ARTHI 6C Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Exoticism
PROMPT: What is the argument of Adrienne Childs’s article? Cite two examples
of supporting evidence for this argument, found within the article.
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Article: Sugar Boxes and Blackamoors: Ornamental Blackness in Early Meissen
Porcelain
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NOTES
Porcelain did not just function as decoration
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Black people were used as decoration on porcelain meant for servitude (they
were also depicted in a less than human way, as slaves or animalistically)
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Highlighted the presence of black slave labor in the colonies
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Argument #1: "This chapter shall demonstrate how seemingly benign decorative
objects such as the Meissen sugar box also embody the complexities of race,
slavery, and representation in European material culture of the eighteenth
century." (pg. 159)
Race politics and commentary on slavery "hidden" and masked by the
"beauty of decorative arts"; porcelain as a rhetorical tool to comment on
the inferior status of non-Europeans
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In this art, there was a need to constantly establish whites/Europeans at the top
of the hierarchy among all people
Europeans = superior, more intellectual
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Non-europeans = Barbaric and savage, opposite of civilized European
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Blackamoors - anonymous Blacks, anyone other than white/European
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This art typically represented black slaves and servants as they were seen in the
wealthy European households
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Blackamoor porcelain figurines were the staple of the Meissen porcelain
manufactory
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Exoticism of blackness
Using blackness to heighten the appeal of the porcelain art
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Also the experience that comes from "domesticating" black people and
their exoticism
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The porcelain decorative art pieces just serve as reminders of that for
those who owned them… "found in the spectacle of fantasy feasting" (Pg.
166)
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Blackness was found to be exotic because the servants came from far
away places that whites had very little knowledge about (speaking to their
dehumanizing ignorance)
"The physical, social, and cultural binaries represented by the black
servant became a trope that automatically signaled the exotic and
evoked a fantasy of distant lands that fascinated Europeans in the
eighteenth century." (Page 163)
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Porcelain figures depicting blackamoor servants attending to aristocratic
Europeans in their homes daily
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Allegorical figures - commentary on race and Africa•
Inaccurate depictions of the black servants
"Blackness as represented by Europeans was never a simple re-
presentation…" (Pg. 167)
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Literally black (jet-black) painted skin, not shades of brown like they
actually were
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Cherry red lips and bright white eyes, similar to a clown
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Wearing headdresses which is not correct of all native peoples
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Also commentary about what the blackamoor figures were decorating
Sugar boxes and sweetmeat bowls
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The fact that they were put on sugar containers/holders speaks to the
insanely close relationship sugar production has with black slave labor (pg
167)
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Sugar was literally brought to the table by African slaves, just like the
African slaves are bringing/serving sugar at the table in the form of figures
on the porcelain
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Page 164
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Heavy contrast of slavery and wealth just simply (but not plainly) in the
decorative arts, especially Meissen porcelain
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Section Assignment #1 Notes
Tuesday, April 10, 2018
7:18 PM
