Individualism Becomes Freedom
In visual art, Black women are historically seen only as sexual objects or as accessories to accentuate white femininity. Paintings, as a central visual medium, have a history of only depicting Black women in these ways. Positioned either as a prop or symbol of hypersexuality, Black women become defined by the way they are viewed from a eurocentric perspective. This paper explores how, beginning in the nineteenth century, art was able to begin and separate the narrative of Black women from white male subjectivity. During this period, we begin to see a pattern of lone Black female figures in portraiture. The drastic shift in visual representation symbolizes women, specifically Black women, separating themselves from damaging male-centric ideologies. It also posed several questions. What is the importance of Black women alone in portraiture? How does a female artist, like Marie-Guilhelmine Benoist, begin to change the narrative perspective of women in art? What fundamental differences in mentality contextualize Benoist’s perspective as the artist as opposed to the figure she depicted, a formerly enslaved Caribbean woman displaced in Europe.
The Enlightenment period that preceded and bled into the nineteenth century directly impacted all aspects of popular culture around the world. Reinvention and reordering were popular ideals of the 1800s as various populations grappled with their reality of choice. The central conflict for many was equality. An idea that clashed harshly with the nationalist ideology that was pushed by the ruling class, and strongly reflected in art.11 Up until this point in visual culture, Black women are only seen in artwork as submissive figures. As tertiary points used to further a narrative of white women’s inherent delicacy. Artists used Black women’s darker skin tones to both literally and figuratively contrast the lightness of white women. An example of subjectivity itself, which depends on a drastic contrast to the Black female form. Through this dominating perspective, visual manifestations of Black women’s existence are only seen through the gaze of the moderate white male and against white women.
When you separate Black women from a white narrative, are they able to exist apart from their predetermined role? What we begin to see is that individualism highlights Black female existence in the visual medium where they were before limited. It is not so simple as to erase a history of oppressed existence, but instead an acknowledgment of that experience. The 1800 portrait by Marie-Guilhelmine Benoist, Portrait of Madeleine (formerly Portrait d’une Négresse) (Fig. 1), is the first in a series of nineteenth-century portraiture which depicts women of the African diaspora alone and apart from their circumstances.
In the era’s indicative of nineteenth-century portraiture, it was commonplace that ‘prop’ was the role of Black women. One such work is Mademoiselle de Clermont at Her Bath Attended by Slaves (Fig. 2), a 1733 oil on canvas painting by Jean-Marc Nattier. The painting is a primary example of the expected and stereotypical role of Black women in visual culture. Here, the focal figure is Mistress Clermont. She is draped elegantly over a small couch while directing her gaze outwards to the audience. At the same time, she is being attended to by seven Black female slaves. In the process of dressing the mistress, the enslaved women sit around her and at her feet with various pieces of finery. Apart from the warm tones that dominate the rest of the painting, Mistress Clermont’s pale skin and white underclothes almost glow. Scantily clad (but not nude), depicted in the foreground of the image, the mistress plays the role of seductress. Mistress Clermont is even posed with her gaze looking directly out to the audience, which is a key element often found in Venus style portraiture. 22To contrast this, the enslaved women almost blend into the background of the painting. From a distance it is even somewhat difficult to spot all seven women as their tones, skin, and clothes, so closely resemble the walls and rugs. All of the elements in the painting, not including Mistress Clermont herself, are bathed in warm tones to further accentuate her ethereal beauty. The Black women in Nattier’s work are no different from any of the finery that also fills up the canvas, they are all props. This style of depiction was the common interpretation of Black women, in their expected role of servitude. As exoticized complementary objects to white figures.33 Their submissive ‘nature’ serves only to further emphasize the allure of the mistress.
As victims of white male subjectivity themselves, white women are iconized as delicate and soft. Nattier’s depiction of Mistress Clermont in the painting shows her in this soft light. The painting could almost be categorized as an example of Venus. The most notable difference to Manet’s famous Olympia is the lack of nudity. All of the other elements are present, including; a white woman, a sensual gaze, and a Black female servant who is roughly the same color as the walls.
During this time in high art, Black women existed only in the previously described setting or in idealized (and often imperialist) depictions of colonial life. Both styles were meant to further revere eurocentricity; one for the people and the other for the land. Artists who specialized in landscape painting were not known to focus on human emotion or interaction in their work. Though when creating the work of European colonies, the presence of oppression could not be ignored. It was somewhat common for these artists to be uncomfortable with the colonial culture of slavery.44 Therefore, they were unlikely to truthfully depict the realities of servitude and enslavement in the colonies. Nicolas-Antione Taunay (1755-1830) was one such artist, known in the early nineteenth century for his landscape scenes of Caribbean colonial ports and townships.55 Taunay was known specifically for depicting motherhood in the midst of battle and chaos in French territories. Painting white female citizens of France as selfless, maternal figures in the midst of battle inspired nationalism. It also made Taunay a sought after landscape artist. This success meant he was subsequently hired by the Portuguese to depict Brazil, in the same alluring light he had given the French territories. When faced with the Portuguese occupation of Brazil and their form of enslavement, Taunay found the reality hard to depict. He was instead intrigued by the Afrikan women he saw commonly taking care of white children. He chose instead to portray the enslaved nannies throughout his landscape scenes.66 These women are shown to be extremely loyal and tender with the children in the paintings, to a point where they are more shields than caregivers.77 Where the tactic of displaying caregivers was inspiring in his previous work, the objectionable truth of no familiar tie between women and child is almost taunting in his depictions of Brazilian ports. The nanny’s freedoms are directly tied to the wellbeing of the child. Swallowed by the vast landscapes they are placed into, these women blend further into the background where his previous depictions of motherhood stood out.
