tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56013262333988708252024-03-13T07:50:18.575-07:00Black Africans in Renaissance Europe<b> Originally a blog detailing the ramblings of an OU art undergraduate in search of a subject for and execution of 4,500 word essay, now with occasional additions as other Blacks are discovered.</b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger117125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-6307333478077656112023-05-09T23:33:00.002-07:002023-05-09T23:33:49.039-07:00Images awaiting further study.....<p> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://museedunouveaumonde.larochelle.fr/au-dela-de-la-visite/autour-des-expositions/une/entrez-dans-lhistoire-317&source=gmail&ust=1683723333012000&usg=AOvVaw0NR7DxFr-2-4WoZrhNuo_0" href="https://museedunouveaumonde.larochelle.fr/au-dela-de-la-visite/autour-des-expositions/une/entrez-dans-lhistoire-317" id="m_-426744225921719925LPlnk251122" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" target="_blank">https://museedunouveaumonde.<wbr></wbr>larochelle.fr/au-dela-de-la-<wbr></wbr>visite/autour-des-expositions/<wbr></wbr>une/entrez-dans-lhistoire-317</a><span face="Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;"> </span><wbr style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"></wbr><span face="Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;"> </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSU5V52vjKNFSQffepJjiOEXkomuoPkYzsfxc_-eWC1BguHs_bxDFpY3J3J9JOKdau4vlpPElLRLVwJlV5pR7wmxwD6YVmDNTLLIC9vVSfSStxCfz-z9T7pdJL4XKgjp1SiSg5qmpgKllWab66rtfJJTsD4EGLkjp_8w7ZFwuhNNI4Akobk0FDP7mc/s1160/Screenshot%202023-05-10%20at%2007.30.46.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1160" data-original-width="852" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSU5V52vjKNFSQffepJjiOEXkomuoPkYzsfxc_-eWC1BguHs_bxDFpY3J3J9JOKdau4vlpPElLRLVwJlV5pR7wmxwD6YVmDNTLLIC9vVSfSStxCfz-z9T7pdJL4XKgjp1SiSg5qmpgKllWab66rtfJJTsD4EGLkjp_8w7ZFwuhNNI4Akobk0FDP7mc/s320/Screenshot%202023-05-10%20at%2007.30.46.png" width="235" /></a></div><br /><span face="Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span><p></p><div style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://boydellandbrewer.com/blog/medieval-history-and-literature/confronting-the-changeling-saint-bartholomews-darkest-timeline/&source=gmail&ust=1683723333012000&usg=AOvVaw03I_x5g2dbEdEck5qTOn55" href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/blog/medieval-history-and-literature/confronting-the-changeling-saint-bartholomews-darkest-timeline/" id="m_-426744225921719925LPlnkOWALinkPreview" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">https://boydellandbrewer.com/<wbr></wbr>blog/medieval-history-and-<wbr></wbr>literature/confronting-the-<wbr></wbr>changeling-saint-bartholomews-<wbr></wbr>darkest-timeline/</a><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><div id="m_-426744225921719925LPBorder_GTaHR0cHM6Ly9ib3lkZWxsYW5kYnJld2VyLmNvbS9ibG9nL21lZGlldmFsLWhpc3RvcnktYW5kLWxpdGVyYXR1cmUvY29uZnJvbnRpbmctdGhlLWNoYW5nZWxpbmctc2FpbnQtYmFydGhvbG9tZXdzLWRhcmtlc3QtdGltZWxpbmUv" style="margin-bottom: 16px; margin-top: 16px; max-width: 800px; min-width: 424px; width: 800px;"><table id="m_-426744225921719925LPContainer252236" role="presentation" style="border-radius: 2px; border: 1px solid rgb(200, 200, 200); padding: 12px 36px 12px 12px; width: 800px;"><tbody><tr style="border-spacing: 0px;" valign="top"><td style="margin: 0px;"><div id="m_-426744225921719925LPImageContainer252236" style="height: 106.32px; margin-right: 12px; overflow: hidden; width: 240px;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://boydellandbrewer.com/blog/medieval-history-and-literature/confronting-the-changeling-saint-bartholomews-darkest-timeline/&source=gmail&ust=1683723333012000&usg=AOvVaw03I_x5g2dbEdEck5qTOn55" href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/blog/medieval-history-and-literature/confronting-the-changeling-saint-bartholomews-darkest-timeline/" id="m_-426744225921719925LPImageAnchor252236" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><img alt="" class="CToWUd" data-bit="iit" height="106" id="m_-426744225921719925LPThumbnailImageId252236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEhaVYexlKiXG55ygiZukOqxY4QNP81XXOVWX0d2OdljwYBHscILN6bttjXKs1oZW6e-RJ-GPigm872qhk0tf6lBszMq2I8mNFOUvTCsvVcELCNBBozLLGc3hgJxGTLHpTVYBxl5ij1ju-Hp5QSI845eobwb-G_pDURNtMQyj1R42e-pItgHyvWx6aIqYuo_SBszW_wg4Z0t9T4Qoh5sL4vkOR5hv4SV8LWvVCNQiJL9ssnzIw29C4IQCLByjYG2d7IW5D6S=s0-d-e1-ft" style="display: block;" width="240" /></a></div></td><td style="margin: 0px; width: 488px;"><div id="m_-426744225921719925LPTitle252236" style="font-family: wf_segoe-ui_light, "Segoe UI Light", "Segoe WP Light", "Segoe UI", "Segoe WP", Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-right: 8px;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://boydellandbrewer.com/blog/medieval-history-and-literature/confronting-the-changeling-saint-bartholomews-darkest-timeline/&source=gmail&ust=1683723333012000&usg=AOvVaw03I_x5g2dbEdEck5qTOn55" href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/blog/medieval-history-and-literature/confronting-the-changeling-saint-bartholomews-darkest-timeline/" id="m_-426744225921719925LPUrlAnchor252236" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Confronting the Changeling: Saint Bartholomew’s Darkest Timeline - Boydell and Brewer</a></div><div id="m_-426744225921719925LPDescription252236" style="color: #666666; font-family: wf_segoe-ui_normal, "Segoe UI", "Segoe WP", Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-right: 8px; max-height: 100px; overflow: hidden;">The Medieval Changeling by Rose A Sawyer provides the most thorough examination of medieval changeling discourse to date.</div><div id="m_-426744225921719925LPMetadata252236" style="color: #a6a6a6; font-family: wf_segoe-ui_normal, "Segoe UI", "Segoe WP", Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://boydellandbrewer.com&source=gmail&ust=1683723333012000&usg=AOvVaw3BYBT61goc8ExhBmi_rqZU" href="http://boydellandbrewer.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">boydellandbrewer.com</a></div><div><br /></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-79074576928263873062023-03-05T08:19:00.000-08:002023-03-05T08:19:51.818-08:00(Unanswered) Anonymous petition addressed to the ‘Lord arch Bishop of London’. 4 August 1723<p> Part of the <a href="https://www.lambethpalacelibrary.org/exhibitions/enslavement-voices-from-the-archives/">Enslavement: Voices from the Archives</a> Exhibition....</p><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3v0SnFwoSjhK-qaG96mlRlx2uZxfwIUW4WiEveV2RMnKTPgbsXLWlf2Ej1dqFchB9Pyq-C3vuq57Y9me55KeWTYgE_h9kwtxwHKeMay6Rf7abeAdUNMfmwVxZbhARI1i59TXMUwJihvk47S_YUrvxMmG24k9hFf_XVTqOkycgegW6R9w3xkpmxU1B/s1219/Slave%202.-FPXVIIf.167fin-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1219" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3v0SnFwoSjhK-qaG96mlRlx2uZxfwIUW4WiEveV2RMnKTPgbsXLWlf2Ej1dqFchB9Pyq-C3vuq57Y9me55KeWTYgE_h9kwtxwHKeMay6Rf7abeAdUNMfmwVxZbhARI1i59TXMUwJihvk47S_YUrvxMmG24k9hFf_XVTqOkycgegW6R9w3xkpmxU1B/w395-h640/Slave%202.-FPXVIIf.167fin-1.jpeg" width="395" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Anonymous petition addressed to the Bishop of London </span><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span></b></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">4 August 1723</span></span></b><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><b> </b> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: -0.041563em;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>FP XVII ff. 167-168.</b></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: -0.041563em;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;">To The Right Reverend father in God my Lord Bishop of London</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;">This coms to satisfy your honour that there is in this Land of Virginia a sort of people that are called mulattoes which are Baptised and brought up in the way of the Christian faith and followers the ways and rules of the Church of England and some of them has white fathers and some white mothers and there is in this Land a Law or act which keeps and makes them and their seed slaves forever. <br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;">And most honoured Sir amongst the rest of your charitable acts and deeds we your humble and poor parishioners do beg Sir your aid and assistance in this one thing which as I do understand in your Lordship's [gift?] which is that your honour will by the help of our suffering Lord, King George and the rest of the rulers, will release us out of this cruel bondage and this we beg for Jesus Christ's Sake who has commanded us to seek first the kingdom of God and all things shall be added on to us and here it is to be noted that one brother is a slave to another and one sister to another which is quite out of the way and as for me myself, <br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;">I am my brothers slave but my name is secret and here it is to be noted again that we are commanded to keep Holy the Sabbath day and we do hardly know when it comes for our task masters are has hard with us as the Egyptians was with the Children of Israel.<br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;">God be merciful unto us.<br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;">here follows our Sevarity and Sorrowfull Sarvice we are hard used...<br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;">my Riting is vary bad I whope yr honour will take the will for the deede I am but a poore SLave that writt itt and has no other time butt Sunday and hardly that att Sumtimes<br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;"><b>September the 8th 1723</b><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;">To the Right Reverrand father in god my Lord arch bishup of London these with care<br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;">wee dare nott Subscribe any mans name to this for feare of our masters for if they knew that wee have Sent home to your honour wee Should goo neare to Swing upon the gallass tree</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p></div>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-11321281800395414362023-02-26T10:56:00.014-08:002023-03-03T01:46:02.393-08:00 Casta, Caste and Classification Event<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy9BDxp-xz9K9bdAoiizcXXirqn_NyTlRgQVZMU0fEmm1b8oMTzXRQ9ZvIiU_EBWpjk_8JD-53eLMQEK2LaZiW2hoUw7rS-s27LhZkq2dcFy9KuLHu8u_MEiB9PNrBdio52GGV2o-J4AAPcJhqODHGhGRjzw2T5lb1gnzz-y7j4rmb40iIPVmpgch9/s3333/D08A9282-A8CA-4E46-9849-8EDCEDD8E495_1_201_a.heic" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1875" data-original-width="3333" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy9BDxp-xz9K9bdAoiizcXXirqn_NyTlRgQVZMU0fEmm1b8oMTzXRQ9ZvIiU_EBWpjk_8JD-53eLMQEK2LaZiW2hoUw7rS-s27LhZkq2dcFy9KuLHu8u_MEiB9PNrBdio52GGV2o-J4AAPcJhqODHGhGRjzw2T5lb1gnzz-y7j4rmb40iIPVmpgch9/w400-h225/D08A9282-A8CA-4E46-9849-8EDCEDD8E495_1_201_a.heic" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">De Espanol y Negra produce Mulato</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;"> (</span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">A Spaniard and a Black produce a Mule</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">)<br />at the conservation studio</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;">Last November I received an email out of the blue inviting me to be a guest speaker at <i>The Origins of Caste</i> event along with a few background links about the Casta project and paintings. I’d never heard of Casta paintings so wasn’t sure this would be for me however once I read <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/26/gallery-aims-to-reclaim-narrative-with-its-racist-casta-paintings"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Tara Munroe’s Casta story</span> </a>in the Guardian, how she first came across this 18th century Black presence in a “stack of discarded oil paintings” in Leicester Museum’s basement - I was in!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;">Casta paintings were painted in the 18th century Mexico by dual heritage artists to depict and name the progeny of different intermarriages between Whites, Indians and Blacks and their resultant off springs’ marriages. The series of sixteen paintings are rooted in the racist white supremacy beliefs of the white Spanish colonists.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiInzD6zJGs6khresqaQSK89JW_EHgEkGlX6My0Cv9ysmdVAyOy_o7EDaho0ZehFLNkl0gF5aLfIQAnRVIj3m9mTTj4uIANxklggZirxKigh7VpqknFjKH6rP72IswGmHszOV73Yh4qmc4V-NslRODFx2u32u5DHIDI4DWE9s0EYUwHVFAv1aoZGeoS/s3528/Screenshot%202023-02-26%20at%2014.05.22.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2132" data-original-width="3528" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiInzD6zJGs6khresqaQSK89JW_EHgEkGlX6My0Cv9ysmdVAyOy_o7EDaho0ZehFLNkl0gF5aLfIQAnRVIj3m9mTTj4uIANxklggZirxKigh7VpqknFjKH6rP72IswGmHszOV73Yh4qmc4V-NslRODFx2u32u5DHIDI4DWE9s0EYUwHVFAv1aoZGeoS/w400-h242/Screenshot%202023-02-26%20at%2014.05.22.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casta">Casta Paintings </a></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;">The subsequent invitation from Tara Munroe's <a href="https://opal22.co.uk"><span style="color: #cc0000;">heritage and arts organisation Opal 22</span> </a>turned into three memorable days in Leicester – looking at, talking about and debating on Casta painting then eventually presenting my views on Casta paintings and Tara’s remarkable discovery in Leicester Museum basement. In addition to me, I was in the company of three academics with an interest in and passion for Casta paintings – <a href="https://independent.academia.edu/IlonaKatzewDeptHeadCuratorLatinAmericanArtLosAngelesCountyMuseumofArtKatzew" style="color: #954f72;">Ilona Katzew</a> , Department Head and Curator, Latin American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, <a href="https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/history/faculty/sds53" style="color: #954f72;">Dr Susan Deans-Smith</a>, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Texas Austin, <a href="https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/people/staff_index/earle/" style="color: #954f72;">Professor Rebecca Earle</a>, Department of History, Warwick University.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;">The first day - and for me the high point - was spent in <a href="https://annabellemonaghan.co.uk">Annabelle Monaghan's wonderful conservation studio</a> with the others looking at the works being carefully, meticulosulsy ...and have to say it, lovingly conserved. A great experience - honoured - to see how the paintings are being painstakingly, literally being brought back to life. The colour and detail revealed as the layers of old varnish and the paint from previous restorations is slowly, delicately removed, square millimetre by square millimetre, was astonishing. (<a href="https://www.facebook.com/reel/1221074271840406?fs=e&s=TIeQ9V">here's a Facebook story from Opal 22 summarising the day</a>)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;">There was much discussion on the quality of the original work now made manifest by the conservation. We also discussed the poor-quality retouching and additions the conservation revealed. For me the vase with cup and saucer in sitting on top in lower right of <i>De Espanol y Negra produce Mulato</i> (<i>A Spaniard and a Black produce a Mule</i>) was an addition, as neither seem to fit into the composition both in terms of positioning and colour. While on <i>Indios otomies queue ban a la feria </i>( <i>Native Indians going to the market</i>) what looks like one chicken being held by the young boy, on cleaning we can now clearly see he’s actually holding three chickens! <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju8r9URio7VUAhfNFvNQvDNKaMuIht7h8QYuY2IQLF7JORragWprmerkQXMbUhzTbWY62yZET4yVPuiAGbeSZ09uKDX_Qu6OLuz9gyHeTABgitndhBAXI3IJuo2A9unFNgEk2cL8U3SFF-OOjdPTcwvPRMDKCyfcHcQg5iVn3JXPWUhgsi12yZ9zUd/s3432/9CA89669-FAFB-43DC-BE80-25D93829E8E5_1_201_a.heic" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1930" data-original-width="3432" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju8r9URio7VUAhfNFvNQvDNKaMuIht7h8QYuY2IQLF7JORragWprmerkQXMbUhzTbWY62yZET4yVPuiAGbeSZ09uKDX_Qu6OLuz9gyHeTABgitndhBAXI3IJuo2A9unFNgEk2cL8U3SFF-OOjdPTcwvPRMDKCyfcHcQg5iVn3JXPWUhgsi12yZ9zUd/w400-h225/9CA89669-FAFB-43DC-BE80-25D93829E8E5_1_201_a.heic" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;"> </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">De Espanol y Negra produce Mulato</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;"> (</span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">A Spaniard and a Black produce a Mule</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">)<br />(detail)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;">The following day was spent with each of us giving our views – to camera - on the paintings and their conservation. I discussed the white supremacy to found in them and how those ideas moved from the Spanish to the English colonists in the 18th century and are still with us today in the evil that is <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/08/racial-equality-skin-tone-bias-colourism/" style="color: #954f72;">colourism</a> and the expression ‘mixed race’ implying there is a pure race.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaiyCMmubqZI_RNKYh4tQ30-lA4vCoEOLUsDhjKtKe6zQ2gRtNMSxyCGBwGy7AmkCBpblLZivZILz23pvx-o8_HChXIzatYWYeiIhfFEKo-QDX7xc1atIWc_OsJ7554gQGGZQnUHERj0TkQgWNLnAKC_WwDGzJ5zcYaei3ow-J1BNUhEO4osjp57x_/s4032/IMG_8981.