in 1847, Agassiz announced that blacks constituted a separate species. In a letter to American abolitionist Samuel Gridley Howe in 1863, Agassiz stated that sexual relations between blacks and whites were "immoral" and "destructive to the social equality." Coming from a naturalist of Agassiz's eminence, such views emboldened the resolve of many pro-slavery white Americans, especially in the South. Agassiz wanted to document scientifically that blacks were inferior to whites, and he did this through a series of photographs which he commissioned. The most well known is the photograph of "Jack"

Indian tropes

American Indian as allegory for US "Good Indian" the Vanishing Race "Bad Indian" the savage Archaic, Authentic in their privitism

Portrait of Francis Williams

Anonymous, 1735 Oil on Canvas Double bind/pretentious trope; if you aren't educated you are dumb, but if you are educated you are pretentious Francis was educated because they were trying to prove that black people could be trained to think (using Locke's principle that everyone is a blank slate) Francis Williams goes from Jamaica to Cambridge and then back to Jamaica to start a school himself Picture lacks personality, seems to just point to his skill, and even the wig seems like something that is attached to him

Progress or Advance of Civilization

Asher Durand, 1853 Oil on Canvas Shows 3 parts of painting Wilderness/nature, active settlers/train/civilization, horizon disappearing into haze of light Wilderness/progress/merging

Shaw Memorial

Augustus Saint Gaudens, 1897 Bronze relief sculpture Cultural elites liked it because it as seen as true art Monument honors Colonel Shaw who was famous for leading this batallion of black soldiers Particularity and individuality of blacks humanized them to show that this was real art, not to elevate them Intends to be artistically superior, ends up blessing African-Americans

chattel slavery

Came to America against their will •No contract •Generally bound to slavery for life •Very few opportunities to get out of slavery •Were property themselves •Legal protections for the owner, not for the slave •Could not earn freedom and suffered significant abuse

Common Solider Monuments reading

Characteristics: contraposto, relaxed stance w/ popped knee; common white features; no signs of war; not fighting/aggressive; on a pedestal; mass-produced because it is cast-bronze and made from a mold Purpose: argues that common soldier monument arose not merely to assuage grief but to forge a new way of communicating the ideal American Reading: 1) explains the mythology of common solider 2) explains how Civil War challenged this 3) explains how war memorials work to form a new model of the citizen soldier 4) considers what and who get eliminated from this narrative 5) considers the curious case of the Shaw monument Myth of the Common soldier: patriot who is not a career soldier but picks up arms to defend his country; debunked by physical and mental challenges; detrimental to manhood; similar to slavery; go from being individual to part of a mass; loss of dignity/potential injuries Shifting the Role of Common Monuments: made it more personal and able for people to connect because it was so generic; inspiring in a different way; harder to villify common soldier and say that he bears moral responsibility; couldn't make figures black because the blacks were identified with them fighting for their own freedom (element of selfishness) Experience of Black Soldiers vs White: for many soldier status was an upward path; black veteran experience different than white (battle just begun)

Death Struggle

Charles Deas, 1845 Oil on canvas Easier to have physical confrontations if Indians were seen as evil Built up mythology of savage Indian What they feared most in Indians was becoming like them (ie barborous brutes) Twisted and locked together Indian and settler Unknown horror of gulf Zig-zag crossing interrupted by beaver Held to good or bad Indian depending on what was expected in particular circumstances

Love and Beauty-Sartjee the Hottentot Venus

Christopher Cupper Rumford, 1811 Etching part of a freak-show people could look at her and pay more to touch her, under guise of curiosity body is dissected after death, and her body case and skeleton are put on display until 1974 in the French Museum

Grand Football Match-Darktown Against Blackville, A Kick-Off

Currier and Ives, 1888 Chromolithograph print Postcard craze (Northern press) Distorted bodies (simean heads, hapless, large white eyes) See toll on blacks being represented like this and knowing they are popular

David Hume theory on race

David Hume in a notorious footnote in "Of National Characters," in his Essays, Moral, Political and Literary, explicitly wrote that there were human races and that nonwhites were inferior to whites. The footnote has been characterized as "just an offhand comment." However, the footnote reflects Hume's deeper views about methodology in the sciences of man, and it can be connected to passages in Hume's other works and to a broader Scottish and European intellectual and historical setting. Hume consistently insisted on a natural inferiority of blacks which set them apart from other races and believed that the difference between Europeans and Amerindians was a great as the difference between human beings and animals. He rejected slavery, which rendered his ideology of white supremacy enigmatic, because his rejection of geographical or climatic differences as causes meant that he could not provide a convincing causal account of what he took to be racial difference.

