![]() Very early on, he “staked his claim to classical models,” exploiting this foundation of the Western tradition as a way to “raise African American subjects out of the ghetto” and “rescue the contaminated black body out of centuries of denigration.” 3 His was an unusual, if not noble, quest. 2 Because the nude was the foundation of classical art, Barthé exploited that focus on the body from the start. Barthé and the Nudeīarthé preferred classical forms and themes in conjunction with the male nude as “early declarations of the academic training and artistic tradition that set apart” from his African American contemporaries. 4), this essay sets out to explore the aesthetic, cultural, and personal strategies behind Barthé’s approach to classical idealism and its application to the racialized body. 1 “Expressive Camouflage” is a modest attempt to stimulate and contribute to the discourse.īy way of a select number of sculptural works that include Black Narcissus (1929 fig. Although the correlation between racial and cultural difference with Western tropes of classicism is not new, it has not sustained a defined path and level of analysis in the study of African American art as it has, for example, in the examination of African American literature. His approach to the male physique taps into the contested legacies and genealogy of Hellenic classicism as these are linked or associated with overt and covert strategies for producing alterity in the West. He does not quote classical sources directly but instead lights upon their motifs or allusions, incorporating into them those just-mentioned themes rendered through the male nude body at rest or in motion.īarthé’s sculptures of black male nudes are curious in that what surfaces from them are sometimes conflicting discourses and contentious dialogues that result from the appropriation, incorporation, and bestowal of elements of a classicizing ethos onto the racially distinctive body. He exploits the black male body as a site for aesthetic, political, cultural, and erotic critique while also directing attention to the potentially transformative aesthetic and political roles of race and homoeroticism through classical themes. Classical themes and the cultural weight that came with them were a means through which he attempted to resolve the inherent conflicts among these intricate topics. Barthé’s male nudes became the material and aesthetic terrain through which he attempted to work out and work through the intricacies and complications of these issues. ![]() James Richmond Barthé (1901–1989) is unique among so-called New Negro artists in that his works focus primarily on the male form in all its classicizing and modernizing masculine glory as a way to explore nuances of what concerned him most: his race, his spiritual sense, his homosexuality, and his class.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |