Slavery in World Political History - Term Paper Example

Introduction Slavery forms a significant part of the world political history. During the colonial time, humans were forcefully taken from their homeland and put through forced labor in the European and American farms and factories. The slaves of the African origin gave rise to the black American community presently in the western nations. According to Buell (4), this marked the beginning of slavery in the American society. Many years down the line, artist still depict the impacts of slavery in their works such as the works of Kara Walker a black American artist born in 1969. She is well known for her graphic use of silhouette figures to depict mirages American African slaves. A close look at her work reveals vividly the impact of slavery especially through eliminating depth in all visual perspectives of the art work. She further emphasizes the depth of the images through use of the overlapping techniques on the silhouettes hence creating scenes on the several aspects through which slaves were exploited. For instance, the images portray the slaves used as sexual objects. This essay uses the three of her works that is “Slavery! Slavery,” “Gone” and “The End of Uncle Tom” to explore slavery in the United States with emphasis on South America. Conceptual background The Slavery in Antebellum South of America In the 1830’s, slavery was concentrated in the south of the United States of America concentrated in small farms and large organizations, cities and towns and any other place extra man power was necessary. The slaves were property to their owner and all blacks were slaves as primarily, the slaves in the south of America performed tasks mostly in the plantations and homesteads of their masters. They took part in clearing new lands, digging ditches and other household chores for their masters; the black women cared for the young ones and prepared meals and other functions like spinning, sewing and weaving. As outlined in Blassingame (25), slavery in the antebellum period in the South America was focused on the plantation farms, and the homestead within the firms; this was primarily the period before the First World War. Carson (164) notes that the labor market was divided between blacks and whites in the community. The probability of both skilled and unskilled laborers was evident and comparable by race. The whites had higher chances in white color jobs compared to the blacks whose major area of work was in the unskilled domains. Debauchery as Oppressive Apparatus Other than plantations labor, slavery also involved debauchery activities. This primarily comprised of the slaves being forced into immoral activities such as prostitution, pornography and other immoral activities to entertain their masters. Principally, the white bosses required the slaves to do close to anything for their entertainment including the unacceptable and immoral behaviors. For example, female slaves were forced into prostitute brothels to entertain the white clients and the fee benefits their white bosses. Through debauchery, the black females faced oppression and were forced into immoral activities. According to Ditmore (68), the women were chattels to their owners and hence they would be commanded to do anything by their masters and hence why prostitution was not excluded. In addition, others were primarily purchased and sold for the purpose of forced prostitution. Artist background Biography Kara walker is an African-American artist, born in 1969 in California, but is based in New-York; she is a successful artist who has written works of fine art that reflect issues of gender, violence, and sexuality. She is currently a professor of arts at the University of Columbia, and her work was brought up by her father whose profession was a painter and the early age of three years her dream was to be a painter which is a form of art. This is the first incident where the people around Kara walker influence her life into art. She spent time with her father as he painted, and she has records of the simple paintings that she did at that early age, and they display the extent of creativity in her. However, walker’s ambitions began changing as she grew older and instead of achieving beauty perfection, she spent time testing avant-garde styles. She loved pictures that told stories about something and during an interview she said that at some point in her adolescence renegade desire made her realize her dream (Shaw x). Her father being a painter influenced her into the world of art, and this made her attended Atlanta college of Art in 1991 where she graduated with a bachelor of fine art. Her desire for art led her to pursuing a master’s degree in the same field at the Rhode Island school. While at the school of design, she got to know artists whom she says influenced her a lot in the industry. She met Andy Warhol who influenced her with his omnivorous eye and moral distance and a painter named Robert Colescott who at that time dealt with inserting cartoons Detachment from Slavery Experiences Non-personal encounter with slavery Having been raised in the south, Kara has an informed perspective of slavery and its impact in the society. She may not have had a first experience on slavery, but the people around her did, and the information obtained from