The Image of the Black in Western Art:
Lester, Julius
PORTRAITS OF THE ARTISTS THE IMAGE OF THE BLACK IN WESTERN ART Volume IV: From the American Revolution to World War I-Part 1 and 2 Hugh Honor Harvard University Press, $50 each, 379 pp. and 306...
...Whether it is a picture we take with our Polaroids or Kodaks, or a portrait painted by one of the masters, a picture is a portrait of the artist's emotional relationship to the subject...
...These are not volumes for casual reading, and it is assumed that the reader has a general knowledge of Western civilization...
...The image of blacks in pagan antiquity was what we today would consider positive, i.e., blacks were not portrayed differently from whites...
...The third volume, still in preparation, will cover Africa and Europe-the sixteenth to the eighteenth century...
...This view is modified when Western contacts with Byzantium and Islam are resumed...
...Thus, an entire civilization's view of itself has centered on the concept of black inferiority...
...Although blacks throughout Western history challenged Eurocentric notions of reality, only within the past two decades have such challenges begun to take root...
...and 306 pp...
...The first volume covered the period from ancient Egypt to the fall of the Roman empire...
...There are notable exceptions to such images, the American Winslow Homer being one example of an artist whose portrayal of blacks set a standard of integrity...
...The overwhelming evidence of the images presented leads to a very simple conclusion, stated with eloquent simplicity by the author: "The portrayal of a black by a white artist is a kind of image of otherness even when it suggests that the difference is no more than literally skin-deep...
...Influences from these cultures result in blacks being portrayed as legendary figures-St...
...With the Christian era, there is a startling change...
...Even with a general knowledge, these are volumes meant for slow reading and brooding reflection...
...Because the volumes are being published out of sequence, the chronology is broken and in this, Volume IV, we find ourselves in the age of slavery and images of the kind we would expect of subservient blacks...
...Now more nonblack scholars are looking at Western history with the idea that what needs to be examined is the white Western psyche and what led it to feel compelled to assert white superiority with such conviction and fanaticism to the detriment of so many human lives...
...Illustrations from books and the press are also considered and these were more influential than fine art in shaping public opinion...
...If there is any criticism it is that one would have wished for less of the narrow analysis focused on the art and more of a broader analysis of the psychohistorical reasons behind the racism so evident in the images...
...The exceptions do not make the rule, and the value of the two books in Volume IV is that the images reproduced and analyzed are not restricted to the fine arts...
...Any picture, then, is a self-portrait, saying far more about the portrayer 's emotional landscape than that of the portrayed...
...If God assumed human form in the form of a white Jesus, the devil was incarnated as a black Ethiopian...
...The pioneering work in this field was done by the black scholar Frank Sno wden in his Blacks in Antiquity, where he examined images of blacks in the sculpture and vase paintings of the Greco-Roman period...
...And that is long overdue...
...For all of Western history, white perceptions and evaluations of blacks have been put forward as accurate descriptions of black reality...
...The strength of the books is in the reproduction of hundreds of illustrations, painting, busts, and sculptures, many in color, and the acute analysis in the accompanying text, an analysis which teaches one how to look at a painting in such a way that it reveals the psyche of the creator...
...Julius Lester A lthough designated as Volume IV, these two books are the third in the monumental series tracing white images of blacks throughout Western civilization...
...Thomas the Apostle, the black king of the Magi, the black Madonna, Prester John, and St...
...The value of the approach pioneered by Snowden and so magnificently fulfilled by the present series is the incontrovertibility of the evidence...
...There has been no public indication yet as to whether there will be a fifth volume to go from the end of World War I to the present...
...Art is direct and concrete...
...These volumes require very real modifications in how Western civilization is studied and taught...
...This concept has dictated the actions of governments and white people in how they have related to nonwhite people around the world...
...One of the most convincing ways to do this has been through a systematic examination of art...
...The accomplishment represented by this series is monumental and revolutionary...
...There the image of blacks revealed none of the negative aspects it was given later in Western civilization...
...The series is an extraordinary undertaking, both in concept and execution...
...In medieval iconography, demons, torturers, infidels as well as the devil are portrayed as black...
...But that would expect these volumes to do everything, which would be unfair...
...Maurice...
...The image is there before the eyes, making a statement about the one who made it and the time in which he or she lived...
...A picture is worth far more than a thousand words because the image goes far beyond words into the realm of verbally inexpressible and unconscious emotion...
...The paintings are also placed in their proper historical contexts...
...And that is long overdue...
...The second volume went from the early Christian era to the "Age of Discovery" and was issued in two parts...
...The Menil Foundation is the guiding and guardian spirit behind these volumes, and using the pictorial resources at the foundation's disposal, the story that unfolds is, quite literally, a portrait of the changes in and evolution of the white Western psyche...
...Words are susceptible to varying interpretations, especially when dealing with ancient languages...
Vol. 117 • June 1990 • No. 11