Negro Life at the South

Eastman Johnson, 1859 Oil on linen Lots of stereotypes/tropes woven into the painting (eg black man as entertainment playing the banjo, black interested in mulatto woman as sexual, mulatto woman as seductive, sweet 'mammy' black woman, and curious white woman) Picturesque picture of slavery, or subversive? Blacks' ability to develop culture despite oppression?

The Death of Cleopatra

Edmonia Lewis, 1876 Marble sculpture Cleopatra represents the continuing oppression and inequality in the US (relating to promise of Reconstruction not coming to fruition) Leis seems to make a statement about race, yet she seems to disconnect from her own race Double-bind for Lewis

The Vanishing Race-Navajo

Edward Curtis, 1904 Gelatin silver print photograph Similar to pictorialism, shot in really soft focus w/ shallow depth of focus (to pictorialists, really clear pictures were vulgar) Indians literally about to disappear Heading towards void

the vanishing race

Edward S. Curtis was born in 1868 and his work on The North American Indian extends from 1900-1930. Two major ideological currents popular at the moment of Curtis' life and work - Social Darwinism and Manifest Destiny - disposed many early 20th century Americans to think of American Indians as "species" of "Vanishing Race." Many contemporaries of Curtis believed that the rapid decline in native populations, that resulted from the centuries of warfare with the settlers, was not only natural, but inevitable.Theodore Roosevelt supported Curtis and saw his photographs as a great service to Americans Saw Indians as not barbaric but primitive and haven't progressed as far Their way of living is inevitably going to disappear, but this is sad Thought assimilation was for the best White Americans could stop worrying about the Indian problem since they were just going to disappear anyway

Edmonia Lewis reading

Father was Afro-Haitian, and her mother was Native American Went by Native American name after parents' death Went to Oberlin College and changed her name to Mary Edmonia Lewis while there 2 white women classmates were served spiced wine prior to a sleigh ride by Lewis; she was attacked and beaten because people assumed she poisoned her friends Was kicked out of Oberlin Moved to Boston, met Gould Shaw, made bust of his likeness and he allowed her to make copies of it to sell Eventually gained support and moved to Rome Attached herself to neoclassicism and perpetuated the classical tradition Neoclassicists tended to use white marble, because colored marble was seen as sensual (white=pure,spirit, good and color=sensuous,flesh,bad) Lewis' statue of Hagar demonstrates that she has no control over her child or body; reflecting experience of black women slaves Cleopatra and Hagar are both statues reflecting despair Lewis was described as having the stoicism of the Indian race, had crisp hair and thick lips, was an interesting novelty, possessed the sadness of both Indians and blacks, and was characterized as naive and childlike Lewis purposefully avoided making Cleopatra black but the queen's "blackness" was conveyed metaphorically through her suicide. Nelson concludes that Lewis sculpts Cleopatra as she does in order to deny viewers the possibility of objectifying Lewis's own body.

Robert Duncanson reading

General Facts: 3rd generation freed black man, biracial/lighter skin, trained as a photographer, largely self-taught as a painter, worked in Cincinnati which was receptive to mixed race people, could own property/more privileges, lived very close to a slave state Ketner: Duncanson made veiled references to race in his paintings, even though they looked like white counterpart paintings; Duncanson worked w/ and made paintings for abolitionists because he felt indebted to them; sympathized w/ the plight of African Americans and was invested in their cause Vendreyes: Duncanson used his race to help further his career but had no relationships w/ abolitionists; claimed the right to transcend racial classifications; Duncanson benefited from being light-skinned, and emancipation caused negative stereotypes to be applied to all blacks Duncanson and Race: 1960's focus on black solidarity; some viewed Duncanson's work as being far too polite; because Duncanson was lighter-skinned, he didn't have to work as hard as other black artists; said Duncanson was a black man lost to the cause; Vendryes is critical of peoople like Ketner who say that his racial identity organized his whole interaction w/ the world People expect people to represent and elevate their race According to Ketner, Duncanson's painting of Cincinatti was an example of Robert Duncanson subtly condemning the practice of slavery and a result of being confronted daily with the trauma of being black in antebellum America. Vendreyes argued that Duncanson was not producing landscape art w/ racial content, and being a black man was an asset to him only when it brought him commercial advantages like abolitionist patronage and exhibition venues