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2268" data-original-width="4032" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaiyCMmubqZI_RNKYh4tQ30-lA4vCoEOLUsDhjKtKe6zQ2gRtNMSxyCGBwGy7AmkCBpblLZivZILz23pvx-o8_HChXIzatYWYeiIhfFEKo-QDX7xc1atIWc_OsJ7554gQGGZQnUHERj0TkQgWNLnAKC_WwDGzJ5zcYaei3ow-J1BNUhEO4osjp57x_/w400-h225/IMG_8981.HEIC" width="400" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;">The third and final day was a series of academic presentations – <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_kuxUZhhCs">Casta , Caste and Classification</a> -</i> chaired by the facilitator <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/cherylgarvey/?originalSubdomain=uk">Cheryl Garvey</a>. Tara opened the meeting with a brief review of her journey and her vision for the Exhibition to be held later this year, <a href="https://independent.academia.edu/IlonaKatzewDeptHeadCuratorLatinAmericanArtLosAngelesCountyMuseumofArtKatzew" style="color: #954f72;">Ilona Katzew</a> gave a review of the history and development of the genre- casta paintings, <a href="https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/history/faculty/sds53" style="color: #954f72;">Dr Susan Deans-Smith</a> considered the purpose and market for the paintings, <a href="https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/people/staff_index/earle/" style="color: #954f72;">Professor Rebecca Earle</a>, presented us with the history and provenance of Leicester’s Casta paintings, finally I presented my ideas on the colonial and imperialist interpretations of the works. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/M_kuxUZhhCs" width="320" youtube-src-id="M_kuxUZhhCs"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;">Casta, Caste & Classification - Friday 24th Feb 2023</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;">The discussions in the conservation studio and the pieces to camera will be remixed and made into film which will be on show as part of the Casta Painting Exhibition later this year, where the narratives surrounding the Casta Paintings will be reframed informed by work done at the <i>Casta , Caste and Classification</i> event presenting the paintings to the public with a contemporary narrative, reflecting society today - I look forward to it !</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-6282352416730809322023-01-18T02:55:00.008-08:002023-01-18T02:57:00.935-08:00Mark Twain meets a Black tour guide in Mid 19th Century Venice<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Mark Twain meets a Black tour guide in Mid 19th Century Venice who introduces him to the Renaissance.......</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">While reading Paul Kaplan's <i>Contraband guides : Race, transatlantic culture, and the arts in the civil war era. </i>I came across the following passage...</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i><br /></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Mark Twain’s <i>Innocents Abroad</i>. In this best-selling 1869 account of a European five hundred published memoirs of European travel and trip taken in 1867, Twain devotes several pages to the guidebooks to an (unnamed) tour guide who introduced him both to the artistic splendors of Venice and to the term “Renaissance.”14 Twain describes this man as the son of South Carolina slaves and at the same time elegant, learned, and fully acculturated to his European environment. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Page 5<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">Kaplan, P. H. D. (2020). <i>Contraband guides : Race, transatlantic culture, and the arts in the civil war era.</i>Pennsylvania State University Press.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> <span></span></o:p></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3176/3176-h/images/cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="663" data-original-width="570" height="320" src="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3176/3176-h/images/cover.jpg" width="275" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">I found the actual passage from Mark Twain’s <i>Innocents Abroad </i>at the Guttenberg Library</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">THE INNOCENTS ABROAD<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">by Mark Twain<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3176/3176-h/3176-h.htm" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3176/3176-h/3176-h.htm</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i>If I did not so delight in the grand pictures that are spread before me every day of my life by that monarch of all the old masters, Nature, I should come to believe, sometimes, that I had in me no appreciation of the beautiful, whatsoever. It seems to me that whenever I glory to think that for once I have discovered an ancient painting that is beautiful and worthy of all praise, the pleasure it gives me is an infallible proof that it is not a beautiful picture and not in any wise worthy of commendation. This very thing has occurred more times than I can mention, in Venice. In every single instance the guide has crushed out my swelling enthusiasm with the remark:</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i><o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p><i> </i></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i>“It is nothing--it is of the Renaissance.”<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p><i> </i></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i>I did not know what in the mischief the Renaissance was, and so always I had to simply say,<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p><i> </i></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i>“Ah! so it is--I had not observed it before.”<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p><i> </i></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i>I could not bear to be ignorant before a cultivated negro, the offspring of a South Carolina slave. But it occurred too often for even my self-complacency, did that exasperating “It is nothing--it is of the Renaissance.” I said at last:<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p><i> </i></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i>“Who is this Renaissance? Where did he come from? Who gave him permission to cram the Republic with his execrable daubs?”<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p><i> </i></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i>We learned, then, that Renaissance was not a man; that renaissance was a term used to signify what was at best but an imperfect rejuvenation of art. The guide said that after Titian’s time and the time of the other great names we had grown so familiar with, high art declined; then it partially rose again--an inferior sort of painters sprang up, and these shabby pictures were the work of their hands. Then I said, in my heat, that I “wished to goodness high art had declined five hundred years sooner.” The Renaissance pictures suit me very well, though sooth to say its school were too much given to painting real men and did not indulge enough in martyrs.<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p><i> </i></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><i>The guide I have spoken of is the only one we have had yet who knew anything. He was born in South Carolina, of slave parents. They came to Venice while he was an infant. He has grown up here. He is well educated. He reads, writes, and speaks English, Italian, Spanish, and French, with perfect facility; is a worshipper of art and thoroughly conversant with it; knows the history of Venice by heart and never tires of talking of her illustrious career. He dresses better than any of us, I think, and is daintily polite. Negroes are deemed as good as white people, in Venice, and so this man feels no desire to go back to his native land. His judgment is correct.<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p><i> </i></o:p></p>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-4661549418097789332022-12-11T06:56:00.000-08:002022-12-11T06:56:38.223-08:00The Met's Prayer Bead Is About Prophesy<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;">While researching The Met’s site for images of the Queen of Sheba I came across what they entitle: <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/705230" style="color: #954f72;">Prayer Bead with the Queen of Sheba Visiting King Solomon and the Adoration of the Magi</a> a two inch, when closed, boxwood sphere. It is described as:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwv5t8jWPIEEUQdEj-8ogviHArHwVNtOR63Ht9XfuX22PqaH_HcM3TB4u6HCU8iBIV6hvgafR4vPJt8CgXz8ZQpVoiN45d5bLaPJvIWjjj7AFPr5ar1LAVbYIB9xLJKDRk8fVv_KzEbootcbNNBza0I1_3QwRWbGI9AxgIcTCEelvCQq-rpZ1wt849/s1182/Screenshot%202022-12-11%20at%2013.30.43.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1182" data-original-width="662" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwv5t8jWPIEEUQdEj-8ogviHArHwVNtOR63Ht9XfuX22PqaH_HcM3TB4u6HCU8iBIV6hvgafR4vPJt8CgXz8ZQpVoiN45d5bLaPJvIWjjj7AFPr5ar1LAVbYIB9xLJKDRk8fVv_KzEbootcbNNBza0I1_3QwRWbGI9AxgIcTCEelvCQq-rpZ1wt849/s320/Screenshot%202022-12-11%20at%2013.30.43.png" width="179" /></a></i></div><i><br />The stories paired here both concern rulers coming from exotic and faraway places to honor a greater king. To emphasize the similarity of the narratives, the carver has deliberately drawn visual parallels between them. Though the inscription ringing the outside of the carving mentions the train of camels that the Queen of Sheba brought, they are nowhere in sight when the bead is opened. Rather the action is indoors, with the queen and two other women offering gifts, just like the three Wise Men in the scene below. The small dog under the table in the lower bead is typical of the small details that the artist inserts to enrich the scene.</i><p></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;">I would argue The Met has missed a trick here.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;">This extraordinary piece is not just about pairing images of rulers honouring a great king , it is not just about emphasizing similarities. It is about prophesy. Prophesy fulfilled in Jesus as king of the Jews. The Old Testament king of the Jews – Solomon - being honoured prophesying the New Testament king of the Jews – Jesus. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;">The Queen of Sheba visit in the Old Testament is seen as anticipating the Three Kings visit in New Testament. This prophesy is seen in 14<sup>th</sup> century <i>Biblia pauperum</i> so called <i>Paupers’ Bibles</i> such as the example below, <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/03/a-paupers-bible-fit-for-a-prince.html" style="color: #954f72;">from the British Library’s collection</a>.<o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip8GO75bqMXkfDE48P3xsSIWEPr5SeuOTZYGaqB4ukeQUsTwHa-7077MhyXrJdjDoH7qektaI011CG23-pXEffeXSCndGfUJEiqwFd6qt_yqetf5PwqKe13nNndDDhBfH7hcM7XWeRQtkQ94IalNiygdqbt0y0HT0jHuVjU7Xtq1NCnK_i4smXJ6PV/s3406/Screenshot%202022-12-11%20at%2014.50.59.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1620" data-original-width="3406" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip8GO75bqMXkfDE48P3xsSIWEPr5SeuOTZYGaqB4ukeQUsTwHa-7077MhyXrJdjDoH7qektaI011CG23-pXEffeXSCndGfUJEiqwFd6qt_yqetf5PwqKe13nNndDDhBfH7hcM7XWeRQtkQ94IalNiygdqbt0y0HT0jHuVjU7Xtq1NCnK_i4smXJ6PV/w400-h190/Screenshot%202022-12-11%20at%2014.50.59.png" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>Miniature of Abner visiting King David; miniature of the Adoration of the Magi; </span><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">the miniature of the Queen of Sheba presenting gifts to Solomon, Northern Netherlands </span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">(The Hague?), c 1395-1400, <a href="https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Kings_MS_5&index=0">Kings MS 5</a>, f. 3r</span></div><div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><google-sheets-html-origin></google-sheets-html-origin></p><table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; table-layout: fixed; text-align: center; width: 0px;" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><colgroup><col width="173"></col><col width="163"></col><col width="183"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Old Testament"}" style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">Old Testament</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"New Testament"}" style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">New Testament</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Old Testament"}" style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">Old Testament</td></tr><tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Abner visiting \nKing David "}" style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: middle; white-space: normal;">Abner visiting <br />King David </td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Adoration of \nthe Magi/Three Kings"}" style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: middle; white-space: normal;">Adoration of <br />the Magi/Three Kings</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Queen of Sheba \npresenting gifts to Solomon"}" style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: middle; white-space: normal;">Queen of Sheba <br />presenting gifts to Solomon</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;">The Paupers' Bible were picture Bibles where Images, rather than text, they followed a fairly standard layout. At the centre of each sheet is usually a scene from the New Testament, flanked on either side by an Old Testament scene related to that central image by typology. Typology being a brand of Biblical exegesis or study which was extremely popular in the medieval era, which centered on the belief that people and events in the Old Testament could be viewed as prefiguring or anticipating aspects of the life of Christ.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;">The description of the The Met’s prayer bead need to reflect the religious significance of the piece not just the physical and visual.</p></div>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-65775488225815410132022-10-01T05:03:00.005-07:002022-10-01T14:16:43.278-07:00Review: Chinonye Chukwu’s TILL : Released Oct 1 '22<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQlYmSAYmuixVjQ4Zj9ZF-e28kdTRcvjHPgkaNnxTK_FuECn7wyzy2BcQicSA19soIRvLw_BkJisJFFQwHic8tWyxkuo8pONjYTu5NkpV_madnl5kNh4_3Ed-pU238hNFUbvcZOrcMVxbhuzu04oan3Q_ip-X15ESaXMn2mopNyBUfsdgif1SXfqpR/s3300/image001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2201" data-original-width="3300" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQlYmSAYmuixVjQ4Zj9ZF-e28kdTRcvjHPgkaNnxTK_FuECn7wyzy2BcQicSA19soIRvLw_BkJisJFFQwHic8tWyxkuo8pONjYTu5NkpV_madnl5kNh4_3Ed-pU238hNFUbvcZOrcMVxbhuzu04oan3Q_ip-X15ESaXMn2mopNyBUfsdgif1SXfqpR/w400-h266/image001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Emmett Louis Till (Jalyn Hall) and Mamie Till-Mobley (Danielle Deadwyler)</span><o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4960748/"><b>Till on IMDb</b></a></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p></div> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">When I first received the email invitation from Universal with the subject</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">**First Look Screening Invite** - Chinonye Chukwu’s TILL</b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">I was not impressed. I knew the story of Emmett Till a 14-year-old African American boy who was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman. I didn’t want to see what I believed would be its violence re-enacted – no matter how noble the intent.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;">Having just read Paterson Joseph’s <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59837406-the-secret-diaries-of-charles-ignatius-sancho">The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho</a></i> I very much agreed with the point made in its introductory Author’s Note, which I paraphrase here along with my emphasis:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><i>To the expectations of the [viewer] who awaits a [film] filled with whips and curses and rapes and murders of Black People by White People …… you will <b>not</b> find much to please you here. </i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p><i> </i></o:p></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;">I never went to<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1853728/"> <i><b>Django Unchained </b></i></a>or <i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2024544/"><b>12 Years A Slave</b></a></i> and I turned <b><i><a href="https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81077494">The Harder They Come</a></i> </b>off after a few minutes. I didn’t want see any of the racial violence, the blood, the gore, the pain. I don’t do, what to me, are exploitation movies packed with gratuitous bloody violence. I do not wish to see graphic ‘murders of Black People by White People’ no matter how just or significant the film maker’s cause. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;">So, my immediate response was to decline but my partner liked the idea of a night back in London town at the movies, especially invited by Universal to a screening. So, very reluctantly I accepted the invitation.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;">I was so pleased I took her advice. TILL is a brilliant movie with deep emotional messages in almost every scene. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;">From the opening we’re introduced to impish, playful Emmett Louis Till (Jalyn Hall) with his teenage world view and his loving mother, Mamie Till-Mobley (Danielle Deadwyler) full of love and concern that he should do the right thing. Their relationship is at the heart of this movie – a mother for her only son – a son wanting to be a young man – and her need to protect him from all the deadly perils of 1950s America that lay in waiting for Black men. We see the joy, the love, the hurt the pain through his mother’s reactions and emotions. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;">TILL shows how she maintains her dignity under pressure from the Whites who want to destroy her reputation and her story, just as they had physically destroyed her son, but she is emotionally strong, fighting for a greater cause than the Southern Whites will ever know or comprehend - justice for her son, born of her love for her only child. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;">I was emotionally exhausted at the end of this movie. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rkQi6GBwmSA" width="320" youtube-src-id="rkQi6GBwmSA"></iframe></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;">It’s the movie of a 1955 incident which resonates to this day. You can clearly see how Emmett’s death can be seen as a galvanizing moment that helped lead to the creation of the civil rights movement. Sadly, it contains civil rights messages that resonate today almost seventy years later –<b> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/17/us/american-democracy-threats.html">Black voter suppression,</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/08/arts/critical-race-theory-bans.html">the rewriting of history in favour of Whites</a></b> things which are happening even today. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;">The central story of TILL, a White woman -<b> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/27/emmett-till-book-carolyn-bryant-confession">Carolyn Bryant</a> </b>- lying about a Black man’s supposed inappropriate behaviour has an equivalent today but this time a much happier outcome for the Blackman. In <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/14/nyregion/central-park-amy-cooper-christian-racism.html"><b>2021 the New York Times reported a White woman called the police in Central Park</b> </a>claiming she was being attacked by a Black man, he filmed the whole incident showing she was clearly lying he, unlike Emmitt survived to tell his story. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3RXwrHJSgkyQdmDybCaKAt7iLF0TAkOfX-VRRPMRhfM8pVy4ou5-_2LJT9QFKMEl0P2qAR4hLgFmGePhcMqYkxVQLQWoeTzkHZEwgUzID4luZAmBznPchazkcgr7aYbL5opVaTrcoptmbs9aLAdHZ26W-NRbJkORywvIlYVWfyTRZ6W7JsNEFTcor/s1888/Screenshot%202022-10-01%20at%2013.00.31.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1888" data-original-width="1268" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3RXwrHJSgkyQdmDybCaKAt7iLF0TAkOfX-VRRPMRhfM8pVy4ou5-_2LJT9QFKMEl0P2qAR4hLgFmGePhcMqYkxVQLQWoeTzkHZEwgUzID4luZAmBznPchazkcgr7aYbL5opVaTrcoptmbs9aLAdHZ26W-NRbJkORywvIlYVWfyTRZ6W7JsNEFTcor/w270-h400/Screenshot%202022-10-01%20at%2013.00.31.png" width="270" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p>TILL is a movie the world must see. Not just to make manifest the racial violence that continues to this day in America seen in the death of George Floyd but also to make real that force of nature that is the unconditional love of a mother for her son.<o:p></o:p><p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p></div>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-64011690729322499752022-09-25T01:32:00.004-07:002022-09-30T04:03:37.093-07:00Review: Keshia N. Abraham & John Woolf (2022) Black Victorians: Hidden in History<p><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSgJZlFfaV5HIFWSVVH4ceGSsu_POHnegwQG_dhtaOdGlYYsjm0dyzxOQCCK4OstQd6aowfnebidYMibJ0y1Fe_pAdBlZd2yXvDVyXrvQkUv3ABgDWrO-UFfxwP13SvUWgHMKCBTtEehV1FEHCuPrMEmCbq6Dfdt4G2sNbyIX3nAXmQZSGLUbGIl7s/s1500/IBLG%20Black%20VictorIans.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSgJZlFfaV5HIFWSVVH4ceGSsu_POHnegwQG_dhtaOdGlYYsjm0dyzxOQCCK4OstQd6aowfnebidYMibJ0y1Fe_pAdBlZd2yXvDVyXrvQkUv3ABgDWrO-UFfxwP13SvUWgHMKCBTtEehV1FEHCuPrMEmCbq6Dfdt4G2sNbyIX3nAXmQZSGLUbGIl7s/s320/IBLG%20Black%20VictorIans.jpeg" width="213" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh5zZ4G9L-R3QEw8Mzk6V_wZMj4MBO3CBz6Ui78jcpZIggHLpTN51xqhQ20R2xQm8FZWKQArDZ5mWqtu-g0gKABiwg6qK60PKVXWHv_wn8KiUNkRoCAV9tdH2W6ulXylRCndD6BGK3ySlKcMP4eRidWe1DCIjN9KlML9-uS_VTyD18LCuqnnAFsfXt/s3411/IMG_8351.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3411" data-original-width="2159" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh5zZ4G9L-R3QEw8Mzk6V_wZMj4MBO3CBz6Ui78jcpZIggHLpTN51xqhQ20R2xQm8FZWKQArDZ5mWqtu-g0gKABiwg6qK60PKVXWHv_wn8KiUNkRoCAV9tdH2W6ulXylRCndD6BGK3ySlKcMP4eRidWe1DCIjN9KlML9-uS_VTyD18LCuqnnAFsfXt/s320/IMG_8351.heic" width="203" /></a></div></div><p></p><p><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt;">I had the pleasure of being sent an advance reading copy of <i>Black Victorians: Hidden in History</i>. The introductory email claimed “</span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Black Victorians</i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt;"> explores the intersections between Black history and British history in the nineteenth century, with a focus on human stories as a vehicle for illuminating Victorian attitudes to ‘race’. “</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Most of the ‘human stories’ covered I was familiar with as I recognised many of the characters where names I knew from Peter Fryer’s seminal text <i>Staying Power</i>. What was different with <i>Black Victorians</i> were the connections identified and discussed between the individuals and Victorian society. This was to me a particular strength of the book as it wasn’t a series of unrelated biographies, not a series of stories about Black exceptionalism rather the individuals’ histories are given context in aspects of Victorian society - Part 1 Struggle and Survival , Part 2 Church and State , Part 3 The Arts and Part 4 The Fight for Freedom – which made identifying and understanding the books intersections between Black history and British history easy to follow through ‘rooting lives within braoder networks, milieus and contexts’. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">It was the names under Part 1: Struggle and Survival that introduced a new context to me, Broadmoor: the criminal lunatic asylum, clearly demonstrating the book’s ability to tell a Black history beyond the conventions of Black exceptionalism. I recognised none of the names I was taken out of my Black British history comfort zone in which to varying degrees I knew most of the characters in the other Parts, in Part 1 I knew none.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Part 1 gives an account of the disabled: Edward Albert from his own brief memoire and his appearance in <i>London Labour and the London Poor</i> (1851-65) where he is described as ‘The Negro Crossing-Sweeper, Who Had Lost Both His Legs’. And the lives of three Black inmates of Broadmoor, England’s first lunatic asylum for the criminally insane from its records: John Flinn spent forty seven years inside Victorian institutions, dying in Broadmoor, William Brown an ex-seaman who murdered his wife by cutting her throat, tried to kill his stepson, set fire to the house then tried to commit suicide by cutting his own throat – he was found not guilty by reason of insanity, he died in Broadmoor and Joseph Peters who seems to be have driven insane thru isolation following the death of his only relative his mother was sent to Broadmoor after being declared insane following an attack on a shipmate. Each was given the opportunity to tell their story in their own words, stories once lost in the archives have resurfaced. The Black Victorians considered in Part 1 demonstrate how their stories endure in the archives, stories of the fight for survival from the margins of society contrasting with those discussed in the other parts who were not at the edge but moved within the establishment or protested against its structures. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">I was particularly interested in the analysis of responses to Victorian racism. The celebrated actor Ira Aldridge was hounded by the British press having to continually fight for equality both on and off the stage ‘forever confronting the racist depictions of African Americans in the form of the minstrel.’ While Aldridge accepted that racist criticism, the escaped slave and abolitionist William Wells Brown would not accept criticism. When a newspaper ‘described his exhibition in contemptuous terms, and thereby materially curtailed the receipts’. He successfully sued for libel and awarded £100. The probable racism within the criticism was ignored by the national press who focused on ‘benign British justice.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">The highlight of the book for me could have been the chapter – Land of Hope and Glory – which went some way to setting the scene for the Victorian attitude to race. I was minded of Fryer’s seminal Chapter 7 The Rise of English Racism in <i>Staying Power</i> which covers similar ground. I would have hoped for deeper analysis in <i>Black Victorians</i> of the impact of development and growth of the British Empire following abolition of the slave trade. The 3Cs – Christianity, Commerce and Civilisation – that drove Victorian expansion of Empire in Africa leading to the destruction then looting the treasures of the Benin Empire in Nigeria, Ashanti Kingdom in Ghana and Maqdala in Ethiopia. I would have welcomed some analysis of Victorians in Africa and growth of its Empire. What impact if any did it have on the attitudes of Black and white Victorians?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">I enjoyed the chapter on the Pan-African Movement in which we can see how the eighteenth-century British abolitionist organisation the Sons of Africa could be linked a century later to Pan Africanism. Pan-Africanisms is shown as a global movement with the delegates to its 1900 conference in London coming from around the world to discuss, slavery, colonialism, racism and ways to fight these global scourges. One delegate celebrated the ‘common cause’ among people of the African Diaspora, another prophesised “America would never be at peace with herself until the negro problem was settled outright” showing how the ideas of Black Victorians still resonate today.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Setting aside the need for perhaps more on Africa and Empire <i>Black Victorians</i> gives insights into the intersection of between Black history and British history through some very human stories in a very readable, accessible format, free of the conventional exceptionalism approach to Black history. <i>Black Victorians </i>gives wider more holistic understanding of the Black presence in Victorian Britain, which I very much enjoyed reading.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Footnote</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><span>I've yet to see a copy of the final version ...they may have corrected the omission on the Victorians in Africa addressing "</span></span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">What impact if any did it have on the attitudes of Black and white Victorians?"</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;">Footnote to Footnote</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;">I received my final copy as promised and yes they did address Victorians in Africa in the context of chapter Land of Hope and Glory:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Treasures were looted (and kept to this day), including from the Mandala in Ethiopia, The Ashanti Kingdom in Ghana and the Benin Empire in present-day Nigeria. Uprisings were viciously suppressed and natural resources exploited, while people starved </i>(page 33)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">and thanks to the authors for the mention in Acknowledgements</span></p><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-85291319769994212622022-06-08T02:56:00.007-07:002022-06-08T12:20:18.712-07:00Where'd Me Dad's Love of Country Music Come From ?<p> I met the musician and educator <a href="https://www.nateholdermusic.com/about">professor Nate Holder</a> at the<a href="https://blackbritishbookfestival.co.uk/"> Black British Book Festival</a> we had a good old chat black music and history exchanging ideas and views. It was my chance to share how I’d just solved the one of the great mysteries of my childhood:</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBZjahCffGJlkPRlq9UlmbyKzUl1Gt-Q0jOzOFSl701YsJvUGkNtagiOBJdy5UctYfZi3_g_0F2ojOKOisYCCNuzzQ7OCkIp9vOrl54ovkjk6uxjzYGRS5JI3phM0DiDTQK3bmRcO7yD8ThIT17yRsjDnea6QefcgoVtn0l-XiSZ3zDftX9MR8oFBR/s1962/Dad%20and%20JIm.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1198" data-original-width="1962" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBZjahCffGJlkPRlq9UlmbyKzUl1Gt-Q0jOzOFSl701YsJvUGkNtagiOBJdy5UctYfZi3_g_0F2ojOKOisYCCNuzzQ7OCkIp9vOrl54ovkjk6uxjzYGRS5JI3phM0DiDTQK3bmRcO7yD8ThIT17yRsjDnea6QefcgoVtn0l-XiSZ3zDftX9MR8oFBR/w343-h209/Dad%20and%20JIm.png" width="343" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My Dad, Michael N. Ohajuru (1926-1995) (left) Jim Reeves (Right)</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>Why did my Dad – a seaman from West Africa - have a fondness for the music of American country and western singers like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Williams">Hank Williams</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Reeves">Jim Reeves </a>? Every time I hear <a href="https://youtu.be/qit_HikDGxU">Jim Reeves <i>I Love You Because,</i></a> I’m back in our front room in Liverpool.</p><p>Dad passed away in 1995 so he’s no longer here to ask. The mystery was cofounded by <a href="https://www.museumofthehome.org.uk/whats-on/rooms-through-time/a-front-room-in-1970/">Dr Michael McMillan and his seminal<i> Front Room</i> project,</a> as I recall discussing with Michael the huge radiogram the centre of his painstakingly wonderfully reconstruction of an African Caribbean front room from the late 1960s and 1970s. The radiogram I knew was a huge piece of brown mahogany furniture which served as a radio, a record player and album storage unit, we had in the front room of our terraced house in Liverpool.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNxnom3kEwUHoo2GLsfo50eBmk5pe-cyrqSyku_e8Fsa2DMAbM5Z1w1DKgG7TSZSuHh8GSJYTGlX6PZpCSzgmYWzLEp8Ka2-5Olbs4P64pRD4OOa_9vleeglbg7BVUdMAnPkmnfhDLnxKqSlQVvAUb_QKjpClh_xpsQ7Bh3wmczNFl_0LqcAzswJBW/s1200/front%20room.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1200" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNxnom3kEwUHoo2GLsfo50eBmk5pe-cyrqSyku_e8Fsa2DMAbM5Z1w1DKgG7TSZSuHh8GSJYTGlX6PZpCSzgmYWzLEp8Ka2-5Olbs4P64pRD4OOa_9vleeglbg7BVUdMAnPkmnfhDLnxKqSlQVvAUb_QKjpClh_xpsQ7Bh3wmczNFl_0LqcAzswJBW/w438-h219/front%20room.jpg" width="438" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Michael McMillan - A front room in 1970 - The Museum of The Home<br />Photograph by Em Fitzgerald</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>Amongst Dad’s album collection which was mostly West African high life music whose album covers featured black African faces, many with titles in African languages. Incongruously there were several albums whose covers had smiling white male faces most times with cowboy hats and titles like <i>The Very Best of …</i> or <i>The Greatest Hits of …</i> As I type I can hear <a href="https://youtu.be/qit_HikDGxU">Jim Reeves classic, <i>I Love You Because</i> </a>being played on the radiogram in our front room. Discussing this with Michael Macmillan I learnt that other Black parents had a penchant for playing country & western music on their front-rooms’ radiograms. Why country music was as mystery to me.</p><p>Having listened to<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000ydl2"> BBC Radio 4’s <i>Soul Music ‘Take me Home, Country Roads’</i></a> I now know why.</p><p><i><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008mj7p">Soul Music</a></i> celebrates music from many different genres from classical to pop that touched folks’ souls with their powerful emotional impact. It was listening the episode featuring <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000ydl2">John Denver’s <i>Take me Home, Country Roads</i> </a>I learnt how Black folk of my Dad’s generation connected with country & western. The author of<i> <a href="https://www.lloydbradley.net/">Sounds Like London: 100 Years of Black Music in the Capital</a></i><a href="https://www.lloydbradley.net/"> Lloyd Bradley </a>explained how at first <a href="https://youtu.be/lQFKMar4x-w">the reggae version by Toots and Maytals </a>seemed enigmatic to him - a Black Jamaican band playing white, red-neck American music – an enigma I shared with Lloyd, trying to understand my Dad’s country and western music tastes.</p><p>The show explained that Caribbean government run radio stations of 60s were staffed by those trained at the BBC. The motherland’s BBC was the model to be followed, as country and western had no part of the BBC’s musical canon at that time it didn’t feature. But it did feature on the many American radio stations whose signals could be picked up in Jamaica. That coupled with how country and western song lyrics spoke to things familiar to country folk, it became popular throughout the Caribbean.</p><p><i>Country Roads</i> is ‘about the longing for home and the desire to be back with the people you love’ Toots substituted ‘West Jamaica’ for ‘West Virginia’ as he sings of country roads taking him home to the place he belonged.</p><p>Liverpool or more specifically Liverpool 8 today known as Toxteth, in the 1960s it was a bustling multicultural, multiracial inner city suburb. My Dad had Caribbean friends, they went to each other’s night clubs and shebeens so exchanged ideas and music freely - no surprise my Dad found country and western music.</p><p>So, there you have it, mystery solved! .....</p><p>My Dad – a seaman from Nigeria - love of the country and western music he played on the radiogram in our front room in Liverpool can be traced back to American radio stations of the 60’s broadcasting country and western <i>‘Soul Music</i>’ across the Caribbean. </p><p>By coincidence I came across another BBC programme - <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0017khq">Black Roots</a> -which charted the rise and fall and rise of the Black American influence on country & western music- how Black folk shaped the genre. Rhiannon Giddens the programme's presenter discusses her life and the challenges she's had as a Black, award winning, female banjo player while discussing with guests how the banjo, originally an African instrument became a mainstay of country & western music, while many of the early celebrated fiddle players were Black and the one earliest and most beloved harmonica players was a Black man.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCWuO-gYZp9Jtc-PUe11KjEOm6RNpwr7xBqyNlevX49Eym65QgNGiK0NIHJesAc-_SqHJl6x39IOGd4RDo1yNYJZJ91K8lqgAqvCeMNpGEhNbZLFNS2grrsHoLCaheAEXwYeG49g5QfZhVC1o9bVcmZxmyq_l7HRMu0znTwYo2p06ic61xPLjCrzRD/s320/banjo.