From this positioning in the visual medium, Black women became victims of their own victimhood. The reality of servitude and oppression by dominating western culture was emphasized by their lack of agency, even in artwork. Artists used Black women as props to substructure white femininity and colonialism. With a large part of their stereotypical depictions being rooted in the male gaze’s emphatic obsession with paradise. Utopic scenes of life when it most favored their demographic. However, following the shift to modernity in the nineteenth century, Black women are literally able to be separated from their colonial rendering.
The importance of an individual in portraiture is defined by the figure’s ability to control their own narrative. As art is most often reflected in real life, the ability to be a central or individual figure reflects real-world agency. White women were often seen in this way, but the depictions also often depended on their sexuality (Fig. 2). A Black man might be featured as a lone figure, but this was also often dependent on his wartime dominance (Fig. 7 and Fig. 8). The most famous colonial-era depictions of lone Black male figures we see are of men who fought against westernization and won. Both Eduard Charlemont’s 1787 portrait, The Moorish Chief, and Anne-Louis Girodet’s portrait of Ayitian revolutionary Jean-Baptiste Belley in 1797 are commendations of these men’s ability to resist western dominance. In their portraits, both men are positioned classically in fully body shots, standing against an environmental background and wearing their best clothing. Not unlike depictions of European nobility, these portraits are representative of a man’s power, wealth, and influence. In possession of whiteness or masculinity, displaying seduction or dominance, these figures added value to the western narrative. Black women, whose intersectional experiences put them in diametric opposition to the white male, added no value to a patriarchal society.
Yet when they began to be depicted as individuals, they still had a story to tell. Marie-Guillemine Benoist’s 1800 Portrait of Madeleine (formerly Portrait d’une Négresse) is the prime example (Fig. 1). The portrait depicts the sitter, a young woman of Afrikan descent, sitting in a fine armchair against a beige background. Blue cloth is draped against the chair, while the figure is clothed in white. A cloth wrapped around her head and another around her body, tied with a red ribbon. Madeleine’s right breast is exposed as the fabric of her dress falls against her left elbow. The chair Madeleines sits in is turned diagonal to the portal of the frame so the woman’s gaze is more directly angled towards the audience. Benoist work is a model example of the classical style which was repopularized going into the nineteenth century.
At first glance, this painting seems like an empowering embodiment of the Black woman. She is posed confidently, and not overly sexualized. She seems almost powerful, sitting alone and staring directly out of the frame towards the audience. It is true that as a woman herself, Benoist was able to portray femininity in a much more empowering fashion than how men often approach female figures.
Today, Portrait of Madeleine is a world-renowned work of art “consistent with the conventions of portraiture and neoclassical aesthetics” of 1800 France.88 As a woman in a male-dominated space, Benoist needed to make her artistic ability undeniable. Portrait of Madeleine was a study used to exhibit her technical skill. But the reason that the piece is so technically sound is that a proper depiction of dark skin was seen as a technical achievement.99 In the European tradition, a proper portrayal of flesh tones was already seen as crucial. But to do so with the skin tonality of an Afrikan was seen as especially complex.1010 Portrait of Laure (formerly La Négresse) (Fig. 3) by Édouard Manet, is a portrait of similar use to Portrait of Madeleine. The sitter of this work, initially unknown and later identified as a servant named Laure, is the same woman seen in the background of Olympia. Manet completed both paintings in the year 1863. In modern times as we take a deeper look at Manet’s catalog of work, Laure is revealed to be in many of his pieces. Yet she is never acknowledged, and only through relative connections to Manet were historians able to identify her.1111 The culture of France in the 1800s was to “anonymiz[e] and racially stereotype” Black women.1212 Benoist was just the first of many to see how with Madeleine as her anonymous model, her technical mastery as an artist was undeniable.
