Dürer’s 16th Century ‘Portrait of An African Man’.

[EdmontinaDonsAutumnalHues]

Isn’t this just the most beautiful thing? Surely drawn with the greatest love and empathy? It’s on loan to the Rijksmuseum for an exhibition. In an article in The Times today they say no one can know what was in Dürer’s mind when he made this portrait …

Isn’t he quite often reckoned to have been gay or bi? I can certainly see attraction in that piece

It’s … lingering, isn’t it?

I’ll have to Google to find out more.

I think I see what you're seeing, OP. It's quite soft - almost looks tenderly and delicately drawn.

Quite different from a lot of harsh and hard-stroked drawings I've seen.

I love that portrait, so beautiful. The exhibition looks fascinating —

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/sep/28/earliest-european-portraits-of-african-men-on-show-together-for-first-time-durer-mostaert-rijksmuseum-amsterdam

Thanks for the link AuntMasha. Really fascinating, the article. Still reading it and it's prompted me to research more.

Such a shame it's only come up now for the first time in 500 years - poor George Floyd's death has opened up a lot.

I wish they'd find the names of the sitters. Love how they've been done through what seems to be an uncritical and unexaggerated lens.

Durer was captivated with beauty.

And that certainly is beautiful.

The drawing is described as the earliest known portrait of a black man in Europe. I’m glad Dürer made it, and Art History isn’t my subject, but I’m inclined to wonder whether there must not have been portraits drawn by other black people in Europe at that time, of their family members or friends. I find anything else hard to believe. So I guess those portraits have not survived?

This is a hefty bit of reading @EdmontinaDonsAutumnalHues but lots of pictures, including the portrait you posted, it's about 17 pages in.
It's more about the portrayal of black people, rather than them being artists. I'm no scholar, but I imagine the lack of black artists in the day reflects the history of the times.

thewalters.org/wp-content/uploads/revealing-the-african-presence-in-renaissance-europe.pdf

Amazing - thank you, TheBlackDarner. That’s a potentially fabulous resource, although I’ll need to research the originators of the project a little more. I caught a minute or so of a videoed lecture by the editor; and she does say in the intro to the book that the project started in 2000. A lot has happened since then - including the burgeoning development of research projects on Twitter, Insta and in galleries, lead by black art historians …

Is this volume generally considered to be authoritative? I obviously have no idea.

More like they haven't been 'discovered' yet. I'm sure they exist.

I'm not a fan of portraits though - they don't do much for me so I don't know a lot about them or their artists. There's quite a lot available to read on Early European portraits by Black artists when you search.

Will try to find some links tomorrow if I find something relating to your question.

Sorry that was to your last post before this one, OP. A bit sleepy without my glasses.

Thank you!

Edmontina I came across it by chance, I'm no expert. It was your OP that prompted me to read up some more. I've always been in awe of Durer, and I'd seen that sketch before, but not looked at it for a long time.
NotSoNew Iooking forward to your links!

I saw yours @TheBlackDarner - thanks for that. I saw something similar yesterday but don't think it had as much info as the one you posted, and I think it was an American resource iirc (I could be mixing things up). Already downloaded yours so will read through it.

I'll definitely post more if I find something but I'm no expert on this either.

Don't you just enjoy burrowing into things and learning more?
And no exams!

It takes you in all sorts of unexpected directions. I've started reading now about the representation of black women in art over the centuries.

Some of it is unsettling reading. (But unsurprising)

I would really like to know who this man was, and what his life was like. Beautiful.

The only thing I miss about my brief residence in the Twitterworld is that there was a long running thing on ‘Western’ art that included representations of black people. I really should have looked up the website (if there was one) before I shut down my Twitter account.

At the moment, amongst the fifteen million entities I follow on Instagram, there are one or two that focus on historical art produced by people of African, Caribbean and other not-white heritage. It’s damn frustrating though - I don’t think I ever once saw a piece of art by a black artist in a UK gallery through my entire childhood. If it hadn’t been for my parents I might have believed the prevailing rhetoric of the time …

Thank you for sharing. I often find art in the form of portraits, especially from that time, quite difficult to appreciate. But this portrait really draws you in, it’s very simple. I’m going to do some background reading.

I visited the Silo Museum in Cape Town a few years ago and it’s a huge gallery mostly full of African art and I found myself in tears being surrounded by it all

Art Matters podcast: the black presence in European painting.

Michael cites the earliest example of a black artist of note as Juan de Pareja (1606–1670), who was Diego Velázquez's slave and painting assistant. Velázquez later freed Pareja, after which point he worked as an artist in Madrid.
...

Centuries later followed sculptor Ronald Moody. Born in Jamaica, Moody moved to London to study dentistry before falling in love with art after a trip to the British Museum.
...

Guyana-born artist Frank Bowling was born around the time Moody's career was hitting its stride. He moved to London at age 19 and earned a scholarship to the Royal College of Art. He was initially told by a gallerist that Britain wasn't ready for a black artist but, after a stint in the United States, he returned to have a long and successful career in the UK.

artuk.org/discover/stories/art-matters-podcast-the-black-presence-in-european-painting#

It’s always struck me as unjust that European modernism in Art started with the Cubist movement appropriating African art by African artists. Picasso refused to even acknowledge those artists who influenced his work, nor did he view the art he appropriated - African masks - as actual art.

I came across this site on the representations of the African Magi in the Nativity in European Art, which is quite interesting:
www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/articles/2021/5/exploring-black-magus-in-european-art

Gotten from reading the first link on the thread. This link doesn't say much about Black artists but it's based on the history of Africans' presence in Europe and started by mentioning this threads topic and artist.

There's a book, African Europeans: An Untold History by the same author, Olivette Otele. She's the UK’s first black female history professor. Haven't got the book but I'm sure there's much more in there.

www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/04/african-europeans-by-olivette-otele-review-when-race-mattered-less

I saw this by accident as I was scrolling through YouTube. I saved it to my 'watch later' list so haven't seen it yet. Apologies if it doesn't add to the thread, if you watch it, but AuntMasha's last post reminded me of the title.

Chimamanda Adichie tells Germany 'Stolen Artifacts in Europe must be repatriated'.

‘Twas ever thus, AuntMasha … I’ve attended seminars and read articles recently that make similar assertions regarding opera and couture clothing; skill and imagination wrongfully appropriated. And then, decades, centuries later they’re welcoming one in and proclaiming they’re making the art ‘accessible’ to the culturally deprived …

Great thread. I'm reading through all this.
NotSoNew Juan de Pareja. I found his portrait.
So, he was a slave in Valasquez's studios. I wonder how many of "Velasquez" paintings are really by Juan de Pareja?
Juan de Pareja

This is gorgeous. Thank you for sharing. There is such a tenderness here. You can see his character even though it was so long ago.

There must have been portraits of black people by black artists but sadly I imagine many of them would not have survived.

I want to get Olivette Oteli’s book now too.