them influenced her awareness of the paradoxes of race in contemporary society. Thus, she uses art work to present both the past and the ongoing impacts of slavery, critique to power and freely mingling with romance. Most of her work is linked to the antebellum era that fully expressed slavery’s bitter realities. As a contemporary artist, she is famous for her capacity to effectively communicate on the slavery issue through her artwork mainly characterized by the silhouette figures in black and white (Shaw x). Kara walker used pictures in most of her works that were meant to represent something without speaking it out. She used lot notoriety in the black cutouts that were meant to represent slavery. Slavery was very common in the early years, and it led to the hatred between the Africans and Americans in America. In her art Kara walker used dark pictures that were meant to reprint the inferior African race. Her pictures also represented pornographic situations and forceful sexual relationships that Americans practiced with the slaves. To bring out the message clearly, the cutouts were accompanied by pseudo-romantic self-written texts The symbols that she uses communicate to the people on the issue of discrimination. African race was discriminated at this era in the continent and because she was half American and half African she was against it. The government at that time used Africans as slaves and they did not have any rights in the country. Their humiliation in acts such as forced labor and forced sex were not restricted and hence African discrimination became so rampant. Kara walker used the art platform to express her stand on this and symbolism was her main tool. Capacity for objectivity to treat subject of slavery Through the use of black silhouette depictions of the black and white Americans, Kara expresses the capacity to express situations ranging from lychings to rape and sometimes bestiality in the antebellum period in South America. Her work screams a blend of both social commentary and humor; she uses a 19th century style of art combined with the uncensored modern perspective to highlight the full range of physical and sexual exploitation in the antebellum era. Her works express blacks in the scenes with the expression of straightforwardness/ innocence but full of violence and perversity. The work primarily engages viewers with its deceptive simplicity and seemingly playful narratives that are at the same time intense and involving (Shaw x). Through interactive scenes of the blacks and the whites, she offers history lessons related to race relations “where the border between victim and victimizers if blurred”. Further, she brings out the contradictory feelings side by side, for example, she shows the blacks attracted to whiteness and at the same time repelled by the whites who exploit them. In addition, she admires the African American heroes combined with the mockery for being black and she exploits clichés to unmask false preconceptions and stereotypes. Her major style is the use of cut out black silhouettes to explore graphical sexual images inspired by fascination with contemporary pulp fiction novels in the antebellum period. Primarily, she is talented and brings out her themes on slavery through the techniques. Analysis Description of the focal art pieces Kara Walker produces a new and unique type of art that has put her on the art scene for a long time. This is because her art has come to be seen as a progressive art that uses a style that would not have been used by other people. She uses shadows in her work, and these shadows address a myriad of social problems including sexuality, racism, slavery and politics among others (Quigley 1-9). Slavery! Slavery! A critical look at this piece of art shows the existing contrast by the use of feaces/dung which reinforces the emptiness of a self and on the other hand an all giving fountain. This fountain is a symbol of the promise of a fuller self-image though in the form of stereotype based on the thinking of a majority of her critics. The two different aspects of abjection signify the hollowness that attends rejection of one’s current subjectivity as the fountain is a promise of a better fulfilling and richer life quite the opposite of slavery (Quigley 1-9). Gone: An Historical Romance of a Civil War Walker here sets tension between the classical antecedents and African Americans within the confines of their mainstream culture. The colonial views of the Africans and their masters are portrayed as being dissimilar and hence she is signifying an occasion of a much more thorough occurring process both in the colonial and post-colonial eras (Quigley 1-9). This kind of art encourages the art lovers to encourage new meanings emanating from inter-textual similarities and differences. The End of Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau of Eva From the presentation of this work, slavery comes out as one of the most prominent themes; the title itself is a reflection of an 1852 novel called Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher. This publication of this novel came at a time when slavery was prevalent in America. The main character, Uncle Tom, does not come up to fight against oppression because he believes in Christian virtues that are against violence. In the drawing, Uncle Tom