A highly original history of American portraiture that places the experiences of enslaved people at its center
“An argument for a new kind of American art history . . . a textbook for the future of the field.”—Mia L. Bagneris, caa.reviews
This timely and eloquent book tells a new history of American art: how enslaved people mobilized portraiture for acts of defiance. Revisiting the origins of portrait painting in the United States, Jennifer Van Horn reveals how mythologies of whiteness and of nation building erased the aesthetic production of enslaved Americans of African descent and obscured the portrait’s importance as a site of resistance.
Moving from the wharves of colonial Rhode Island to antebellum Louisiana plantations to South Carolina townhouses during the Civil War, the book illuminates how enslaved people’s relationships with portraits also shaped the trajectory of African American art post-emancipation. Van Horn asserts that Black creativity, subjecthood, viewership, and iconoclasm constituted instances of everyday rebellion against systemic oppression.
Portraits of Resistance is not only a significant intervention in the fields of American art and history but also an important contribution to the reexamination of racial constructs on which American culture was built.
一部高度原创的美国肖像画史,以被奴役者的经历为中心
“一种新的美国艺术史的论点。。。该领域未来的教科书。”—Mia L. Bagneris,民航局,评论
这本及时而雄辩的书讲述了美国艺术的新历史:被奴役的人们如何为反抗行为动员肖像。詹妮弗·范·霍恩(Jennifer Van Horn)回顾了美国肖像绘画的起源,揭示了白人和国家建设的神话如何抹去了非洲裔被奴役美国人的审美创造,并模糊了肖像作为反抗场所的重要性。
以下为对购买帮助不大的评价