It is with artworks such as Portrait of Madeleine that intersectional agency is really tested. The artist of this work, Marie-Guillemine Benoist, was an upper-class white woman. The sitter of the painting (also initially anonymous and later identified as Madeleine), was most likely a freed slave brought from Guadalupe on one of Benoist’s brothers’ ships.1313 Although she could have been free in France, freedom is not synonymous with effective autonomy. Madeleine likely had little to no influence over her depiction. The neoclassical aesthetics showcased in Portrait of Madeleine, are a show of nationalism by Benoist, not the empowerment of her female model. Madeline is wrapped in blue, white and red. This set of colors is also seen on the still fairly new flag of the French Revolutionary Government, which was established in 1789.1414 Madeleine also wears golden jewelry, which the French accumulated from their colonies.1515 Her exposed right breast is a classical motif “to evoke the generous riches that are the product of political concord”.1616 It is clear that in Portrait d’une Négresse, Madeleine is respected as an idea but not as a person. She is a physical representation of French profusion, specifical slavery in the Caribbean and other French territories. Like all other elements of the portrait, Madeleine symbolizes French property. And to Benoist, Madeleine was a woman, but more so a tool used to elevate herself.
Portrait of Madeleine was the first of many portraits of lone Black women which seemed to elevate the Black female form. It is only with the context that we are able to gauge the larger picture. Using the anonymity which is historically synonymous with sitting for portraiture, artists of the time we’re able to control the narrative of their work. In the nineteenth century, pieces like Young Woman with Peonies (1870) (Fig. 4) and A Slave Auction, Martinique (c. 1826) (Fig. 5), are both representative of the experiences of Black women. The first shows a single joyous young Black woman tending to flowers, and the second is a scene of a naked Black women being sold into slavery in a town square. These are contemporaneous examples of what life was like for Black women of this period, just on opposite sides of the spectrum.
Context is everything, but so is connection. Portrait of Madeleine is a work created with a purpose that was not to uplift its a Black female figure. Yet today, it remains an inspiring piece because of it’s deeper context. Benoist’s painting is a plea for inclusion to the boys club that was the Parisian Salons. And her purpose was not to uplift Madeleine or her story. It is a testament that figures such as Madeleine and Laure were able to endure to today when they are finally able to be appreciated and acknowledged for their existence apart from western society. As individuals, framed alone, these women were able to convey their own stories that live on today.
As time progressed, Black framed alone in portraiture became an artistic choice to symbolize the burden and strength of their lived experiences. During the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, Philadelphian artist Barkley L. Kendricks created a number of portraits of women symbolic of the movement. Kendricks was known to highlight his figure’s personality through their clothing, but portraits like Miss T take it to the next level. The painting is extremely large, which is also a trend in Hendricks work and in-person is almost imposing. Miss T is not only standing out because the black of her clothing offsets the stark background, but also because of the historical implications of her clothing. She wears bell-bottoms, an open-collared shirt, gold aviator glasses, and most importantly her hair is styled in an afro. Her clothing and hairstyle are the aesthetic choices that defined the Black Power Movement of the 1960s and imply she is in some way a part of it. Miss T would readily fit into a lineup with activists like Angela Davis. Assata Shakur and Elaine Brown. It is not only clothing but also a uniform that informs the audience of the figure of Miss T.
With paintings like Miss T and Lawdy Mama, Barkley was able to narratively represent the Black woman’s real-world agency. Although the aesthetic choices Barkley L. Hendricks informed confident and powerful women, their posture tells another story. Miss T is unable to meet the gaze of her audience. Both women hold their arms close to themselves and their body language projects discomfort. Yet these paintings still project empowerment and imposition. The lone figure in Miss T does not need to stare outward at the audience because her presentation is enough. She is a bold figure in isolation, empowered by her own means.
Notes
- Clinton Hutton, The Logic and Historic Significance of the Haitian Revolution (Arawak Publications, 2005) 22.
- Susan Waller, “Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Portrait of Madeleine,” Khan Academy, accessed November 14, 2020, https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/renaissance-reformation/rococo-neoclassicism/neo-classicism/a/marie-guillemine-benoist-portrait-of-a-black-woman.
- James Smalls, “Slavery is a Woman: “Race,” Gender, and Visuality in Marie Benoist’s Portrait d’une négresse (1800)”, accessed October 19, 2020, http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/index.php/component/content/article/70-spring04article/286-slavery-is-a-woman-race-gender-and-visuality-in-marie-benoists-portrait-dune-negresse-1800%20%C2%A0.
- Lilia Schwarcz, “Black Nannies: Hidden and Open Images in the Paintings of Nicolas-Antione Taunay,” last modified June 26, 2017, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09612025.2017.1339382.
- Schwarcz, “Black Nannies”.
- Schwarcz, “Black Nannies”.
- Schwarcz, “Black Nannies”.
- Waller, “Marie-Guillemine Benoist.”
- Kristen Windmuller-Luna, “Posing Modernity: The Black Model from Manet and Matisse to Today,” Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art 45 (2019): 154-158.
- Windmuller-Luna. “Posing Modernity,” 154-158.
- Windmuller-Luna. “Posing Modernity,” 154-158.
- Windmuller-Luna. “Posing Modernity,” 154-158.
- Smalls, “Slavery is a Woman.”
- Smalls, “Slavery is a Woman.”
- Hutton, Haitian Revolution, 22-24.
- Waller, “Marie-Guillemine Benoist.”
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