Chapter 13: Race, Gender, Clan and Class

Marc Chagall, Over Vitebsk, 1915-2- 26x36”

James van der Zee

"Unflattering images of African Americans have been common in popular culture over the past 150 years - Aunt Jemima, a domestic servant whose title of 'aunt' was a commonly used term of subordination and familiarity for domestic servants, nannies, and maids. Aunt Jemima is a caricatured jolly, fat character who has been used recently to sell commercially prepared pancake mix. Saar used three versions of Aunt Jemima to question and turn around such images. The oldest version is the small image at the center, in which a cartooned Jemima hitches up a squalling child on her hip. In the background, the modern version shows a thinner Jemima with lighter skin, deemphasizing her Negroid features. The older one makes Jemima a caricature, while the new one implies she is more attractive if she appears less black..

Betye Saar, "The Liberation of Aunt Jemima," 1972

"The middle Jemima is the largest figure and the most emphasized. Her checked and polka-dotted clothing is very bright and colorful. Her black skin makes her white eyes and teeth look like dots and checks, too. This Jemima holds a rifle and pistol as well as a broom. A black-power fist makes a strong silhouette shape in front of all the figures, introducing militant power to the image. The idea of Aunt Jemima, in any of its forms, can no longer seem innocuous. Saar enshrined these images in a shallow glass display box to make them venerable. Symmetry and pattern are strong visual elements."

Not a "Nice Indian Storyteller": James Luna Coming to Maine

His stories are about the strife, misconceptions and commodification of ethnicity in America than about Indian people alone.

Tseng Kwong Chi, New York, 1979

Tseng Kwong Chi, Disneyland, CA, 1979

Gender Issues

Rubens, Abduction of the Daughters of Leucippus, 1617 7x6’Rubens’ painting reflects his culture’s ideals about femininity and masculinity.

David, Oath of the Horatii, 1784 10x10’

CRITIQUING GENDER ROLES

Hung Liu, Trauma, China/USA, 1989

Women showing bound feet…shamefulDead student in Tiananmen Sq…shameful

Map of ChinaUpside down aboveBloodstained below

BowlRepresents China and artistEmptied and refilled by the cycles of history

CLAN

Statue of Togato Barberini, Rome, 1 c. 65”

Importance of genealogy in ancient Rome

NUCLEAR FAMILY

Elizabeth Murray, Sail Baby, 1983 oil on three canvases, 126x135”

General Idea, Baby Makes 3, Canada, 1984-89, 78x63”

CLASS

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Diego Velázquez

Las Meninas

1656oil on canvasapproximately 10 ft. 9 in. x 9 ft.

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Diego Velázquez

Las Meninas

1656oil on canvasapproximately 10 ft. 9 in. x 9 ft.

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Diego Velázquez

Las Meninas

1656oil on canvasapproximately 10 ft. 9 in. x 9 ft.

DIEGO VELÁZQUEZ, Water Carrier of Seville, ca. 1619. Oil on canvas,

3’ 5 1/2” x 2’ 7 1/2”. Wellington Museum, London.

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DIEGO VELÁZQUEZ, King Philip IV of Spain (Fraga Philip), 1644. Oil on canvas, 4’ 3 1/8” x 3’ 3 1/8”. The

Frick Collection, New York. 33

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Fragonard, The Swing, 1766

Frivolous sexual escapade

French aristocratic class:leisure classpower assimilated by Kingduties assumed by middle class

HYACINTHE RIGAUD, Louis XIV, 1701. Oil on canvas, approx. 9’ 2” x 6’ 3”. Louvre, Paris.

Master of political strategy and propaganda

Sun King— ruled by divine right

Began work on the Louvre

Converted a royal hunting lodge at Versailles into a great palace

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Working Class

Jan Vermeer van Delft, The Kitchen maid, 1660

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Johannes Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, c. 1664,

National Gallery of Art, Widener Collection

The Spring Festival Along the River, Zhang Zeduan,A close-up view of the rainbow bridge.Detail of a 12th c. handscroll 10”x207”

June Harvest time - the peasants are mowing the meadow in unison, with the Hotel de Nesle, the Duc's Parisian

residence, in the background. The building on the right is the

Chapelle Royale, which is

unchanged to this day.

Illustrates the growing artistic interest in naturalism—close observation of the

natural world and the depiction of a perceptual reality—revealed here in

careful architectural detail, convincing shadows and

people in the scene.

Seurat, Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of the Grand Jatte, 1884Over the past several decades, many scholars have attempted to explain the meaning of this great composition. For some, it shows the growing middle class at leisure. Others see it as a representation of social tensions between modern city dwellers of different social classes, all of whom gather in the same public space but do not communicate or interact.

Renior, Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1880-81The painting also reflects the changing character of French society in the mid- to late 19th century. The restaurant welcomed customers of many classes, including businessmen, society women, artists, actresses, writers, critics, seamstresses, and shop girls. This diverse group embodied a new, modern Parisian society.

ART OBJECTS THAT INDICATE CLASS STATUS

Uji Bridge, Japan, Momoyama period, 16th-17th c. six-fold screen, color on paper, 62” HThe painting expresses qualities of simplicity and beauty, perishable with the passing of the moment.Commissioned by the warrior-rulers to decorate their castles.

Ukiyo-e prints…artwork of the middle class.

itagawa Utamaro, Komurasaki of the Tamaya Teahouse, c. 1794

The subject of this print, Komurasaki, was an oiran, which is the highest rank in the hierarchy of the Yoshiwara courtesans.  She wears a voluminous kimono of richly patterned fabric and her obi is tied in the front which is a trademark of an oiran. She is the height of fashion with her towering hair, full of decorative pins, and the long pipe she holds in her right hand. Her left arm is supported by an armrest that is hidden by the fabric of her kimono.

The market for this type of print was married men, who would see in these women for hire a fleeting beauty and an erotic perfection that they desire.

Simon Rodia, Watts Tousers, 1921-54 10’ H mixed media and found materials

Working-class man for a working-class neighborhood in LAX.

Italian immigrant…to pay tribute to his adopted land.

Outsider art…folk art…native art.