Whitewashing in art encompasses various facets, reflecting both historical biases and artistic techniques. This practice of altering the racial identity of historical and mythological figures in art is part of a larger pattern of erasing and distorting the histories and contributions of non-whites. It mirrors the racial biases and prejudices of those times, which continue to impact society today. [1]
In Western art, the omission of black-skinned figures from mythology and history has been a subject of debate, exemplified by the portrayal of Andromeda as white in Clash of the Titans films, despite her original depiction as a black princess from Ethiopia. [1] This phenomenon extends beyond art, where the term "whitewashing" refers to the masking or downplaying of diverse realities, often leading to a predominant white perspective. It can distort representation, potentially overlooking contributions from people of colour and promoting a more monochromatic narrative. [2]
Despite the significant presence of Black people in Europe dating back to at least the 16th century, their representation in art history is often skewed or absent. When present, Black bodies are usually portrayed in subservient roles, with their humanity and individuality often entirely denied. [3]
For example, the Royal Albert Memorial Museum's (RAMM) portrait of an African was incorrectly attributed to Ignatius Sancho. This is dubbed snow-blindness and it is common practice when naming European subjects in portraits from the 17th century onwards, as while the African figures depicted alongside them are often referred to as "A Negro' or 'and Servant". [4] Also, in most historical European paintings, a Black figure is used as a prop or an object, existing solely to frame and reflect the white presence. Even when Black figures are depicted in fine clothing, it's often a deceptive representation, with the fancy silks and lace merely serving as decoration that masks the brutal reality of an enslaved life. [3]
British actor and author Paterson Joseph calls this practice racist and dehumanising, and urged the international art community to make efforts to identify and name these figures. [4]
Many institutions are now addressing this issue by re-evaluating how they acquire, curate, and display works. The history of Black people in Europe is often viewed through the lens of slavery and colonialism. [3]
In 2017, the "The Black Figure in the European Imaginary" exhibition that took place at the Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. This exhibition brought together 31 artworks from the 18th and 19th centuries, all created by European artists but sourced from American collections. The article emphasizes that the understanding of Black individuals during this period was often influenced by their roles as slaves, servants, or exotic foreigners, and was shaped by preconceived notions. These perceptions were largely influenced by colonialism, imperialism, slavery, abolition, and racism. The exhibition categorized the artworks into four groups: slaves and servants, artists' models, historical and literary figures, and exotic themes. The article highlights a painting titled "Portrait of a Youth in an Embroidered Vest" by French painter Marie-Victoire Lemoine as an example of how Black servants were often depicted as luxury accessories for the elite. [5]
According to art historian and curator Adrienne L. Childs, [6] interestingly, the exhibition indicates that European artists were more likely to depict Black figures with individuality and dignity, a contrast to the racist exaggerations prevalent in America during the same period. However, these depictions were also complex and nuanced due to underlying themes of objectification, servitude, and hierarchical attitudes about race. [5]
"Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe" exhibition at the Princeton University Art Museum discusses an exhibition that highlighted the African presence in European art during the Renaissance. The exhibition, which was the first of its kind, showcased over sixty European artworks from around 1480 to 1605, including both known and anonymous African figures. The artworks were divided into two parts: the European context and the individuals themselves. The European context section explored the perceptions and assumptions about Africa held by Europeans of the time. The individuals section featured portraits of Africans, some of whom were likely real people painted from life. [7] [8] [9]
According to the Curator of Renaissance and Baroque Art at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore Joaneath Spicer, [10] often a dark antipode to white and lightness, black carried a negative stigma, though black skin was attributed to burning from sun exposure in the torrid zone1. But later associations with the sin of Ham, son of Noah, led to the ideology of skin pigment as a cursed marker of moral inferiority that so frequently recurred in later racialist theory. [8]
The portrayal of Jesus Christ as a white man with European features is a common occurrence in art history, despite the fact that he was a Hebrew man from the Middle East. This trend became particularly noticeable during the Renaissance, with famous artworks like Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" and Michelangelo's "Last Judgment" in the Sistine Chapel depicting him as white. The most widely reproduced image of Jesus is Warner Sallman's "Head of Christ" from 1940, which presents him with light eyes and hair. [11]
Queen of Sheba, a significant character in biblical and Quranic stories, has often been depicted as a white woman in art, especially during the Renaissance. This is a departure from her historical portrayal as a woman of colour. This change became prominent in the Renaissance, with her image being not only whitewashed but also sexualised. This can be seen in artworks like Edward Poynter's 1890 painting, "The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon". [1]