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="320" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCWuO-gYZp9Jtc-PUe11KjEOm6RNpwr7xBqyNlevX49Eym65QgNGiK0NIHJesAc-_SqHJl6x39IOGd4RDo1yNYJZJ91K8lqgAqvCeMNpGEhNbZLFNS2grrsHoLCaheAEXwYeG49g5QfZhVC1o9bVcmZxmyq_l7HRMu0znTwYo2p06ic61xPLjCrzRD/w200-h200/banjo.jpeg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Rhiannon Giddens </span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0017khq">Black Roots:</a> <i>Grammy-winning musician Rhiannon Giddens explores the history of African American roots music through the story of forgotten black pioneers. </i></p><p>Black Roots showing in music, what comes around goes around from the Black Americans in to White Americans in the nineteenth century to the Black folk in the Caribbean to a West African seaman in Liverpool in the 1960s.</p><p>With big thanks to Nate Holden, Michael McMillan, Lloyd Bradley and the BBC.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p><p></p><p> </p><div><br /></div>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-89718908639348213092021-11-29T01:26:00.002-08:002022-10-01T05:21:29.033-07:00Review: BLACK - a graphic bio of Tobias Taitt with graphics by Anthony Smith<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlnJbigTZPLcMsOBmyRlFZNO_ekC7c_Ddl-0EFoWo2kFBCJJHgjvLeX7OyGDP-of_wKxyVzUO5lFrZ3TtnHlAAuPDN3pWuuxTe_Z3YiSCvrWr70M59tMOXd2c7sy4jDJlEIT5eyxs8z94/s2048/IMG_4314.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1434" data-original-width="2048" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlnJbigTZPLcMsOBmyRlFZNO_ekC7c_Ddl-0EFoWo2kFBCJJHgjvLeX7OyGDP-of_wKxyVzUO5lFrZ3TtnHlAAuPDN3pWuuxTe_Z3YiSCvrWr70M59tMOXd2c7sy4jDJlEIT5eyxs8z94/s320/IMG_4314.heic" width="320" /></a></div> <p></p><p>Tobais Taitt's graphic bio BLACK is the second book I've read in as many months that tells a harrowing story of the cruelty and brutality being brought up in the English care system in the 80s and 90s with a teenage boy search for sex and love in an uncaring, indifferent world. Where Malik Al Nasir's story in<i> Letters To Gil</i> is a story ending in purpose and direction with his twin careers of music and education despite being brought up within the barbarity of the care system <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4322666423?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1">I wrote a review for Goodreads</a>. <i>BLACK</i> ends with a profound teenage revelation leaving us to speculate on his adult life and career</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzpDVVXBeJBz5e0R6ONGWYZQ0fGdvTLJk3wCWGV4t_8aR_BVc3syAHRNQG_pruZrmon9F6JXpKC0bkmY2bDFpi9aakWoWn1gMZenBnIwk2m7q8bzqMKbqiabWJQ6XjFZlG5-S6kA6p1YA/s3493/IMG_4315.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="3493" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzpDVVXBeJBz5e0R6ONGWYZQ0fGdvTLJk3wCWGV4t_8aR_BVc3syAHRNQG_pruZrmon9F6JXpKC0bkmY2bDFpi9aakWoWn1gMZenBnIwk2m7q8bzqMKbqiabWJQ6XjFZlG5-S6kA6p1YA/w515-h100/IMG_4315.heic" width="515" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Tobais's story like Malik has a challenging family background but not as desperate - Malik had a confusing homelife with one father with two wives, Tobais's mother had eight children by eight different fathers, he was the seventh , she was divorced four times and murdered one husband in revenge for murdering her brother by pouring boiling oil over his head while he sat in a bath after allegedly raping her. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7-jZ8_tnK0_BksvjaAwP16q43P5EicEuR4IY1lCUSyz4fYjOvP4RufzoGruX5sUkMus8UZUerJzQPvNSVQ3vJUNwd212i4MCx1fTA-C2wpSnxMnAGd0FNwiQv_2WDuh3Cp8RAV7hEYjI/s2962/IMG_4317.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1062" data-original-width="2962" height="157" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7-jZ8_tnK0_BksvjaAwP16q43P5EicEuR4IY1lCUSyz4fYjOvP4RufzoGruX5sUkMus8UZUerJzQPvNSVQ3vJUNwd212i4MCx1fTA-C2wpSnxMnAGd0FNwiQv_2WDuh3Cp8RAV7hEYjI/w438-h157/IMG_4317.heic" width="438" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>The narrative is very candid, often sad as we read of Tobais isolation in response to his mistreatment by an uncaring system and his resulting anger and rage - there are a few moments of happiness but there are often short lived as the uncaring system takes over with the equally cruel and and brutal police often close at hand to regulate Tobais's behaviour. One scene that struck home with me was his rejection by his first crush following her rejection after taking him home to meet her parents <i>'The reason? I was black and her father didn't like it'</i> A scenario many young black boys like myself are familiar with.<p></p><p>Anthony Smith's graphics are innovative including a wonderful homage to <span color="rgba(10, 10, 10, 0.84)" face="freight-text-pro" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgba(10, 10, 10, 0.84); font-size: 20px; letter-spacing: 0.800000011920929px;"> </span><a href="https://www.full-bleed.org/features/2017/5/8/kerry-james-marshall-retrospective">Kerry James Marshall's <i>A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self.</i></a> His portrayal's of Tobais's emotions, his inner thoughts and his rage are compelling, totally convincing. The text and graphics work well together as drills down to make a point ...told brilliantly in the last few graphics as Tobias has his epiphany. I will not reveal it, I leave it to you to read and be as moved as I was. </p><p>To conclude a good looking, very readable book - a page turner - I read it in two sessions. When one reflects on one's own childhood and its perceived difficulties then reads <i>BLACK</i> telling of Tobais's upbringing in care it makes one realise just how fortunate so many of us are. A sober, but highly recommended read. </p><p> <br /><br /><br /><br /></p>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-88673677428908617462021-06-05T02:22:00.003-07:002021-06-05T02:59:25.542-07:00Review: WAKE:THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF WOMEN LED-SLAVE REVOLTS <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5w9lXfkiJ3xflazhesMRL2kRofjzA7UkGtYUjdhWE09E-Rh2mzKxOp6zCNaGjgINn02GmTl58aXwbm6xl4WwWOcDscDjgTNYdcJaCOEZHPyN3BjBfnfMgc6ao_SemzfPwM69lQW_lrx4/s2048/IMG_2259.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1422" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5w9lXfkiJ3xflazhesMRL2kRofjzA7UkGtYUjdhWE09E-Rh2mzKxOp6zCNaGjgINn02GmTl58aXwbm6xl4WwWOcDscDjgTNYdcJaCOEZHPyN3BjBfnfMgc6ao_SemzfPwM69lQW_lrx4/s320/IMG_2259.HEIC" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-align: left;">It was not until I was reading the acknowledgements that I was reminded that I’d helped in a very small way to make this important and wonderful book happen - Rebecca Hall’s </span><b style="text-align: left;"><i>WAKE</i></b><i style="text-align: left;">:THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF WOMEN LED-SLAVE REVOLTS </i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-align: left;">with illustrations by Hugo Martînez published June 2021. Rebecca writes ‘I also joyfully thank all of </span><i style="text-align: left;">Wake’s </i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-align: left;">supporters on Kickstarter’ <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/694426471/wake-the-hidden-history-of-women-led-slave-revolts?ref=user_menu#">I was one of those supporters in 2018.</a></span></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"> <o:p><iframe frameborder="0" height="270" scrolling="no" src="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/694426471/wake-the-hidden-history-of-women-led-slave-revolts/widget/video.html" width="480"> </iframe></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Wake's Kickstarter Proposal (2018)</span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p><br /></o:p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The book’s subtitle, for me, uses the descriptor hidden for Black history correctly. All too often Black history is described as hidden, forgotten, untold and so on , implying some agency denying the history being brought to light when all that’s required is an enquiring mind and a few moments with Google. However in this case Rebecca’s history is really hidden – the history of Black woman. I know this from the work on my presentation on the Queen of Sheba from the Bible and Andromeda from the Classics both women were Black but were actively denied their Black identity - </span><i><a href="https://imageoftheblackinlondongalleries.weebly.com/black-presence-specialists-talks.html" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Misogynoir and the History of The Image of the African Woman in Western European Art</span><br /></a></i> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Rebecca tells a real hidden history one in which the deeds of men - Black and white – are noted while the acts of Black women most times go unrecorded. It’s in that unreceording, traces, clues are left of Black women’s presence and agency. Rebecca looks at eighteenth records of enslavement in institutions - academic and commercial - on both sides of the Atlantic in an attempt to bring that Black women’s presence to life, from delving into the uncatalogued records of the New York library to be being thrown out of the Lloyds of London archives being told ‘we decide who can see our records and for what purpose.’ </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was the response of Lloyds that intrigued me, I was minded of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/slavery-capitalism.html" style="color: #954f72;">NY Times 1619 Project discussing the links between capitalism and enslavement</a> where it says: <i>A majority of credit powering the American slave economy came from the London money market. Years after abolishing the African slave trade in 1807. </i>I’ve written to Lloyds to find out more about that statement, more of that if and when Lloyds get back to me.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">She tells her journey to find the truth of the Black women’s presence, with as she says ‘with a measured use of historical imagination’ to tell the story behind the statistic that at least one in ten of the slave ships had a revolt on board and ‘the more women onboard a slave ship, the more likely the revolt.<span style="text-align: center;"> </span></span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The book talks of the barbarity of the trade to women and their bodies. Rebecca writes of pregnant enslaved Black woman sentenced to death by hanging having her execution ‘delayed until after she gave birth because that baby was someone’s property.’ Of the heroism of the on-board revolts and of the ultimate self-sacrifices – the suicides of the Middle Passage. Stories, brilliantly and emotionally brought to life, then and now as we move in our mind’s eye from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century thro Hugo’s innovation in telling the story in graphic form.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQR7M6H8fe6c9hjcRPt22FtiRbHjScWN-wyHNMydZXL7_E3uRq-Jw12IYTfArITzlosWFS7hiJ42sjpgW_4IXWd2cLA6FM5QgBUckW0p-jGHqDMwYknftvG0461dnDDg4Nke4qqVfmGjA/s2048/IMG_2261.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1326" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQR7M6H8fe6c9hjcRPt22FtiRbHjScWN-wyHNMydZXL7_E3uRq-Jw12IYTfArITzlosWFS7hiJ42sjpgW_4IXWd2cLA6FM5QgBUckW0p-jGHqDMwYknftvG0461dnDDg4Nke4qqVfmGjA/s320/IMG_2261.heic" width="320" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hugo’s illustrations artfully tells Rebecca's story </span>innovatively,<span style="font-family: inherit;"> often with much emotion and realism. For example, relating her lived experience as Black woman on the streets of New York, being forcibly brushed aside by an anonymous twentieth first century suited White business man, hurrying by, brief case in hand, who doesn’t break his stride, rushing on, ignoring the incident; contrasting that with an eighteenth century White man doing exactly the same thing but with a whip in hand, eerily reflected in a window.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Rebecca in deed tells a hidden history and thru Hugo’s innovation in illustration the story is brought to life. </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Wake’s</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> an emotional, challenging, thought provoking book. I was profoundly caught in its wake, the wake Rebecca describes of the victors’ version of history which erases resistance. Hugo on every page of </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Wake</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> makes that resistance visually real as Rebecca brings it back to life through her measured historical imagination. To conclude, I’m feeling quite pleased with myself, that in a small way I have helped make this very important and highly readable book happen – a must read.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-45427084727166146612021-06-01T02:21:00.004-07:002021-06-01T04:45:36.448-07:00Review: Chater, Kathleen. (2021) Henry Box Brown: From Slavery to Show Business,<div class="separator"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal;"><b>Review </b></span>Chater, Kathleen. (2021) <i>Henry Box Brown: From Slavery to Show Business</i>, McFarland & Company, Jefferson, North Carolina, USA</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcdpahDr9CW5pNG-qsIaxWLj7XwyRG9sO65I4S7lXBv-z_fKh7VgAsY7i2fChbsXncfqq6k3XoDPddteoAwviBcwssNLGX6DSw1WxtyqF7oyJDfItINA8L4gWXhv4iaHAb6_cRqqibCIg/s622/chater.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="622" data-original-width="414" height="373" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcdpahDr9CW5pNG-qsIaxWLj7XwyRG9sO65I4S7lXBv-z_fKh7VgAsY7i2fChbsXncfqq6k3XoDPddteoAwviBcwssNLGX6DSw1WxtyqF7oyJDfItINA8L4gWXhv4iaHAb6_cRqqibCIg/w247-h373/chater.png" width="247" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt; text-align: justify;">Kathy’s highly readable latest book is the biography of the African American, fugitive slave, abolitionist and entertainer – Henry ‘Box’ Brown - born around 1815 into slavery on a planation in Richmond Virginia from where he conceived an ingenious</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt; text-align: justify;">plan to escape enslavement – he would be mailed to freedom in a box to the free North. His plan worked, hence that middle name. Kathy describes how he wrote his autobiography,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt; text-align: justify;"><i>Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown</i><span><i style="color: #202122;">, </i><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">and c</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt; text-align: justify;">ommissioned a panorama, a series of anti-slavery images along with a depiction of his escape.</span><p></p></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px;">He toured with his box, the <i>Narrative</i> and panorama in the Northern free states before fleeing to Britain in 1850 following passing of the Fugitive Slave Act. Britain became his home for 25 years, where he married again and had a second family. Before the Civil War he toured Britain becoming a celebrated abolitionist, speaking out against slavery and its horrors. After the American Civil War, when his abolitionist anti-slavery message was no longer needed, he reinvented himself in order to earn a living, using the acting and enteraining skills he had developed touring to create <i>Prof. H. Box Brown</i>, <i>King of the Mesmerists</i> and <i>The African Prince</i> mesmerist and conjuror acts. He returned to America in 1875 and continued touring. He died in 1897 in Canada.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px;">The book’s contents page reads like a play, making the book easy to follow and read, as well as to dip into. Kathy divides his life into three acts which each act having a number of scenes. <b><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal;">Act 1</span></b><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal;"> Liberty</span> describes his early years, his escape to freedom and the start of anti-slavery touring, escaping the Fugitive Slave Act to Britain, ending with how he has to reinvent himself in the face of difficulties; <b><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal;">Act 2</span></b><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal;"> Partnership</span> tells of his marriage, more touring and more changes as he develops other lecture subjects, including the Indian Mutiny, and finally <b>A<span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal;">ct 3 </span></b><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal;">Magic </span>tells of his life after slavery ended in America and his abolitionist story no longer needed to be told.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px;">There are some nice personal touches such as when discussing why there are so few ‘women of colour’ to be found in the crime records. Kathy tells us this is ‘partly because women were <b>(and are)</b> more law abiding’ (my emphasis). As well as giving her opinion ‘The Welsh…tend to regard everything that comes from England as culturally inferior.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><i> </i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><i>Henry Box Brown </i><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px;">is a very enjoyable book to read, diligently researched with an authoritative scholastic air yet still very accessible. Her many quotes and references are backed by detailed endnotes and a comprehensive bibliography. I particularly like the way Kathy uses sub headings to break the story up including a Betteridge headline showing her journalist roots – <b>‘[Henry Box Brown] the First Magician of Colour?</b>’ - I leave you to guess the answer.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px;">If you are looking for an accessible introduction to understanding Henry Box Brown’s life and how a fugitive slave survived, even thrived on the anti-slavery lecture and presentation circuit in Victorian England alongside others such as Ellen and William Craft, William Wells Brown and Frederick Douglass, then this is the book for you. #Recommended.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-27799370386088918962021-06-01T02:07:00.000-07:002021-06-01T02:07:46.286-07:00The Black King a slave ? No!