Daniel Boone Escorting Settlers Through Cumberland Gap

George Caleb Bingham, 1851-2 Oil on Canvas Woman looks like Mary on donkey, and gives a sense of Madonna of the west, bringing salvation to land Reference to religious imagery (eg Moses) Light of hope Dead trees bending in front, but family is coming into it Animals are domestic/perfectly still No evidence of wear and tear Very directional painting, inevitable train of progress Daniel Boone stares you down; so you must move or join but not stay Horse is visually diminished to keep Boon focused as the centerpiece

Wi-Jun-Jon Going to and Returning From Washington

George Catlin, 1837-9 same man depicted 2 different ways dignified on left, cocky on right pipe on left, cigar on right right figure has evidence vices (smoking/drinking) pure vs corrupt graceful vs graceless cleanly vs filthy independent vs dependent happy vs miserable is very against education for Native Americans and views it as just another form of genocide Real man who went to Washington, came back and was treated w/ resentment and suspicion and ultimately killed Show gravity of attempting to bridge these worlds

The Banjo Lesson

Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1893 Oil on canvas Tanner=African American painter trained at PA Academy who then went to France Real departure from Tanner (usually pains his travels, narratives, French scenes, etc. not domestic) Tanner takes trope of black as entertainer and makes it insider instead of outsider and demonstrates knowledge being passed down Playing banjo is an innate skill, not for entertainment of whites Tanner=adamant that he wasn't a negro painter, said race was irrelevant to his painting

Noon from the Time of Day Series

Hogarth, 1738 Engraving black man on the left is fondling white woman, leading to her spilling something and creating chaos in the painting sexually aggressive/dangerous black man

Sancho's Best Trinidado

Ignatius Sancho, 1774-1780 Shop Card Advertisement blacks depicted as childlike/American Indians blacks are depicted as American Indians, because both are seen as childish and happy-go-lucky Even Ignatius Sancho was able to become respected by marketing the black body in this way and dehumanizing himself

Jack

J.T. Zealy, 1850s (commissioned by Louis Agassiz) Daguerrotype Aggasiz was a big believer in photography as a scientific tool Photograph is objective scientifically Frontal view of figure is much more personal

American Progress

John Gast, 1872 Chromolithograph (tiny) Emerging expectation that the political future lies in the west, and they are to triumph over other people groups Manifest Destiny (inevitable, by divine sanction, must push across continent) Lots of modes of transportation (and a sense of the evolution of transportation) Lots of depth, demonstrating the vastness of the land Contrast between white farmers w/ domesticated animals and Native Americans w/ their oneness w/ animals Sense of seeing the whole continent Angel stringing telegraph wire Sun rising in east and will inevitably move west Intellectual and spiritual enlightenment Angel bridges a bunch of different categories America's emphasis on classicism Allegorical figure of enlightenment Women often used as allegorical figures because they weren't really identified w/ particular people White civilization driving back darkness, natives, and wild animals Affirmation of Westward expansion Trope of Indians dancing in a circle Angel is carrier for men doing the work

Portrait of Paul Revere

John Singleton Copley, 1768 Oil Paint dramatic spotlighting, made to draw all the attention to Paul Revere; clearly a silversmith; showing him in a moment of work, but he isn't working but is instead contemplating his work

George Washington

John Trumball, 1780 Oil on Canvas black man is still lower than Washington even though he is on horseback; slave is in the shadows, while Washington is in the circle of light; slave looks up at Washington; establishes Washington as generous and shows that his wealth is as great as Europeans'; slave is a status symbol in Europe; when produced for America, the horse stays, but the slave disappears

landscape painting

Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of landscapes in art - natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view - with its elements arranged into a coherent composition Often organized into thirds Beautiful landscapes: feminine, soft colors, sensual, curves, symmetry, smallness, harmony, pleasure, socialability Sublime landscapes: masculine, powerful/punishing, awe/terror, vague/obscure, brute force, rugged, uncompleted, infinite Picturesque landscapes: asymmetrical, irregular, surprise, variety, neither wild nor over-cultivated, nostalgic

indentured servitude

Most came to America voluntarily •Entered into a mutual contract with another person •Had the opportunity to get out of servitude •Some legal protections •Often died before being able to earn freedom

reconciliation narrative (post-Civil War)

Reconciliation downplayed the violence of battle, the failure to secure civil rights for former slaves, the centrality of slavery to the conflict, and the opposition to the war in both the Union and the Confederacy. White veterans of both sides embraced this movement in the 1880s and 1890s, after the responsibility of enforcing Reconstruction had been turned over to the Southern state governments. Reconciliation hid the true nature and meaning of the war for many Americans for decades to come, at the cost of creating a narrative of the war that almost eliminated the emancipationist legacy that African American citizens valued.