Andromeda, a princess from Ethiopia in Greek mythology, has been subjected to whitewashing in art, particularly during the Renaissance period. [1] [12] Historically, Andromeda was depicted as a black princess. However, in many Renaissance artworks, she is portrayed as white. For instance, in Piero di Cosimo's painting "Perseus Freeing Andromeda" from the 1510s, Andromeda is depicted as whiter than all the figures around her, including a black musician and her parents, who are considerably darker. [1]
Contrary to popular belief, ancient sculptures were not bare marble but were painted in bright shades of blue, red, yellow, brown, and other hues. Romans made copies of Greek bronze originals in different coloured marbles to add skin tone. However, this fact has been overlooked, and the narrative of white marble as the epitome of beauty continues to be told. [13] [14]
Over the past few decades, scientists have been studying the traces of paint, inlay, and gold leaf used on these statues and using digital technologies to restore them to their original polychrome. Despite these findings, the popular imagination still perceives these statues as lily white. This perception is largely due to cultural values and the influence of art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann, who propagated the idea of a "pure, marble-white Antiquity" and saw white marble classical sculpture as the embodiment of ideal beauty. [13] [14]
In October 2023, the Musée Grévin in Paris draw criticism, and was accused of whitewashing, for it portrayal of the skin tone of Dwayne Johnson on its waxwork. [15]
Within artistic materials and techniques, "whitewash" pertains to a matte white paint used by artists, commonly in the form of mineral pigments like zinc white and titanium white. These paints possess distinct properties and are employed for various artistic purposes. Zinc white, for instance, carries a cool blue tint, while titanium white leans toward a yellowish hue. The historical evolution of white paints, such as the traditional use of lead white, illustrates the complexities of achieving desired pigmentation while acknowledging potential material toxicity. [16] This artistic perspective on whitewashing diverges from broader societal and racial discussions.
In Greek mythology, Andromeda is the daughter of Cepheus, the king of Aethiopia, and his wife, Cassiopeia. When Cassiopeia boasts that she is more beautiful than the Nereids, Poseidon sends the sea monster Cetus to ravage the coast of Aethiopia as divine punishment. Queen Cassiopeia understands that chaining Andromeda to a rock as a human sacrifice is what will appease Poseidon. Perseus finds her as he is coming back from his quest to decapitate Medusa, and brings her back to Greece to marry her and let her reign as his queen. With the head of Medusa, Perseus petrifies Cetus to stop it from terrorizing the coast any longer.
Umber is a natural earth pigment consisting of iron oxide and manganese oxide; it has a brownish color that can vary among shades of yellow, red, and green. Umber is considered one of the oldest pigments known to humans, first seen in Ajanta Caves in 200 BC – 600 AD. Umber's advantages are its highly versatile color, warm tone, and quick drying abilities. While some sources indicate that umber's name comes from its geographic origin in Umbria, other scholars suggest that it derives from the Latin word umbra, which means "shadow". The belief that its name derives from the word for shadow is fitting, as the color helps create shadows. The color is primarily produced in Cyprus. Umber is typically mined from open pits or underground mines and ground into a fine powder that is washed to remove impurities. In the 20th century, the rise of synthetic dyes decreased the demand for natural pigments such as umber.
Aaron Douglas was an American painter, illustrator, and visual arts educator. He was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance. He developed his art career painting murals and creating illustrations that addressed social issues around race and segregation in the United States by utilizing African-centric imagery. Douglas set the stage for young, African-American artists to enter the public-arts realm through his involvement with the Harlem Artists Guild. In 1944, he concluded his art career by founding the Art Department at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. He taught visual art classes at Fisk University until his retirement in 1966. Douglas is known as a prominent leader in modern African-American art whose work influenced artists for years to come.
A mammy is a U.S. historical stereotype depicting black women, usually enslaved, who did domestic work, including nursing children. The fictionalized mammy character is often visualized as a dark-skinned woman with a motherly personality. The origin of the mammy figure stereotype is rooted in the history of slavery in the United States, as slave women were often tasked with domestic and childcare work in American slave-holding households. The mammy caricature was used to create a narrative of black women being happy within slavery or within a role of servitude. The mammy stereotype associates black women with domestic roles and it has been argued that it, combined with segregation and discrimination, limited job opportunities for black women during the Jim Crow era, approximately 1877 to 1966.
Kara Elizabeth Walker is an American contemporary painter, silhouettist, print-maker, installation artist, filmmaker, and professor who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence, and identity in her work. She is best known for her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes. Walker was awarded a MacArthur fellowship in 1997, at the age of 28, becoming one of the youngest ever recipients of the award. She has been the Tepper Chair in Visual Arts at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University since 2015.
Kehinde Wiley is an American portrait painter based in New York City. He is known for his naturalistic paintings of Black people that reference the work of Old Master paintings. In 2017, Wiley was commissioned to paint former President Barack Obama's portrait for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. The Columbus Museum of Art hosted an exhibition of his work in 2007 and describes his paintings as "heroic portraits which address the image and status of young African-American men in contemporary culture."