<p><br /></p><p>Twice I re ent times I have read that image of the Black King has its origins in slavery both times from leading white Western institutions who appear to have only one lens for the observation of Black history - slavery. All Black history leads back to slavery in their eyes. This is wrong. The Black King in <i>Adoration</i> images does not have its roots in slavery, The image has a rich and complex history which rooted in bible study, courtly practice and artistic tradition.</p><div><b>FIRST TIME...</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The first time was a piece in the Guardian which included the statement:</div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"><i>The emergence of a realistically portrayed black character in Renaissance art reflected ….. a seismic shift in global events as European ships, led by Portugal and Spain, explored the Atlantic and established trading – and slaving – outposts on the African coast.</i> </p><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/dec/21/christmas-cards-star-baby-jesus-myrrh-mystery-balthasar-three-kings-black-art">The Guardian Jonathan Jones Mon 21 Dec 2020 </a></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/dec/21/christmas-cards-star-baby-jesus-myrrh-mystery-balthasar-three-kings-black-art"></a></p><div>I was so incensed by this poorly researched and ill-informed piece I wrote a lengthy tweet which sought to correct the piece's error.</div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en"><i>Myrrh mystery: how did Balthasar, one of the three kings, become black? <a href="https://t.co/Uar9QsuYVu">https://t.co/Uar9QsuYVu</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/JonathanJones?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#JonathanJones</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/guardianartbot?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@guardianartbot</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/guardian?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@guardian</a> <br />A miss-informed article - Portugal, Spain & slavery had no part in the origins of image of the Black Magus - follow thread for actual story</i></p>— Michael Ohajuru (@michael1952) <a href="https://twitter.com/michael1952/status/1341363819151585284?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 22, 2020</a></blockquote><div><b>SECOND TIME...</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The second time was Getty Museum blog post about their exhibition <i>Balthazar A Black African King in Medieval and Renaissance Art</i> (November 19, 2019–February 16, 2020):</div><div><blockquote><i>[I]t would take nearly 1,000 years for European artists to begin representing Balthazar, the youngest of the three kings, as a black man. Why? The explanation can be found through a closer look at the history of this period—specifically, in the rise of the African slave trade in mid-1400s.</i></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/exhibition-to-examine-balthazar-a-black-african-king-in-medieval-and-renaissance-european-art/">Getty Museum Blog May 9, 2019 , updated November 19, 2019 </a></blockquote><p></p></div><div>No tweet this time I will respond to the closing sentence of their blog post (sic) <span style="font-family: arial;"><b>We invite your input on this work, our approach, and what we have shared here.</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>The idea that one of the three Magi could be Black, predates White Western European chattel slavery - the Atlantic trade in enslaved African people dates from the 15th century. Equally the Black magus image predates that trade as it first recorded in the mid 14th century Holy Roman Empire Bohemia.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCXZoxxL6AsggYnOUuMY9Ky8B0ZtuCmYbVmo_aXF6kS05sOdqwp8CFgklIDpEn9GigF2SiF92ULhNy5GyUN2Y12K2jhTqWGU-2FnZH-flGzYVbU74tfJVdniInMjCn6oKQ2z9WepuxW04/s1815/IBLG+15thC+Black+Magus.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="989" data-original-width="1815" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCXZoxxL6AsggYnOUuMY9Ky8B0ZtuCmYbVmo_aXF6kS05sOdqwp8CFgklIDpEn9GigF2SiF92ULhNy5GyUN2Y12K2jhTqWGU-2FnZH-flGzYVbU74tfJVdniInMjCn6oKQ2z9WepuxW04/s320/IBLG+15thC+Black+Magus.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>The image was not a response to what the Guardian calls a <b>"</b>seismic<b> </b>shift in events led by slavery"' nor was it as the Getty museum says due "specifically, [to] the rise of the African slave trade in mid-1400s." Its origin is complex, on the one hand rooted in the age old conflict between church and state - Pope and Emperor - on the other what can only be called Renaissance cognitive dissonance as ideas and images became conflated.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Roman theologian Tertullian was the first to suggest that the Magi were kings basing his idea on an interpretation of Psalms 72:10-11 ‘The kings of Tarshish....the kings of Sheba and Seba will present him gifts. All kings will bow down to him and all nations will serve him’. There were other <i>Adoration</i> prophesies to be found in the Old Testament though more obscure - Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon and ‘three mighty men’ visiting David. Solomon and David were both kings of the Jews.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOQHPt8m9Ob3KqKz2rhUxytrcMnL5WlLdMb-c9IcCxVVFBcWT7ieWkSnk-lVGQUrBL3w27aeIRY9qdAmaj9PxoUJ-6UWb44Wet0RJDjNU88cvBqaJouO6XeCsAfqGKcwtDo6OBRhyphenhyphen8bTA/s2035/Magi_%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1535" data-original-width="2035" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOQHPt8m9Ob3KqKz2rhUxytrcMnL5WlLdMb-c9IcCxVVFBcWT7ieWkSnk-lVGQUrBL3w27aeIRY9qdAmaj9PxoUJ-6UWb44Wet0RJDjNU88cvBqaJouO6XeCsAfqGKcwtDo6OBRhyphenhyphen8bTA/s320/Magi_%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>The emergence and development of the black Magus was complicated by myths and themes around two other blacks - Prester John, the mythical Ethiopian King and the Queen of Sheba – their iconography complicated and contaminated that of the black Magus. It is safe to say is that Cologne played an important role in the mid fourteenth century and perhaps earlier in portraying one of the Magi as black : the patron saint of the city was the black Saint Maurice whose representation perhaps, has its origins in the Ethiopians Frederick II (1194-1250) met on his Crusades; the city also also had the three Magi represented on its coat of arms and its Cathedral contains <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrine_of_the_Three_Kings">the shrine of the three kings.</a></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy7-OJ-EXziI6zL8hFp-Z8MSbQQzKnfLXVMOPv7jw4XV_sFRXr2Sj7injJcAJSyJN8UebE_86VdMOqDnBCx1K_usF2It5bVcKxyFSojjb5pgtT4e9db4TD91U85KeyqFIJdeVZGakvNnk/s2048/Screenshot+2020-12-26+at+22.13.55.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1358" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy7-OJ-EXziI6zL8hFp-Z8MSbQQzKnfLXVMOPv7jw4XV_sFRXr2Sj7injJcAJSyJN8UebE_86VdMOqDnBCx1K_usF2It5bVcKxyFSojjb5pgtT4e9db4TD91U85KeyqFIJdeVZGakvNnk/s320/Screenshot+2020-12-26+at+22.13.55.png" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>So to say that the image was a response to slavery or was specifically related slavery is incorrect and ill-informed, its origin predates the transatlantic slave in enslaved Africans. Essentially the Adoration composition celebrates all earthly Kings coming together to pay homage to the heavenly King - Jesus God made man, King of Heaven and Earth. </div><div><br /></div><div>To conclude the images of the Black Magus has a history which began before the trade in enslaved people, part of a very different story - slavery is NOT the only lens to consider the Black image and its history.</div><div> </div><div><br /></div>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-83593647113092286042020-08-07T23:15:00.001-07:002020-08-07T23:16:31.139-07:00Image of the Black in London Galleries Webinars<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuNkTuc7a5i4A1rokPMBQTVz9A5QIvtSNl9autrjICx2hTfJ_qEPW_DPW3SuSV_r4jAWyDBaEZNMHf-n3QYP4JeHtxI8ewroTU3pxiMszRmBiPF6bUm7ySba5rwC6NU8iiDN3KRfi4bls/s2048/Screenshot+2020-08-08+at+07.05.15.png" imageanchor="1" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="2048" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuNkTuc7a5i4A1rokPMBQTVz9A5QIvtSNl9autrjICx2hTfJ_qEPW_DPW3SuSV_r4jAWyDBaEZNMHf-n3QYP4JeHtxI8ewroTU3pxiMszRmBiPF6bUm7ySba5rwC6NU8iiDN3KRfi4bls/w400-h250/Screenshot+2020-08-08+at+07.05.15.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Add caption<br /></td></tr></tbody></table></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">If you like what you <b>see</b> and <b>read</b> on this blog you can <b>hear </b>the history, the ideas and thinking I discuss in my blog by attending one of my online webinars for more go to my<a href="http://bit.ly/The_IBLG"><span style="color: red;"> Image of the Black in London Galleries web site</span></a> or <a href="http://bit.ly/IBLG_Register"><span style="color: red;">book now on Eventbrite.</span></a></span></div><p></p>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-41254146678584121622020-08-07T07:14:00.003-07:002020-08-07T22:59:20.079-07:00A Sister Saint to St Maurice - St Fidis<p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf4HgZkZXtWLC3Uyh6l51KfngWPRHZ07ig4FPoWqa6UtJx6r_jzvNSYhf18ztfkj_9KQ9Q99QQEACD4U1XI6BwPvO2vBUnXtvFPxapOXDpEsT2qvHmo_tV-SEOmuVwJPbUMtGDQzUAHDM/s2048/IMG_6430.JPG" style="display: inline; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1461" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFDPEPAigsrvx0ef5le07NsbNvA-JAbfgCv7bXag_YopSXMkkF3zFFsPHmEGXUVAFNHca-jygd2Apvkgtm__n7y27ZqDhzAB26OjGasSgYDtki6_igLH9vr_1aOp61Fjzl6uguiSe6Qhw/w187-h262/IMG_2468.JPG" style="text-align: left;" title="St Fidis" width="187" /></a><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1342" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf4HgZkZXtWLC3Uyh6l51KfngWPRHZ07ig4FPoWqa6UtJx6r_jzvNSYhf18ztfkj_9KQ9Q99QQEACD4U1XI6BwPvO2vBUnXtvFPxapOXDpEsT2qvHmo_tV-SEOmuVwJPbUMtGDQzUAHDM/w171-h262/IMG_6430.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;" title="St Maurice" width="171" /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption"><b>St Fidis </b> <b>St Maurice</b></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div style="text-align: center;">Sister and Brother ReliquaryBusts</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;">St Fidis (1), a sister saint to <a href="https://veronese1515.blogspot.com/p/the-st-maurices-at-madge.html" target="_blank">St Maurice</a>, was a short-lived (c1525-27) invention of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenberg perhaps a response to early presences of Christianised black ladies in waiting at the German Renaissance Court. One of these lades is seen in the Master of the Goslar Sibyl’s <i>Calenberg Altarpiece</i> now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-QYIXQ4JUGzr0zmbC9ntLUDJj07BSpxpvZQ0Ak-dfC2iB1H00udokC9qTvCwd_urF8BhPl2J2YSoYmW-AUr5nquN31sEH7YoIiCtwDTDvNM_1TMb9uHYO6OLAR6ECCRVo_SA4xCdwAqk/s2048/Screenshot+2020-08-07+at+15.03.27.png" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1433" data-original-width="2048" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-QYIXQ4JUGzr0zmbC9ntLUDJj07BSpxpvZQ0Ak-dfC2iB1H00udokC9qTvCwd_urF8BhPl2J2YSoYmW-AUr5nquN31sEH7YoIiCtwDTDvNM_1TMb9uHYO6OLAR6ECCRVo_SA4xCdwAqk/w512-h358/Screenshot+2020-08-07+at+15.03.27.png" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Calenberg Altarpiece </i>Center panel</span><br /><a href="https://collections.mfa.org/objects/469980" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: small;">Boston Museum of Art</span></a></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk2WEMIRCD9scwF1itcUhVIyymHywqUZ4ZR4BRIUj_NT9lxglg25-0hrMQR4gF_Z_NIYKczWuK-haVhqJ-78zVNxjf5BnKYSm80j2cZqFiVktm8LROmJ4_paQ38NJjSo9XxLFvOzop4Kw/s700/CLAENBERG+Altarpiece.png" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="508" height="327" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk2WEMIRCD9scwF1itcUhVIyymHywqUZ4ZR4BRIUj_NT9lxglg25-0hrMQR4gF_Z_NIYKczWuK-haVhqJ-78zVNxjf5BnKYSm80j2cZqFiVktm8LROmJ4_paQ38NJjSo9XxLFvOzop4Kw/w237-h327/CLAENBERG+Altarpiece.png" width="237" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: arial;">Calenberg Altarpiece </i><span style="font-family: arial;">Detail showing Black lady in waiting </span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/post/66801798430/master-of-the-goslar-sibyls-the-calenberg/amp">https://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/post/66801798430/master-of-the-goslar-sibyls-the-calenberg/amp</a><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; text-align: left;">(1) Kaplan, Paul. (2016). The Calenberg Altarpiece: Black African Christians in Renaissance Germany In Mischa Honeck, Martin Klimke, and Anne Kuhlmann (Eds.), </span><i style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; text-align: left;">GERMANY AND THE BLACK DIASPORA Points of Contact, 1250-1914</i><span face="" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; text-align: left;"> (pp. 21-37) Berghahn Books</span></div></span></td></tr></tbody></table><o:p></o:p><p></p>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-72281287185075170722020-02-23T08:49:00.000-08:002020-02-26T03:18:11.470-08:00Review: Carmen Fracchia ‘Black but Human’: Slavery and Visual Art in Hapsburg Spain 1480-1700 <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There is so much in Dr Carmen Fracchia <i>‘Black but Human’: Slavery and Visual Art in Hapsburg Spain 1480-1700 </i>. I have struggled to write this review. Where do I begin? How can I end ? Almost every page has some new, revealing insights into what for me has been a paradox in my studies of the black presence in Renaissance art.</div>
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Most, if not all, the black figures in Renaissance art are the enslaved or the children of the enslaved purchased at Spanish markets. Fracchia tells us that the Iberian Peninsula had a black enslaved population of around 2 million over the period covered by the book, they were 10 to 15 percent of the population of Seville, Valencia, Lisbon and other cities, yet there are so few to be found in art from the region during this time. Why?</div>
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The paradox becomes even more intriguing when considering the literary black presence as oppose to the visual, when comparing Spanish texts from the period to those found in the rest of Western Europe. There is the very limited visual presence in Spanish art which is in a puzziling contrast to the many written expressions of that presence in its literature. Making me double down on the question: why so few black images in Spanish art?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">Fracchia builds on the scholarship found in the multi volume seminal work edited by Bindman and Gates </span><i style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;">Image of the Black in Western Art , </i><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">which I have discussed </span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">elsewhere</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"> in this Blog when <a href="https://veronese1515.blogspot.com/2011/03/launch-lecture-for-image-of-black-in.html">the 2nd edition was launched at the </a></span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://veronese1515.blogspot.com/2011/03/launch-lecture-for-image-of-black-in.html">British Museum</a> and when <a href="https://veronese1515.blogspot.com/2015/03/image-of-black-in-western-art-complete.html">a further four volumes were added</a>, today there are ten volumes.</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"> Fracchia explains in religious and social terms what the black image meant to Spanish culture at the time. Unlike, on the whole, the analysis found in <i style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;">Image of the Black in Western Art,</i> Fracchia takes not just the view of the Spanish elites found in the Church or in the Court but also the voices and the views of the black enslaved Afro-Hispanics in their desire to be considered human.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Fracchia develops the ideas hinted at in the works title <i>Black but Human </i>giving the enslaved a humanity, a dignity which she discusses throughout her book, demonstrating how many works are ‘[important] relays of power and resistance’. She opens with an analysis of literature which goes further than Victor Stoicha’s chapter in <i>Image of the Black in Western Art - Image of the Black in Spanish Art: Sixteenth and Seventennth Century</i>, Fracchia talks about the process of ‘appropriation and adaptation’ of black carols – poems of ‘devotion and entertainment’ sung in <i>hablar negresco</i> – by white imitators who intentions were to mock the blacks, in contrast to the ‘real’ Afro Hispanic writers whose central theme was we are <i>Black but Human,</i> despite being enslaved they wanted their common humanity acknowledged. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Fracchia describes how the Church considered the main function of images was to instruct the believer, in doing so they must support religious teaching. Thus ‘Catholic visual form was to be intensely scrutinized and monitored from conception to consumption’ however such actions by the Church do not fully explain the absence of black figures as the Church. As perhaps a counter Reformation measure the Church actually created black saints to attract black people to Christianity. She argues that there are perhaps two cases in which this absence is understood. <br />
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Firstly, the Black Magus in the <i>Adoration</i> scene a common image in the rest Europe, <a href="https://veronese1515.blogspot.com/2008/09/blacks-in-renaissance-england.html">discussed elsewhere on this blog</a>, took a long time to be accepted into Hispanic <i>Adoration </i>iconography due to almost eight centuries of domination by the ‘Moors’, there was a resistance to the apparent Muslim presence and when they did accept the Black Magus presence it was the most exotic version to underline his otherness ‘ a visual distance from the daily reality of [Afro-Hispanics]’. Secondly, in the case of royal portraiture the absence of black people was the very nature of the Hapsburg Court which excluded people considered not worthy from portraiture, there were ‘no depictions of slaves as elegant servants unlike regal images throughout Western Europe between the sixteenth and eighteenth century’, additionally there was the fear of Muslim contamination.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Juan Bautista Maíno (1612/14) <i>Adoration of the Magi</i> (Detail)</td></tr>
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Having explained the paradox of the numbers of Afro-Hispanics and their literary legacy compared with their essential absence from visual representation from the period. She goes further to discuss the visual manifestations of the physical violence of Hispanic slavery showing how the <i>Black but Human</i> topos encodes the painful ambivalent and ultimately inhuman experience suffered by the enslaved and the ex-enslaved in Imperial Spain.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Isidro de Villoldo (1547)<i>The Miracle of the Black Leg</i></span></td></tr>
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To make manifest the physical violence of Spanish slavery from the period Fracchia skilfully deconstructs depictions of <i>The Miracle of the Black Leg</i> by Spanish and Italian artists. She shows the brutality, the ‘gratuitous cruelty’ of the former interpretations, as the image is used ‘to signify the exploitation and violent appropriation of the African body by the mighty imperial power of Spain’. On a personal note this was a revelation to me as I was more familiar with the comparatively benign Italian version of <i>The Miracle</i>, where the leg is taken from a recently deceased black body and remains black, unlike in Spain where the African is still very much alive as his leg is cut off and the miracle is extended to not just replacing the diseased leg of the white clergy with a working , functional leg but also the leg – in the Spanish- version becomes white!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (1650) <i>Juan de Pareja</i> (1606–1670) </span></td></tr>