Liberty Displaying the Arts and Sciences

Samuel Jennings, 1792 Oil on Canvas Crushing chains beneath her feet and has cap on her pole, symbolizing freedom Preparing to give knowledge to the kneeling black figures Bust is of white abolitionist Other black figures in background dancing around liberty pole Sees civilization as being owned by the whites and it is their moral obligation to give it to others

chain of being

The Chain of Being is composed of a great number of hierarchical links, from the most basic and foundational elements up through the very highest perfection: God God Angels Heaven Man Beasts Plants Nonliving Things used to create distinct racial groups, maybe strain of animal making blacks not entirely human

Empancipation Group (Freedman's Memorial Monument to Abraham Lincoln)

Thomas Ball, 1876 emphasizes Lincoln's huge role in emancipation Ball=neoclassical sculptor Kneeling black trope; Lincoln=fully dressed, slave=not Lincoln looks down and slave and viewer (how statue was installed matters)

The Able Doctor or America Swallowing the Bitter Draught

Unknown, 1774 Etching America represented as Native American woman who is both vulnerable (sexually w/ breasts bared and skirts being lifted up) and resisting (tenseness and spitting out tea) Other woman representing Britain is turning away

Rustic Dance After a Sleigh Ride

William Sidney Mount, 1830 Oil on canvas where are the black figures? hierarchical society even though it is integrated

Defiance: Inviting a Shot Before Petersburg

Winslow Homer, 1864 Oil on panel The lone soldier is trying to create a stage for individual action, in a world where technology had both distanced and totalized the war

Prisoners from the Front

Winslow Homer, 1866 Oil on canvasc Aiming to be high culture, not mass culture Homer=from the north, a Civil War painter Union soldiers are not in material distress, are in control Confederate progression of looking less and less professional Requires you to look longer to identify Characters in foreground at same size/scale Confederates weren't humiliated

melting pot

a place where different peoples, styles, theories, etc., are mixed together.

genre painting

a style of painting depicting scenes from ordinary life, especially domestic situations. Genre painting is associated particularly with 17th-century Dutch and Flemish artists painting of everyday, not of huge historical significance

polygenesis

a theory of human origins which posits the view that the human races are of different origins. This view is opposite to the idea of monogenism, which posits a single origin of humanity each race was created separately and created for its own geographical region and purpose blacks were not descendants of Adam and Eve and were created separately, completely different origin and purpose

reconstruction

an act of reconstructing. (initial capital letter) U.S. History. the process by which the states that had seceded were reorganized as part of the Union after the Civil War. the period during which this took place, 1865-77.

the lost cause

an ideological movement that describes the Confederate cause as a heroic one against great odds despite its defeat

black tropes

black man as bestial educated blacks as pretentious/over-reaching black body as spectacle/entertainment blacks as childlike blacks as docile/passive

Whiteness tropes

moral purity universal symbol man/woman as savior whiteness as manifest destiny

Edward Curtis reading

published 40 volumes "Yet In a Primitive Condition" Indians emerging out of blackness, dramatic light Criticisms of how staged/retouched his photographs are (eg clock image) He has an image in mind of what the photo should look like In 1913, break in Curtis' photography when he began to shoot images like the house frame

nativism

the policy of protecting the interests of native-born or established inhabitants against those of immigrants

blackface

the practice of non-Black people darkening their skin in deliberate attempts to impersonate Black people The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American form of entertainment developed in the early 19th century. Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that mocked people specifically of African descent. The shows were performed by white people in make-up or blackface for the purpose of playing the role of black people. There were also some African-American performers and all-black minstrel groups that formed and toured under the direction of white people. Jim Crow: gullible country fool Zip Coon: dandy trickster Minstrel shows included broken English and sexual innuendo