Elizabeth Catlett, born as Alice Elizabeth Catlett, also known as Elizabeth Catlett Mora was an American and Mexican sculptor and graphic artist best known for her depictions of the Black-American experience in the 20th century, which often focused on the female experience. She was born and raised in Washington, D.C., to parents working in education, and was the grandchild of formerly enslaved people. It was difficult for a black woman at this time to pursue a career as a working artist. Catlett devoted much of her career to teaching. However, a fellowship awarded to her in 1946 allowed her to travel to Mexico City, where she settled and worked with the Taller de Gráfica Popular for twenty years and became head of the sculpture department for the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas. In the 1950s, her main means of artistic expression shifted from print to sculpture, though she never gave up the former.
Blackamoor is a type of figure/visual trope in European decorative art, typically found in works from the Early Modern period, depicting a man of sub-Saharan African descent, usually in clothing that suggests high status. Common examples of items and objects decorated in the blackamoor style include sculpture, jewellery, and furniture. Typically the sculpted figures carried something, such as candles or a tray. They were thus an exotic and lightweight variant for the "atlas" in architecture and decorative arts, especially popular in the Rococo period.
The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African-American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after The New Negro, a 1925 anthology edited by Alain Locke. The movement also included the new African-American cultural expressions across the urban areas in the Northeast and Midwest United States affected by a renewed militancy in the general struggle for civil rights, combined with the Great Migration of African-American workers fleeing the racist conditions of the Jim Crow Deep South, as Harlem was the final destination of the largest number of those who migrated north.
Eldzier Cortor was an African-American artist and printmaker. His work typically features elongated nude figures in intimate settings, influenced by both traditional African art and European surrealism. Cortor is known for his style of realism that makes accurate depictions of poor, Black living conditions look fantastic as he distorts perspective.
Archibald John Motley, Jr., was an American visual artist. Motley is most famous for his colorful chronicling of the African-American experience in Chicago during the 1920s and 1930s, and is considered one of the major contributors to the Harlem Renaissance, or the New Negro Movement, a time in which African-American art reached new heights not just in New York but across America—its local expression is referred to as the Chicago Black Renaissance. He studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago during the 1910s, graduating in 1918.
Kerry James Marshall is an American artist and professor, known for his paintings of Black figures. He previously taught painting at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2017, Marshall was included on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. He was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, and moved in childhood to South Central Los Angeles. He has spent much of his career in Chicago, Illinois.
William Edouard Scott was an African-American artist. Before Alain Locke asked African Americans to create and portray the New Negro that would thrust them into the future, artists like William Edouard Scott were depicting blacks in new ways to break away from the subjugating images of the past. Scott, well known for his portraits, Haitian scenes, and murals, challenged the standard depiction of blacks in art in the first half of the 20th century by utilizing black subject matter in an uplifting way. However, just as his style remained traditional as opposed to abstract, he was relatively conservative in his portrayals of blackness.
John Blanke was a musician of African descent in London from the early Tudor period, who probably came to England as one of the African attendants of Catherine of Aragon in 1501. He is one of the earliest recorded black people in what is now the United Kingdom after the Roman period. His name may refer to his skin colour, derived either from the word "black" or possibly from the French word "blanc", meaning white.
Representations of slavery in European art date back to ancient times. They show slaves of varied ethnicity, white as well as black.
Whitewashing in beauty is a phenomenon in the intersection of the fashion industry, digital photography, mass media, marketing and advertising. It describes a situation in which the skin tone of non-white people – when depicted in magazine covers, advertisements, commercials, music videos, etc. – is digitally retouched or physically modified to appear whiter. Whitewashing can also present itself in the alteration of hair texture to resemble Eurocentric beauty ideals of straight hairPassage(s) to be sourced. Whitewashing can be seen in the form of skin whitening, either digitally or with harmful skin bleaching products, or by chemically relaxing textured hair to make it conform to Eurocentric beauty standardsPassage(s) to be sourced. Additionally, plastic surgery can be used to alter features to make them appear more European, such as double eyelid surgery.
Cymon and Iphigenia is an oil on canvas painting by Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton. The painting does not bear a date but was first exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 1884. The Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, purchased it at a Christie's auction in London in 1976.
Claudette Elaine Johnson is a British visual artist. She is known for her large-scale drawings of Black women and her involvement with the BLK Art Group, of which she was a founder member. She was described by Modern Art Oxford as "one of the most accomplished figurative artists working in Britain today". She is a finalist for the Turner Prize 2024.
Balthazar, also called Balthasar, Balthassar, and Bithisarea, was according to Western Christian tradition one of the three biblical Magi along with Caspar and Melchior who visited the infant Jesus after he was born. Balthazar is traditionally referred to as the King of Arabia and gave the gift of myrrh to Jesus. In the Catholic Church, he is regarded as a saint.
Alchitrof is the name of a 1568 painting by Cristofano dell'Altissimo that depicts an Aethiopian king.
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