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For me the climax of Fracchia's scrupulously researched and argued work is her detailed analysis of two complementary paintings - Velázquez's ‘exceptional’ c1650 portrait of his enslaved assistant Juan de Pareja and Juan de Pareja’s ‘extraordinary’ 1661 <i>The Calling of St Matthew</i>. Fracchia shows how Velázquez endows Pareja with his own ‘humanity’ making him the equal of any viewer - white or black. While in <i>The Calling of St Matthew </i>Pareja<i> </i>builds on his own humanity, borrowing ideas from his master’s <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Meninas">Las Meninas </a></i>to show his ‘worth and nobility’, representing ‘the process of liberation from slavery (Velázquez manumitted him the same year he painted Pareja<i>'s</i> portrait) by choosing to Europeanize his features as a visible sign of religious, cultural and social assimilation.’ Both artists – master and servant – make the same point in their own way, Pareja is black but he is human.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Juan de Pareja (1661)<i> The Calling of St Matthew</i></span></td></tr>
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My only gripe – which I consider quite minor - is that I wanted to read more about Sebastián Gómez the black enslaved assistant to Bartolomé Estaban Murillio, who was, some 30 years younger than Pareja. Murillo manumitted him, and he went on to be an artist in his own right. I was left wanting to know more about Gómez and make the inevitable comparisons with Velázquez’s Pareja. However, all is not lost! This book demands an exhibition to bring together all the works discussed, and <i>‘Black but Human’: Slavery and Visual Art in Hapsburg Spain 1480-1700 </i>is the exhibition’s title and catalogue. It would be the chance to celebrate the works of Juan de Pareja and Sebastián Gómez – I believe to be the first known European black artists - along with the many other works discussed in the book. I look forward to attending and writing my review!<br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">I'll conclude by making two points. First, Fracchia resolves my paradox by describing how and why the black image was excluded from the Adoration and royal portraiture, as slaves black people were not considered worthy of representation and there was association with the ‘Moors’ and Islam so no blacks appeared in paintings from the period. Secondly. Fracchia gives the voice and the views of the enslaved unlike any book on art from the period I have read, specifically she builds on the conventional academic scholarship of Victor Stoicha’s chapter in </span><i style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;">Image of the Black in Western Art</i><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">, she gives expression and humanity to the black enslaved, as well as consistently recognising slavery as a crime against humanity – sympathetically considering the enslaved and ex-enslaved Afro-Hispanics </span><i style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;">Black but Human</i><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">. I whole heartedly recommended this book, unreservedly.</span></div>
Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-62445115319418124472019-10-29T22:21:00.000-07:002019-10-31T01:36:30.045-07:00Review: A Book of Secrets by Kate Morrison<br />
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My introduction to Kate Morrison was her paper '<i>Go back & fetch what you forgot': building a fictional character from the archives </i>presented at <a href="https://blackbritishhistory.co.uk/workshops/whbbh5-3/">What’s Happening in Black British History V Workshop in October 2016</a> which included her announcing she had a book deal that was <i>A Book of Secrets</i>, all while cradling her sleeping baby!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kate Morrison presenting on <span style="text-align: start;">building a fictional character from the archives</span></td></tr>
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The approach she discussed at that workshop produced this work of fiction based on the lives of black Africans who lived in Tudor England working in domestic services and as craftsmen and women. Morrison’s fiction contrasts with the facts in Miranda Kaufmann’s <i>Black Tudors: The Untold Story</i> and Onykea Nubia's <i>Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England, Their Presence, Status and Origins</i> who both describe the African presence from their researches in the archives. Morrison, with equal academic rigour to researching the archives takes the facts from her diligent scholarship and through her masterful storytelling skills brings the black African Tudor presence to life making it real, making it human, giving it flesh and blood with emotions and desires.<br />
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Her book is not just the story of the life and times of Suky/Susan Charlewood/Nsowah a black woman and her struggle for survival in Elizabethan England, it is much richer, deeper and wider telling stories of class, religion, death, love and sex set against the spiritual and secular suspicions and fears of the day, telling the story of a black woman making her way seeking to understand her heritage and find her true identity in a world of national and international, brutal religious strife and military intrigue. Morrisons skilfully examines and reveals the political and religious climate of the time, as England wanted its own sovereignty not that of the Pope, not unlike the demands of the Leavers in Britain’s BREXIT debate.<br />
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Morrison’s work demonstrates the importance of researching black British history not just as an academic exercise but to bring that research to light, making it accessible to a wider, non- academic audience and despite the duties of motherhood she brought her story to life for the WHBBH audience and now to a much wider one. Here we have her critical interrogation of the archives coupled with her innovative imagination creating a wholly plausible, readable work of fiction based on fact - a page turner - I loved it - look forward to the film. #FullyRecommendedMichaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-6410961509123746732019-10-12T00:57:00.000-07:002020-01-02T06:07:19.595-08:00Review: The Isle of Wight's Missing Chapter by James Rayner<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirVOZ6b0MiJTkWGIUpH5WnAfEtjgOttyZygmpzsQwK7rMpvw0EqbSZocTuYjERWZtGgKYaJQRr0DG1peUiC5nL4D5JCMnM0T8svTRQ19oBSLgB2D4hp9AN4t4HjOBaeMpZzZd1emMT-LI/s1600/rayner.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1041" data-original-width="668" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirVOZ6b0MiJTkWGIUpH5WnAfEtjgOttyZygmpzsQwK7rMpvw0EqbSZocTuYjERWZtGgKYaJQRr0DG1peUiC5nL4D5JCMnM0T8svTRQ19oBSLgB2D4hp9AN4t4HjOBaeMpZzZd1emMT-LI/s320/rayner.png" width="205" /></a><i>The Isle of Wight’s Missing Chapter </i>by James Rayner is a fascinating book with brief sketches of the many men and women of diverse ethnicities who have visited or stayed on the Island since the 18th century. It challenges that version of the Island’s history, which to date has been pretty much exclusively white and British. Rayner, through his targeted research of; local history books, newspapers, biographies and official records, is able to fill in what he calls ‘this missing chapter from the Island’s past’.<br />
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From my own personal black British history interests, I was intrigued to find the<a href="http://www.mirandakaufmann.com/black-tudors.html"> black Tudor</a> Jaques Francis lived on the island, as did <a href="https://bust.com/arts/195062-fanny-eaton-pre-raphaelite.html">Fanny Eaton</a> the muse to Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood who <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beloved_(Rossetti_painting)">Rossetti painted her in ‘Beloved’</a> and also that the abolitionist <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-life-of-olaudah-equinao">Oldudah Equiano</a> spent six months there.<br />
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I found the book very readable. Essentially this is a listing, but Rayner creates a very readable narrative, his writing style connects the diverse lives in a very clear, orderly manner, making the book very accessible.<br />
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I recommend this thought-provoking book particularly as it is a model for anyone in Britain’s other 182 islands that make up these British Islands to create their <i>Missing Chapter </i>in doing so show that history is never a closed book.Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-73868621727022034812019-10-04T23:32:00.000-07:002019-10-05T00:00:00.049-07:00Reparation Debate at University of London<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
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<b>Should Britain pay Reparations to its Former Colonies?</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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The invitation to speak at University of London’s debating society came out of the blue just like <a href="https://veronese1515.blogspot.com/2018/10/reparation-debate-at-durham-university.html">the Durham invitation</a>. I accepted without hesitation as it was chance to apply the things, I had learnt from losing the same <a href="https://veronese1515.blogspot.com/2018/10/reparation-debate-at-durham-university.html">debate in Durham</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Lecture theatre 4.04 LT2 in the Cruciform Building was packed, not sure if that was because that this was the first debate of the academic year or whether it was the subject but the room was rammed with people sitting on the stairs and on the floor in front of the stage. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The day before I had prepared a 15 minute speech, only to receive an email over the weekend reminding me I had 7 minutes (Note to self - remind yourself of <a href="https://www.debating.org/event-formats">the rules of debate</a> !) I had a job cutting it back to 7mins so I left it a 10 minutes. On the night I negotiated with the Chairman and the other speakers the additional 3 minutes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There were points of order aka statements challenging what the speaker was saying while the speaker was at the lectern, the speaker could take the point of order or ignore it. I took mine while others declined, adding to tension as speakers spoke on ignoring attempts at intervention.<o:p></o:p></div>
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At the end of the four speeches members of the audience came up to the lectern to a make 3-minute statement FOR or AGAINST the motion and in one case both (as they could see both sides and wanted to make a case for each!).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Proposition (FOR):<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Michael Ohajuru </b>Cultural Historian, and Senior Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Callum Nimmo </b>President of the UCL Debating Society (stood in at the last minute as scheduled speaker did not show up)</div>
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Opposition (AGAINST):<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Dr Kim Wagner </b>Senior Lecturer in British Imperial History at QMUL<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Spencer Shia</b> President of the UCL Conservative Society and fellow debater<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>FOR</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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I developed the Malcom X argument in which he compares slavery to a knife in the back, you don’t absolve yourself by simply pulling the knife out – abolishing slavery – you need to heal the would left by slavery – pay Reparations. Then went onto consider Hillary Beckles idea of Reparation as a conversation between equals to resolve the neglect and underdevelopment. Emphasised aid is not the answer as this is tied to the West as for every 1$ the West gives in aid it receives 24$ back. Callum spoke of the need to correct a wrong. The owners were given compensation for their loss of property – the enslaved - while the enslaved received nothing. Art had been stolen and needed to be returned as part of the Reparation <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>AGAINST</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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There is no need for Reparation as slavery happened some time ago. Paying it would only be political ritual – a show on moral grounds - in fact it would be tokenism. There is no need for Reparation its only blood money to make Britain feel better- a gesture to show British exceptionalism and its greatness – you cannot repair the past. Further most of the colonies have corrupt governments so the money would be wasted. We are not responsible today for what has gone before.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And why give back the art as it reaches a wider audience here in Britain? If Britain did give it back the art would be mis used by the Governments to reinforce origin and nation creation myths which might favour one group over another causing division. Further the people who live in the land today do not own art that was created by those who previously lived on that land.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Conclusion </b><o:p></o:p></div>
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From Durham I was ready for all these arguments apart from the art which did not occur in Durham.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Moral argument – the owners were compensated why not the slaves <o:p></o:p></div>
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Not my problem/responsibility – many of the institutions you benefit from today were founded with profits for slavery eg National Gallery, Lloyds Insurance <o:p></o:p></div>
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Corrupt Governments – the conversation cannot just be at Government level look at Glasgow and Cambridge Universities Reparation activity.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Art better here – these are cultural, religious artefacts not art, it was looted, stolen and should given back to where it came from.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I was the last to speak, closed quoting Obama – vote for your hopes not your fears - attempting to counter the negativity and concerns in Opposition’s arguments <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Outcome </b><o:p></o:p></div>
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We won, we moved the room in favour of the motion.</div>
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Before the debate just under half the room at 48% was FOR the motion after the debate it went up 8 points to 56%, a clear majority of the room was now FOR the motion.</div>
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<b>Thanks</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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I want to thank the President and Vice-President of UCL debating society for inviting me (the President did a brilliant job stepping in at such short notice FOR the motion). The UCL students were great - very welcoming, respectful and listened attentively. I very much enjoyed the debate. I was particularly heartened by the many who came up to me afterwards shook my hand, congratulated and thanked me and special thanks to the two sistas who supported me throughout the debate with fist pumps and big smiles as I made my points!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-13868305081802643062019-01-08T23:18:00.002-08:002019-01-18T00:00:35.179-08:00Review: Temi Odumosu’s 'Africans in English Caricature 1769-1819: Black Jokes White Humour' (2018)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5W3p8sBhN1ouET7aW776st5lTAu8nOOaU2JSRGhjdpwLp_0zF86WpLMpPSEIIz_u7LC1SODAoXbMFb8l46PKfurwfrki2VV79BXUr9OLpPhNIbjXjRq-_iprJ0G6QVHfswHCCYHDlwu8/s1600/IMG_4490.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1243" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5W3p8sBhN1ouET7aW776st5lTAu8nOOaU2JSRGhjdpwLp_0zF86WpLMpPSEIIz_u7LC1SODAoXbMFb8l46PKfurwfrki2VV79BXUr9OLpPhNIbjXjRq-_iprJ0G6QVHfswHCCYHDlwu8/s320/IMG_4490.jpg" width="248" /></a></div>
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I was delighted to review <a href="http://www.temiodumosu.com/">Temi Odumosu’s</a> <i>Africans in English Caricature 1769-1819: Black Jokes White Humour </i>(2018). I first became aware of Temi’s work from a free handout at the <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/">National Gallery’s</a> information desk The <i>‘Image of Black’ in National Gallery Paintings</i> (2004), three A4 black and white, photocopied sheets. The contrast in presentation and content between her latest work and that National Gallery handout is palpable - her book is hard-backed, with mainly colour images and it’s not free, it’s £100 but more on that price later.<br />
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Temi’s ground-breaking free handout at the National Gallery, sadly not available today and its supporting website is now only <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20050331005231/http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk:80/collection/features/black_presence/hub.htm">available via the Wayback machine</a>. Her work was one of the inspirations for my own series of <a href="http://bit.ly/The_IBLG">Image of the Black in London Galleries tours</a>. So with her books great looks and my knowledge of Temi’s work I was looking forward to reading her book.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Sample page</span></div>
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The very first thing that strikes you about <i>Africans in English Caricature 1769-1819: Black Jokes White Humour</i> are its manifest production values – it looks stunning. Page after page of beautiful full colour cartoons with supporting detailed images in black and white as well as colour. Can one imagine Peter Fryer’s <i>Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain</i>, the seminal text on the black presence in Britain being published today without a single picture? Even when pictures had to be there to support a black history text as in David Dabydeen’s revelatory commentary on the black presence in William Hogarth’s work <i> Hogarth's Blacks: Images of Blacks in Eighteenth Century English Ar</i>t, they were small, not easy to interpret black and white images. At the other end of the scale there is the monumental, multi volume, much celebrated <i>The Image of the Black in Western Art </i>which is both scholarly and full of colour images with many detailed images, which I have <a href="https://veronese1515.blogspot.com/2015/03/image-of-black-in-western-art-complete.html">reviewed in a previous post</a>. Lessons seemed to have been taken from both as it has the authority and scholarship ambitions of Fryer and Dabydeen with the visual impact intentions of <i>The Image of the Black in Western Art.</i><br />
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Her book not only looks good it is extremely easy to navigate with its simple but effective content sections: introduction, four chapters and an epilogue. Each section has its all its footnotes grouped together at its end, making them easy to find and follow up, without cluttering the pages, adding to the book’s visual appeal and easy access. Its physical presentation and logical content arrangement make it a joy to read and to browse. It has the visual aspirations of Dabydeen’s book without suffering the drawbacks of its small, often hard to interpret, black and white reproductions. <br />
