Is there Racism in Art?
The short answer is yes. For my assignment, I am looking to use art as a tool to communicate the viewpoint of racism and how to spread awareness. However, art is not always innocent and my aim here is to briefly discuss the roots of Racism found in art.
Whitewashing.For more thorough research into the historical side of art on my subject matter, I am going to look into how art has portrayed Racism. For example, looking into early forms of art from the Renaissance period, there was plenty of mis-representation for non-European people; paintings depicting POC in non accurate and culturally inappropriate. A major recurring subject is the portrayal of Jesus in many of these paintings that still strongly occurs today. Although he should be accurately depicted as a dark skinned man from Palestine/Israel he was always painted as a Caucasian man; the infamous mural 'The Last Supper' by Leonardo da Vinci a prime example. This is a result of the artists' referencing Jesus in their image so that it was easier to digest. In this time period, there were mass colonisations in Europe that took the image of a Caucasian Jesus and spread across many continents, resulting in these images being far superior to any other representations out there.
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Portrayal of BIPOC in
During the majority of the late 15th Century, both ignorance and curiosity were few and far between. Through Christian dualism, being black came with labels such as ugliness, evil and seen as the opposite of those that are light which was looked upon as a negative. There are some pieces of art that portray a fascination with African beauty, carrying a sensitivity to their features and skin tone. However, the intention behind these pieces could stem from when black slavery occurred exploiting sexuality towards especially the women that may have been domestic slaves. An example of perhaps an objective piece of work by Albrecht Durer from 1521, captures a drawing of a black women, looking solemn and features seemingly natural and not derogatory like other 'representations'.
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The Opium Wars.As I am leaning more towards the coverage of Asian stemmed Racism, I'd like to take a look into some of the art/history of the British against the Chinese Qing Dynasty. The first war was triggered by the trade of Opium from British merchants to Chinese merchants, causing mass substance abuse which the Chinese government then campaigned to ban trade against the British merchants. In the end, the European forces overpowered Qing forces with the advantage of more modern military technology resulting in the Chinese government handing over territory, tariffs and trade concessions for Europeans. This considerably weakened the Dynasty and Chinese government and the Hong Kong jurisdiction was handed over as a British Colony.
Through the art illustrating these events a notable reoccurring element is how the Chinese soldiers are drawn, in comparison to the British soldiers. Each British soldier is given a different face; fully recognised as people, whereas, the Chinese soldiers all share the one face, all looking identical to each other. I think this shows that the representation is inaccurate and the artist did not care to take time in understanding the appearance of another race even when capturing historical events. |
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Yellow Peril.A major racist representation towards East Asian people was 'Yellow Peril' (AKA 'Yellow Fear/Yellow Terror/Yellow Spectre'), which was created by Westerners out of fear that easterners would evidentially enslave the West and that they were a racial existential threat. This fear is also not a national one but one that derives for the ideology that East Asian people were solely: faceless, nameless masses of 'Yellow People'; this concept is a prime example of Xenophobia. Yellow Peril was presented by imagery of derogatory themes such as 'apes', 'madmen', 'lesser men', 'occult' and 'beings with possession of unorthodox abilities' during the 19th Century. Westerners used this racist ideology the ridicule East Asian people as Yellow Peril as a form of imperialism.
Yellow Peril came into action when Chinese workers began to illegally immigrate into countries such as Australia, Canada, the US and New Zealand, where they showed strong work ethic, triggering the Western people to create Yellow Peril as they felt that these workers were a threat to their livelihood. Although this originated from western countries, the time periods and combination of the two (Yellow Peril & The Opium Wars), ostracized Eastern Asian people from the rest of the world and the lasting effects I think can be still seen today as there is still that stigma that people hold on to and against East Asians. As for the art portraying Yellow Peril, the imagery is very barbaric. In the pictures to the left, it shows how Chinese are seen by the western world; a mockery of their appearance and culture, meant to frighten the western world into think all Eastern Asian people are too be feared. |