is giving birth to a baby, probably the fruit of his hope that humanity will one day be liberated. In Kara Walker’s depiction of this novel, Young Eva, a character who dies in order to bring redemption to the sins of slavery is seen lifting an axe over the head of a child. This means that slavery came to kill the dream of the nation. In literature, children are seen as the future and therefore, the killing of this child would mean that the future of this society is dead (Quigley 1-9). Silhouette as a visual tool The silhouette can be analyzed as an inferior tool as compared to the oil paint that many other artists use. Some might argue that with this Walker is trying to bring about equalization in resources between the rich and the poor as it is cheaper to use a silhouette than oil paint in art. The art work emanating here can be described as well thought out and delicately made which is a statement available to the lower class associated with the blacks. The paper on the wall further leaves little of explanation but much more to the viewer to best interpret this incredible piece of art. Lateral cascading of tableaux All the figures in Walker’s tableaux are cut from black paper and this leaves the socially constructed determination of racial identities to the art consumer rather than depicting a single race. These anonymous signifiers may be deemed as innocuous evident in the dresses as well as hair style, exaggerated lips and other visual legacy. This helps in the social construction of the racial identity signifiers in art as well as giving the comic strip of telling a story in pictorial form. Reverie as a spatiotemporal homogenizer Kara’s work is greatly inspired by varied sources including testimonial narratives, historical novels and mainstream shows. She is credited with inventing a repertoire of powerful narratives where she conflates facts and fictions with an aim of uncovering the roots of racial and gender discrimination; this focus has her silhouettes to cast shadows on the conventional thinking about race representation in the context of discrimination, exclusion, sexual desire and love. Thus, her work relies on reverie to create a connection on several historical events related to slavery both in the past and in the present. Slavery as a means to debauch the black population In her work, the black population appears to perform the odd jobs in the society. They expressed as subjects to their masters as shown in Slavery! Slavery, in which she brings out the issue of slavery in the southern American society. Here, she combines the tasks carried out by in one piece of artwork. A close observation shows women performing household chores, others being used for sexual satisfaction and others taking care of the children among others as in the image below (Quigley 1-9). Depiction of different era, different times under one roof Her work covers different historical times and the impact of slavery to the Africans in the south America. The three works under consideration bring out different historical periods of slavery. Additionally, her silhouettes come out as a narrative of the various events in the history of human kind. Hence, this shows that she tells of slavery under one roof ranging from the varied historical times. Presenting slavery as the surface of a deep seated issue The simple illustrations in her silhouettes leave the observer with many questions in relation to slavery. The mere paper work illustrations tell more than one needs to ascertain and hence a reason to dig deeper on the issue of slavery in seek of answers. This implies that she effectively uses imagination and creativity to create curiosity and the desire to discover more in the slavery of the antebellum period. Conclusion The fact that black people were the victims of slavery is shown by the use of black shadows in Kara Walkers work. This blackness could both be seen as a representative of the people or even the representative of the evils of slavery. This style gives this work a characteristic feel of having been set in the times of this slavery even when it is set in the contemporary world. The fact that Kara Walker has also derived this work from a novel explains the narrative style that can clearly be seen on the artwork. This piece of artwork can be seen for what it clearly is; a work that is motivated by an artist’s integration to the society that is depicted in her work. Kara Walker understands her society fully, and the work she produces mirrors this society in all aspects. References Blassingame, John. “The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South.” New York: Oxford University Press, 1972. Print. Buell, Tonya. “Slavery in America: A Primary Source History of the Intolerable Practice of Slavery.” The Rosen Publishing Group, 2004. Print. Carson, Scott A. "Black and white labor market outcomes in the nineteenth century American South." Humanomics 26.3 (2010): 164 - 177. Web. Ditmore, Melissa. “Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work.” Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2006. Print. Quigley, Timothy. "Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love." Gallery guide. N.p., 3 Feb. 2008. Web. 16 Mar. 2014. Shaw, Gwendolyn. “Seeing the Unspeakable: The Art of Kara Walker.” Durham: Duke University Press, 2004. Print. Read More