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In her introduction Temi recognises that nothing ruins a good joke like an explanation of why it should be funny and the irony in knowing that the prints were not meant for her eyes or for rigorous academic deliberation. She ‘ruins’ the jokes and in doing so delivers a thoroughly perceptive, interrogation and analysis of the visual text.<br />
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Cartoons are time capsules of not just history but of culture, fashion, taste, and language. Cartoons, even a few years old, can be challenging to interpret without a thorough knowledge of all that was happening in the news at the time as cartoonist conflate contemporary news, thoughts and ideas to make their points. Temi deflates and unpicks the eighteenth century histories to be found in these cartoons through a masterclass of careful, detailed analysis. She shows ‘how artists use Africans as stock types and what they came to signify in the heated comic domain of the revolutionary period,’<br />
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I was particularly impressed by her analysis of the portrayal of African women - a key theme of the book - and her deconstruction of Cruikshank and Marayat’s <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/The_New_Union_Club_Being_a_Representation_of_what_took_place_at_a_celebrated_Dinner_given_by_a_celebrated_society.jpg"><i>The New Union Club.</i></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Detail from Cruikshank and Marayat’s <i>A Meeting of Creditor</i></span></div>
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Considering African women in the cartoons she exposes the hypocrisy to found in them, which mocked the physical attractiveness of African women which was rooted in the incompatibility of blackness and beauty, while at the same time Englishmen found them desirable. This dichotomy is exemplified in the depiction of the prostitute Black Moll’s bill to the philandering Prince of Wales for services in Cruikshank’s <i>A Meeting of Creditors</i>. Temi explains Cruickshank depiction is a loaded double entendre, with Black Moll’s list headed with the entry ‘Black Joke 300’. Black Joke refers to a bawdy comic song about an Englishwoman’s vagina, the cartoon coarsely identifying Moll as the ‘joke’ of the prince’s decadence at the same time suggesting the absurdity of her monetary claim. This is typical of Temi’s close, revealing analysis of the black female figure’s depiction which runs throughout the book.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Detail from <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/The_New_Union_Club_Being_a_Representation_of_what_took_place_at_a_celebrated_Dinner_given_by_a_celebrated_society.jpg"><i>The New Union Club</i></a></span></div>
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<i>The New Union Club </i>analysis develops her examination of Cruikshank and Marayat’s a ‘black joke’, which I first saw in <i>The Slave in European Art: From Renaissance Trophy to Abolitionist Emblem </i>edited by Massing, and McGrath (2012). This time it has even deeper research and with more reflections on the variety of attitudes and ideas associated with Africans. She unpacks the metaphors and points out the stereotypes exemplified by the spotted baby wearing a bonnet who suckles on the breast of an African woman behind Wilberforce. Temi tells us this spotted child may reveal the outcomes of miscegenation or perhaps more ominously is showing the signs of sexually transmitted disease. In doing so she gives insight into Cruickshank and Marayat’s anti-black pro slavery minds that are revealed in many characters and their grotesque representations in the cartoon.<br />
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Now let’s look at the price tag on the hardback, £100. At first that can seem a high price to pay, however black history scholarship and study has moved on since 2004 when Temi’s listing was given away free at the National Gallery. Both Fryer’s and Dabydeen’s black and white publications would have benefited greatly from the production values to be found in Temi’s monumental work. Maybe having seen what can be done to depict black British history this might inspire their publishers to produce new editions. That price enables the publisher to create a work not just with the academic rigour to be found in Fryer’s and Dabydeen’s books but also with the beauty and wonder of <i>The Image of the Black in Western Art</i>, making Temi’s work not just a scholarly, informative, revealing black history book but a really beautiful, coffee-table art monograph. It will have a place not just in an academic library but it is equally at home on any coffee table around which a passion for black history is shared and debated. I thoroughly enjoyed reading, studying and just looking at Temi’s <i>Africans in English Caricature 1769-1819: Black Jokes White Humour</i> and so, unreservedly recommended it.<br />
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<br />Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-10417338152635661502018-12-18T23:03:00.001-08:002020-02-03T01:47:48.581-08:00Playing the flute, the galoubet, and the drumI've often wondered what the black figures playing the flute and drum at the same time might sound like in <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/andrea-mantegna-the-introduction-of-the-cult-of-cybele-at-rome">Andrea Mantegna (1505-6) <i>The Introduction of the Cult of Cybele at Rome</i></a> and <a href="http://vlaamseprimitieven.vlaamsekunstcollectie.be/en/collection/festival-of-the-archers">Master of Frankfurt (15th century) <i>Festival of the Archers</i></a>.<br />
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I came across this piece on YouTube while searching for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipe_(instrument)">the galoubet </a>- that flute with three holes close to its base in Master of Frankfurt. To hear the galoubet and drum press play...<br />
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<br />Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-85404946783728138962018-11-26T22:25:00.000-08:002018-11-26T23:03:38.425-08:00Siobhan Stanley's COMMUNION Exhibition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Casting Mist</b></td></tr>
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What I thought, thanks to Google maps, was going to be an 18 minute walk over firm ground from Robertsbridge Station to Siobhan Stanley’s Private View of <a href="http://www.theblackshedgallery.org.uk/home">her debut exhibition <i>COMMUNION </i>at the blackShed gallery</a>, turned out to be a 35 minute slog in the dark, in drizzling rain over muddy bridle paths complete with dead ends in fields and trailer parks. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I’d seen <a href="https://www.instagram.com/siobart/">her work on line</a> I was determined to see it in the flesh. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I eventually arrived very damp. Once I’d taken my sopping wet coat off and cleaned my steamed-up glasses to begin looking at the works, I was greeted by a lady who demanded to know ‘Are you one of the models?’ just as I was trying to read the catalogue thru my glasses as they continued to steam up again. The gallery was small and packed and as I was still damp from my walk it was all very steamy for me. Thus, my introduction to Siobhan’s work in person was physically and personally challenging.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I was not disappointed. Once I could see, I was delighted that I’d made the effort.<o:p></o:p><br />
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My introduction to Siobhan’s work was <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BpaPqwfA98i/"><i>Casting Mist </i>on Instagram</a> an intimate double portrait of two friends, confidants or conspirators caught sharing a whispered secret with me the viewer as an eavesdropper, the two are oblivious of my presence yet I feel I’m an interloper witnessing something I shouldn’t. That sense of shared intimacy between the sitters pervades her work with the viewer as an intruder catching a quiet shared moment between confidants. Such is the mood of her work. The same mood of shared intimacy, this time not so conspiratorial is to be found one of her other double portraits <i>A Little Wing Serpent</i>. It was not just the mood of her work that caught me attention it was her lighting: soft muted <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_with_a_Pearl_Earring#/media/File:Meisje_met_de_parel.jpg">Vermeer like</a>, creating calm still effects, making her portraits serene, tranquil sometimes pensive. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Her pensive tension is wonderfully caught in <i>So Gaz’d On Now </i>were eyes and eye contact guide the viewer around this triple portrait with the sitter on the far left though on the edge of the painting is clearly the centre of attention as the other two look to him and he gazes searchingly out of the painting at me, the viewer. With her subtle use of lighting Siobhan further emphasises that the figure of the left is the centre, waiting for me to speak or is about to speak himself, a moment of brooding intimacy has been caught.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The fact that the majority of her work features portraits of young black men adds to the wonder and power of her work for me. I am minded of Kehinde Wiley, as he too creates seemingly incongruous juxtapositions of black male bodies, Kehinde riffs on history painting compositions from the white Western canonical art such as his <i>Napoleon Leading the Army Over the Alps</i> (2005) which plays on David’s <i>Napoleon Crossing the Alps</i> (1801) while Siobhan takes her inspiration from the attire and setting of Elizabethan gentlemen similar to those to be found in Nicholas Hillard miniatures without their stiffness or formality.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Kehinde Wiley </b>(2005) <b> Jacques-Louis David </b>(1801)</span></td></tr>
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<i>COMMUNION</i>’s catalogue says Siobhan is ‘summoning us to rethink our notions of black history and relativity of truth itself’ I was minded of my own <a href="http://johnblanke.com/">John Blank Project </a> and her <i>COMMUNION </i>exhibition share a common vision in that statement as my Project encourages one to ‘imagine the black Tudor trumpeter’ while Siobhan’s <i>COMMUNION </i>invites one to ‘imagine the black Elizabethan gentlemen’.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">As for that question which was my introduction to COMMUNION, at the time I answered with a surly ‘No!’ Now having seen her work my answer has to be ‘I’d love to be!’ as to be portrayed as the catalogue describes her work with that ‘quiet pride, integrity and power’ found in all her work in <i>COMMUNION </i>would be an honour.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-59226085949169324182018-10-30T01:23:00.002-07:002018-10-30T04:49:34.445-07:00Reparation Debate at Durham University <div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
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The invite to speak at Durham University debating society came out of the blue. </div>
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<i>..........As an Independent Art and Cultural Historian and current work with the Institute of Commonwealth Studies on Black British History, you would certainly make an engaging and highly knowledgeable addition to the debate.</i></div>
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This houses believes:</div>
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Britain Owes Reparations to its Former Colonies</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">8:30pm Debating Chamber, Palace Green</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Friday 12th October </span></div>
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I was honoured and delighted to accept their invitation to speak at their debate.</div>
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The invite was particularly timely for me following my post on <a href="https://veronese1515.blogspot.com/2018/03/slavery-reparation-opportunity.html">Scotland’s Dollar Academy where I described its need for Reparation</a>, in doing so recognising where the source of the funds that founded the Academy came from - John McNabb’s slavery earnings - it has a slave ship as the school’s badge.</div>
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The organisation and my reception was excellent, as was the hospitality of the Chairman and the Society<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me, Chairman Chris Clarke, Jason Hickel</td></tr>
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The Speakers</span></b><br />
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<a href="https://twitter.com/jasonhickel"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">Dr Jason Hickel</span></a></div>
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Anthropologist, author, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He has taught at the London School of Economics, the University of Virginia, and Goldsmiths London.</div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/michael1952"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Michael Ohajuru (Me) </span></a></div>
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An Arts blogger who specialises in the Black African presence in Renaissance Europe, he is currently working with the Institute of Commonwealth Studies.</div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/JohnHemmings2"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Dr John Hemmings</span></a></div>
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Director of the Asia Studies Centre at the Henry Jackson Society and an Adjunct Fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.</div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/roshni_gulati"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Roshni Gulati</span></a></div>
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A second year law student at Durham , she stood in at last minute for the original speaker who had cancelled.</div>
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We, the speakers had a very agreeable pre debate dinner with Chris Clarke, chairman of the society. Tellingly, nobody accepted Chris’s generous offer of wine, we enjoyed water and polite, random witty conversation. Throughout the dinner there was an atmosphere of friendly competition - nobody over keen to share their position.</div>
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The Debate</span></b><br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;">Proposition</span> Dr Jason Hickel
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He argued from as factual , reality basis the North made and continues to make trillions of dollars from the South: for every 1$ of aid to the North , the South receives 24$ this needs to be redressed</div>
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<span style="caret-color: rgb(61, 133, 198); color: #3d85c6;">Opposition </span>Dr John Hemmings</div>
He reasoned why pick on Britain , Britain is not alone there were other countries and empires who are are potentially guilty where do we stop, further it’s complex, how do manage’s who receives what and why. </div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;">Proposition</span> Michael Ohajuru (Me)</div>
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My argument was based on the the metaphor of slavery as a stab in the back - the removal of the knife is not enough - the wound needs to be healed. Reparation was needed to heal that festering wound in doing so address the social, cultural and economic imbalances caused by slavery. You can download <a href="http://bit.ly/IBLG_Reparation">my complete address here</a>.</div>
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<span style="caret-color: rgb(61, 133, 198); color: #3d85c6;">Opposition </span>Roshni Gulati</div>
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Roshni argued it was unfair to single Britain out as there were others who had equally bad records of colonialisation. Further it would be demeaning even patronising to present day inhabitants with Reparation </div>
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Ireland, Thailand and others survived colonialistaion and today thrive - why can’t others?</div>
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Don’t they already receive reparation via foreign aid ?</div>
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It would be impossible task to track down and pay all the descendants </div>
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Isn’t it counter prodcutive to continue to make the dependant ?</div>
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Are they not better ways to help rather than punish Britain?</div>
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The Result</span></b><br />
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The Chairman invited the audience to vote by shouting Yay or Nay and the respective volumes would decide the winner. The debate prove too close to call on a volume only basis, it was impossible to decide so a division lobby was called. The result was 95 Nay verses 100 Yay - Jason & I lost ! </div>
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I believe we did have a gender win as the Yays certainly had an upper octave pitch and volume. However on reflection in a room of mostly white privileged young men I believe any Reparation argument would have been lost, might even go as far to say we had lost before we began. Nevertheless it was a great experience and many of those I spoke to afterwards enjoyed my input as I did their company as we argued into the night after the debate. #GreatExperience </div>
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Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-37448178543149703672018-03-18T02:50:00.000-07:002019-09-18T03:02:40.636-07:00Slavery Reparation Opportunity Discovered in the National Gallery<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMilEKe8YNG2FkRXdyKZB80FOUVA1uZWDUX1ICkNhfWa9i4qSYehDODnsiYBd2qFse-33G9CdRAb6cr0X3sInabzhcjkiiGjPr70V3vo6kdnimyJ0Jq933yfl34c3I1Hg6mGTy6VZREhU/s1600/judith.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="703" data-original-width="565" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMilEKe8YNG2FkRXdyKZB80FOUVA1uZWDUX1ICkNhfWa9i4qSYehDODnsiYBd2qFse-33G9CdRAb6cr0X3sInabzhcjkiiGjPr70V3vo6kdnimyJ0Jq933yfl34c3I1Hg6mGTy6VZREhU/s400/judith.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Johann Liss (c1622) <i>Judith in the Tent of Holofernes , </i>Oil on Canvas 128.5 x 99 cm</td></tr>
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While doing my research on the <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/johann-liss-judith-in-the-tent-of-holofernes">National Gallery's <i>Judith in the Tent of Holofernes</i></a>, in preparation for an Image of the Black in London Galleries <a href="https://imageoftheblackinlondongalleries.weebly.com/national-gallery.html">tour of the National Gallery</a>, I was intrigued to find there is not one but two black presence connections to this work.<br />
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The first and the most obvious black presence are the terrified, haunting eyes of its black maid staring at Judith, she holds the basket in which her mistress is placing the severed head of the eponymous general in the picture, Liss captures that look of horror in her eyes at the task in hand.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN7zyEQ28DXTRbpdIu8BbgQqYiPr_cMdosOFzoVQIvjC-x5pldQayacB1n3DJ_QIZJ7TjcbrFlnvSvVrIyX_n1anQKOFx7Tpuu4PZNsxQvKvTlxY-8aA8oKZV8qPjkU7Mk9Ik_iIE1PQI/s1600/eyes+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="529" data-original-width="701" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN7zyEQ28DXTRbpdIu8BbgQqYiPr_cMdosOFzoVQIvjC-x5pldQayacB1n3DJ_QIZJ7TjcbrFlnvSvVrIyX_n1anQKOFx7Tpuu4PZNsxQvKvTlxY-8aA8oKZV8qPjkU7Mk9Ik_iIE1PQI/s320/eyes+.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10.239999771118164px;">Johann Liss </span><i style="font-size: 10.239999771118164px;">Judith in the Tent of Holofernes </i><span style="font-size: 10.239999771118164px;">[Detail]</span></td></tr>
