✨PART THREE CONTINUED✨ Depictions of Black female sitters in 16th-century European art

Although Black people had been living in Europe for centuries, 16th-century depictions of Black women in art were increasingly defined by the stereotypes constructed by white European colonialism. The age of modern colonialism is generally seen as beginning around 1500 (after the first Europeans arrived in Africa’s southern coast in 1488, and in the Americas in 1492).

We certainly see an increasing number of depictions of Black women in European art over this period, however, many depictions demonstrate the increasingly codified visual associations of the Black female body with exoticism, mystery, overt sexuality and lust. Allegories of Africa emerge with more frequency, too.

There are examples when this is not the case, such as in Dürer’s ‘Portrait of Katharina’, or Annibale Carracci’s ‘Portrait of a Woman Holding a Clock’. Both artworks portray the sitters delicately, sensitively and individualistically, rather than making them caricatures or ‘types’.

#blackhistory #historyofart #artvideo #blackart #portrait

свернуть