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The second presence is not so apparent.<br />
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The painting was a gift to the National Gallery by the royal vet<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Archibald_Watt_Dollar"> John Archibald Watt Dollar </a>in 1931. He was educated at <a href="http://www.dollaracademy.org.uk/">Dollar Academy</a> (they only have the name in common) Scotland's leading private school and <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/best-uk-schools-guide-scottish-independent-secondary-school-of-the-year-hgzl67wtx">The Times 2018 Scottish Independent Secondary School of the Year</a>. He went on to have an illustrious veterinary career. Amongst several prestigious positions he held was as President of the Royal College of Surgeons, from <a href="https://knowledge.rcvs.org.uk/heritage-and-history/highlights-of-the-collections/more-archive-discoveries/john-archibald-watt-dollars-portrait/%20portrait">his portrait</a> he looks every inch a distinguished Edwardian gentlemen. It is his school - Dollar Academy - which provides the second black presence.<br />
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Dollar Academy was founded in 1818 by a gift from John MacNabb (1732 - 1802) who is described on <a href="http://www.dollaracademy.org.uk/about-dollar/our-history"> the school's website </a>as being a '<i>trader.</i>...<i>[b]orn to a poor family, [who] went to sea as a young boy and eventually made his fortune as a ship owner. In his will he specified that the interest on half his estate (some £60 000 -worth several millions today) was to provide "a Charity or School for the parish of Dollar and shire of Clackmannan wheir [sic] I was born".' </i>While T<a href="http://www.scottish-places.info/people/famousfirst251.html">he Gazetteer for Scotland describes Mc Nabb</a> as a <i>'[s]hip-owner and philanthropist.'</i> What both sites fail to mention is MacNabb's connections with slavery - the source of his benefaction. This omission is rectified by his entry on <a href="http://www.flagupscotjam.uk/connection/">FlagsUpScotJam's website </a> which says :<i> [MacNabb] is known to have sent out 4 ships called Friendship, Maria, Pitt and Struggler which acquired a total of 348 slaves </i>[1]<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSggev05bjCnBmp7Kisuhcah79zt4VgM_CesGQf6w6lwtJU5Xq_znRICeG2ytAoWSSJlwlr28r9oXTmdpE2Is2lbh3apE1Q2F_bASiQLhPKJpmiHQlgFNkt5L6b2q06LZ62WDcLQinzHY/s1600/dollar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="490" data-original-width="900" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSggev05bjCnBmp7Kisuhcah79zt4VgM_CesGQf6w6lwtJU5Xq_znRICeG2ytAoWSSJlwlr28r9oXTmdpE2Is2lbh3apE1Q2F_bASiQLhPKJpmiHQlgFNkt5L6b2q06LZ62WDcLQinzHY/s400/dollar.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dollar Academy</td></tr>
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Details of the trips made by the MacNabb's slave ships are to be found - <a href="http://www.slavevoyages.org/voyages/eal3GL5V">here</a> - <i>The Slave Ship Voyages Database</i> and, he is also mentioned in <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146634586">University College London's Slavery Compensation Database</a> so, the sources of MacNabb's wealth are well known and documented.<br />
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The Academy's prospectus talks about the ship in its logo as<i> 'a symbol of the journey that many thousands have embarked upon'</i>. It goes on to say '<i>Dollar sees as immensely precious the cargo of lives that it has borne over the years, and has helped to launch into the world of adulthood and its demands</i>.'[2]<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1G1zYFsKxwkpQZYxNDxCHdS7LbTat9pOlT12Avwul67M6TzKRdub3kN8f-bgmeUq7_tyVGEVenfvcxwVMtEO-K-6rMktQRhbgYVBtgv9HHYqzh-k0btBog8E8VIlsQUX5-BxEEdJWwHc/s1600/dollar+logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1281" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1G1zYFsKxwkpQZYxNDxCHdS7LbTat9pOlT12Avwul67M6TzKRdub3kN8f-bgmeUq7_tyVGEVenfvcxwVMtEO-K-6rMktQRhbgYVBtgv9HHYqzh-k0btBog8E8VIlsQUX5-BxEEdJWwHc/s200/dollar+logo.jpg" width="186" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dollar Academy Logo</td></tr>
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The metaphor of MacNabb's Dollar Academy as a ship with its '<i>precious…cargo of lives</i>' is deeply ironical when its founder made his fortune transporting enslaved Africans by sea as part of the heinous triangular trade in which the cargo of enslaved where packed as shown in the infamous <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brookes_(ship)">plan of the <i>Brookes</i>, slave ship </a>showing how 454 enslaved Africans were accommodated on board one slave ship.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1nrm9S5uSPydOcw2CFCwJ2WoUklriDXQS_97yPMplO4Skjsl0VyXaNy0dh6r9K1Xxphfl1ZJ6OyBbU96Dh8cXJhF8OomU13smTsFNtgXdPGkRK8U7WRlnoK8W-OfmhV0lZks-fc5rXxw/s1600/brookes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="909" data-original-width="1600" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1nrm9S5uSPydOcw2CFCwJ2WoUklriDXQS_97yPMplO4Skjsl0VyXaNy0dh6r9K1Xxphfl1ZJ6OyBbU96Dh8cXJhF8OomU13smTsFNtgXdPGkRK8U7WRlnoK8W-OfmhV0lZks-fc5rXxw/s320/brookes.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detail from the <i>Brookes </i>Slave Ship Plan</td></tr>
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<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kenneth_Lu_-_Slave_ship_model_(_(4811223749).jpg">Kenneth Lu's model</a>, model, now in National Museum of American History (Smithsonian Institution) shows a typical slave ship in the early 1700s on the Middle Passage from Africa to America. To preserve their profits, captains and sailors tried to limit the deaths of the enslaved Africans from disease, suicide, and revolts. In the grisly arithmetic of the transatlantic slave trade, captains usually chose between two options: pack in as many people as possible and hope that most survive, or put fewer aboard, improve the conditions between decks, and hope to lose fewer to disease.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgygAg6DuJh0t6yd9kmtzYYFe0wszcuGYfqOSlP1cw2GKSoFWqdApmfauH5oJbCf35T_gjwbCgAZvW4Z_aPi58NnXcirHj5xnUoKkkVCFuF93c_NQicoZtIIqyAzDIPIdHabRSVjm060-g/s1600/Kenneth_Lu_-_Slave_ship_model_%2528_%25284811223749%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgygAg6DuJh0t6yd9kmtzYYFe0wszcuGYfqOSlP1cw2GKSoFWqdApmfauH5oJbCf35T_gjwbCgAZvW4Z_aPi58NnXcirHj5xnUoKkkVCFuF93c_NQicoZtIIqyAzDIPIdHabRSVjm060-g/s320/Kenneth_Lu_-_Slave_ship_model_%2528_%25284811223749%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kenneth Lu's Model of Slave Ship</td></tr>
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I ask my tour groups (I've now done the tour a number of times) should Dollar Academy update its web site, the consensus response is yes, the source of MacNabb's funds should be noted. Most want action not words, maybe a scholarship aimed at BAME pupils. There are <a href="http://www.dollaracademy.org.uk/admissions/fees-and-funding/academic-and-travel-scholarships">travel scholarships for Dollar Academy pupils</a> there appears to be no scholarships for entrants from outside for example Eton's<a href="https://www.etoncollege.com/KingsScholars.aspx"> Kings scholarship</a>. Also perhaps <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/georgetown-university-offer-admissions-advantage-slave-descendants-n641176">Georgetown University in USA presents a model</a>, the institution was saved through the sale of 272 slave in 1832, today the University offers an admissions edge to descendants of slaves as part of a comprehensive atonement for the University's historical ties to slavery. Maybe Dollar Academy could do similar for pupils of Afro-Caribbean descent?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj64IPjlBAOzaA876Lt2wst6cRLvTad5sjO7V-sCy2_W6uEOiEnPqAlnihAgcXr05PQ75QQ0NOvckikVnd7BRP6bJNaERC2Ff955OxuqSDvdVqv5XdqX8ulkbeolZRVxi7X9ELfFPfiJWI/s1600/Dollar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="966" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj64IPjlBAOzaA876Lt2wst6cRLvTad5sjO7V-sCy2_W6uEOiEnPqAlnihAgcXr05PQ75QQ0NOvckikVnd7BRP6bJNaERC2Ff955OxuqSDvdVqv5XdqX8ulkbeolZRVxi7X9ELfFPfiJWI/s400/Dollar.jpg" width="241" /></a></div>
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This of course, is part of a much bigger wider, bigger debate on slavery reparation. The slave owners received compensation for the loss of property when slavery was abolished by Britain in 1833,<a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/"> the Slavery Compensation Database</a> shows how that compensation was distributed amongst the owners of enslaved Africans and how that wealth is manifest to this day. The enslaved received nothing. That is why some form of reparation is only just and fair.<br />
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The challenges of reparation are evident from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/30/jamaica-should-move-on-from-painful-legacy-of-slavery-says-cameron">David Cameron's comment </a> that Jamaica<i> 'should move on from painful legacy of slavery</i>' in doing so ignoring calls for reparation. While <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/28/slavery-reparations-west-wealth-equality-world-race">Kehinde Andrew </a>describes reparations challenges quoting <a href="https://youtu.be/XiSiHRNQlQo">Malcolm X</a><i> 'if you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, that’s not progress. If you pull it all the way out, that’s not progress. The progress comes from healing the wound that the blow made'</i>. Kehinde argues Britain '<i>won’t even admit the knife is there' </i><br />
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To conclude, acts like Georgetown University's are a step on the way to healing the knife wound of slavery, I would argue Dollar Academy can play its part in the healing process by recognition of the origins of its benefaction and offering places to those children of African descent with the intellectual capacity but not the economic resources, in order that the Academy's <i>'precious…cargo of lives'</i> actually reflects Dollar's origins and confronts the sobering irony found in its prospectus.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0CCx3XTzDESSbjb54d2GTDcAat35kSKEsKLCTu4Ee0gWJLyWsuUYAmckOvUUFBTNLwg0ou_hJrK_9sqDl0vuW2aEDyeX6Gv83BYAKPPY2a4oE4OX_Kxn_Sk5otx9Cd4gC0by0McLpWh8/s1600/Slaveshipposter+Dollar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1354" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0CCx3XTzDESSbjb54d2GTDcAat35kSKEsKLCTu4Ee0gWJLyWsuUYAmckOvUUFBTNLwg0ou_hJrK_9sqDl0vuW2aEDyeX6Gv83BYAKPPY2a4oE4OX_Kxn_Sk5otx9Cd4gC0by0McLpWh8/s400/Slaveshipposter+Dollar.jpg" width="337" /></a></div>
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<b>UPDATE 18th Sept 2019</b><br />
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In preparation for my talk at<a href="http://bit.ly/IBLG_NG1"> the National Gallery on 16th Oct</a> on this work I note that the Dollar Academy website has been updated <a href="https://www.dollaracademy.org.uk/about/history">its History page opening paragraph</a> begins:<br />
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<i>The school’s founder was Captain John McNabb, a local boy who was born in 1732 to a poor family, but who made his fortune at sea. He captained, owned and leased out many ships over the decades and it is known that four voyages transported slaves to the West Indies in 1789-91, forty years before the Abolition Act of 1833.</i></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[1] <a href="http://www.flagupscotjam.uk/connection/">FlagsUpScotJam </a> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>John McNabb was originally a poor boy from the parish of Dollar. He made his fortune at sea and became a rich London merchant. He is known to have sent out 4 ships called Friendship, Maria, Pitt and Struggler which acquired a total of 348 slaves in Senegambia and the Gold Coast and three of these ships went to Jamaica. Dollar Academy was founded through a bequest from his Will. The interests on his legacy, of some £40,000 on his death in 1802, was to be used for the provision of "a charity or school for the poor of the parish of Dollar wheir [sic] I was born".</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[2] <a href="http://www.em-online.com/download/Prospectus.pdf">Dollar Academy Prospectus</a> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The ship is our school logo - a reminder of Captain John McNabb's own vessels that enabled him, at the end of the eighteenth century, to build up a fortune with which to found the school, which welcomed its first pupils in 1818. It is also a symbol of the journey that many thousands have embarked upon in the years that Dollar has been welcoming young people through its Bronze doors</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The Latin motto says of the school: Juventutis veho fortunas - "I bear the fortunes of youth". Dollar sees as immensely precious the cargo of lives that it has borne over the years, and has helped to launch into the world of adulthood and its demands. That it has been instrumental in forming character and in developing talent is attested to by generations of former pupils, who not only return on a regular basis themselves, but send their children to be educated, and their children's children. Thus, links of deep affection are created, and maintained by the strong network of Former Pupils across not only the UK but the world itself.</span></i><br />
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<br />Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-11202962479681531312017-12-21T03:23:00.000-08:002017-12-22T04:23:44.778-08:00Dali's Three Kings<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_9ipwpZxb_ogKilgfm48nfvgphzyghqteEOhff9nES-PbJR7GI3X_E_-OAyrtNyLPdmWkt7LwzaI1b7LPsiOUu8RPNYnmTkgzDvGN-IXziUwzreCDU5kX6FOwL7wkVebU_4pcqG2Qi0w/s1600/Dali+Magus_edited-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1261" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_9ipwpZxb_ogKilgfm48nfvgphzyghqteEOhff9nES-PbJR7GI3X_E_-OAyrtNyLPdmWkt7LwzaI1b7LPsiOUu8RPNYnmTkgzDvGN-IXziUwzreCDU5kX6FOwL7wkVebU_4pcqG2Qi0w/s400/Dali+Magus_edited-1.jpg" width="315" /></a></div>
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I was surprised to discover a version of <i>The Three Kings</i> by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Dal%C3%AD">Salvador Dali</a> - the Spanish Catalan painter best known for his surrealistic work, with its <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/T/T02/T02343_10.jpg">fantastic imagery</a> and his <a href="http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/files/2017/02/t0201caruncho-salvador-dali_feat1_1.jpg">flamboyant personality</a> together making him one of the best known artists of the period - the reason Hallmark cards commissioned him in 1959 to do a series of water colour Christmas card designs, one of which was <i>The Three Kings.</i><br />
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Of the ten designs Dali submitted to Hallmark just two were actually produced as cards <a href="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2014/12/TheNativity.jpg&w=1484"><i>The Nativity</i></a> and <a href="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2014/12/MadonnaandChild.jpg&w=1484"><i>Madonna and Child</i></a>, the remaining eight including <i>The Three Kings</i> are languishing in <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/video/inside-archives-hallmarks-greeting-card-history-44334041">the Hallmark Archives</a>.<br />
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Dali's three exotically dressed kings form an odd, disjointed composition as they follow a Platonic solid star in a barren rocky landscape, with the leading King's camel looking fearsomely aggressive while the Black King's camel holds its head high - aloof - indifferent to all around, while the remaining king's camel seems more horse than camel, the net effect is oddly disturbing!<br />
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The reasons not all Dali's designed became Hallmark Christmas cards was that they too, were equally troubling or odd mostly both! One image - <a href="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2014/12/HDC.64030PA.jpg&w=1484">Headless Angel Playing a Lute</a> - was particularly disturbing but it clearly shows Dali's Renaissance influences as its source is Piero della Francesca work.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgegsZXWaywlmahPLjyTcWTnGehsp2pJUZauDJDFnZ86BosZ37-mjXksmeZppUTu3Ued5jHKBkOQQVAjlMg7w7lAjv9VGwx9bPMNTYXxo6v_U45qON_eeJqhMP52-dX93Lbio8psXuPIyg/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-12-21+at+10.46.35.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="976" data-original-width="1554" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgegsZXWaywlmahPLjyTcWTnGehsp2pJUZauDJDFnZ86BosZ37-mjXksmeZppUTu3Ued5jHKBkOQQVAjlMg7w7lAjv9VGwx9bPMNTYXxo6v_U45qON_eeJqhMP52-dX93Lbio8psXuPIyg/s400/Screen+Shot+2017-12-21+at+10.46.35.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<b>Left </b> Piero della Francesca (1470-5) <i>The Nativity</i></div>
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<b>Right</b> Salvador Dali, Hallmark (1959 ) <i>Christmas Card Design</i></div>
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Hallmark commissioned other noted artists to do Christmas card designs including Pablo Picasso, Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh and Georgia O’Keeffe so maybe there are other Three Kings to be found in their archives, meanwhile we can enjoy the Dali's oddly disturbing <i>Three Kings</i>.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">References</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Washington Post. 2014. Salvador Dali Christmas cards. [ONLINE] Available at: <i><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/12/23/these-salvador-dali-christmas-cards-outraged-hallmark-shoppers-in-1960/?utm_term=.44a0ddc26eae.">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/12/23/these-salvador-dali-christmas-cards-outraged-hallmark-shoppers-in-1960/?utm_term=.44a0ddc26eae.</a></i> [Accessed 21 December 2017].</span><br />
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Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601326233398870825.post-13427786823770999742017-09-27T00:47:00.000-07:002017-09-27T00:47:00.510-07:00Runnymede 'Our Migration Story' Wins Award<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Delighted to read that <a href="http://www.ourmigrationstory.org.uk/">Runnymede 'Our Migration Story' web site</a> is joint winner of the the Research Champion category in the <a href="http://www.integrationawards.uk/">Community Integration Awards 2017</a>. My contribution was <a href="http://www.ourmigrationstory.org.uk/oms/an-african-presence-in-the-thirteenth-century">an African presence in thirteenth-century Britain</a>. It was a real pleasure to be part of the project which included so many great historians. The judges had the following to say about the site: <br /><br /><div>
<i>'This project makes an important intervention in the much-needed conversation on migration, British colonial past and the legacy of the Empire. It challenges the history curricula and invites us to consider how the history of Britain is intermingled with the history of migration. This disrupts and unsettles the unhelpful, binary narratives around ‘Them and Us’, especially in the times of revival of nationalist sentiments in Britain.<br /></i></div>
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<i>It is a fantastic project, clearly with a massive involvement of historians, schools, and researchers, as well as with an excellent strategy of dissemination. It enriches the curriculum, makes research relevant and focuses on influencing future generations'. </i></div>
Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07846297315621923248noreply@blogger.com0