[lbo-talk] Why is Obama never identified as a mulatto?

Dennis Claxton ddclaxton at earthlink.net
Wed Mar 14 09:14:51 PDT 2012


On 3/14/2012 8:51 AM, Carrol Cox wrote:


> The word carries the implication that there is such a thing as "race," and
> that premise is central to racism. There is and should be a stigma attached
> to the word. It's racist.
>
> Carrol

Yup. And paintings helped:

http://www.artnet.com/magazine_pre2000/features/ramirez/ramirez12-02-96.asp

Casta Painting and Colonial Latin America

by Yasmin Ramirez

Walter Benjamin's dictum that every work of

art is also a work of barbarism comes to

mind with "New World Orders," an exhibition

of Spanish colonial casta paintings

currently on display at the Americas

Society. "Casta" is Spanish for caste and

these "casta paintings" are incredibly

frank documents--unparalleled by anything

in our time--of the race-based social

hierarchy that existed in colonial Latin

America during the 17th and 18th century.

However much these paintings can be seen

today to suggest harmonious coexistence of

Indian, Spaniard and Black, in 18th-century

Mexico they also elaborated relations of

social power and control.

Bearing titles such as Espanol con India

sale Mulato (Spaniard with Black makes

Mulatto), casta paintings display male and

female couples of varying ethnicities with

their mixed-raced children. The works

follow an order premised on the idea that

each race carries a distinct kind of blood

(with Spanish blood linked to civilization--

no surprise--and Black blood associated

with slavery and degeneracy). Casta

painting cycles therefore typically begin

with a depiction of a "pure" Spaniard with

a "pure" African or Indian mate that

respectively bear a mulatto or a mestizo

child. From that progeny onwards, however,

the further racial/ethnic mixtures take on

Byzantine dimensions. Casta-painting series

usually identify 16 racial taxonomies,

including zoologically inspired terms such

as "coyote and "wolf"--in one bizarrely

named racial classification, children born

of mulatto and mestiza couples are called

"lobo tente en el ayre" (Wolf-Hold-

Yourself-in-Mid-Air).

In the weird melting pot forged from New

World colonialism and Spanish Catholicism,

racial mixing was depicted with an intimacy

that is absent from British and North

American art of that (or any other) era.

According to the racialist notions of the

day, "purity of blood" was considered a

virtue; consequently, Africans and Indians

are nobly rendered. Curiously, the mixed-

race people in casta paintings tend to have

southern European features: slim noses,

curly hair, almond-shaped eyes. Backgrounds

similarly blend European and indigenous

taste. New world fruits and vegetables such

as pineapples, avocados and chili peppers

are displayed in kitchens and dining rooms

furnished with European wares. Landscapes

are dotted by fanciful neo-classic

fountains and urns. It is with these

settings and props that the elitist

intentions of this art reveal themselves.

Third- and fourth-generation mixed-race

couples are clearly poorer, wearing

shabbier clothes in more straitened

circumstances, than their purer-blooded

ancestors. Spaniards and their Indian or

African brides sport rich European costumes

while Lobo- Mestizo couples wear plain or

ragged dress.

Curator Ilona Katzew, an art historian at

NYU's Institute of Fine Arts, notes in the

catalogue that Spanish colonists

commissioned casta paintings and sent them

abroad, usually as gifts, to display their

wealth and to demonstrate that a noble

class system prevailed in the New World.

Because the colonists wanted to make a good

impression, some of New Spain's finest

artists were hired to paint casta cycles.

However, Europeans did not regard casta

paintings as art objects but as

ethnographic illustrations. In fact, some

paintings entered Spain's first natural

history museum, the Real Gabinete de

Historia Natural.

Although practically all the works on view

are marvelous examples of colonial

painting, it is still difficult to admire

them simply and "purely" for their formal

virtues as works of art. Rather, casta

painting is an interesting study precisely

because the marginal position the genre

occupies in art history can be linked to

the marginal position that mixed-raced

people have held in western culture. The

affirmation of casta painting as an early

form of identity art--which this exhibition

tacitly reinforces--represents a real

paradigm shift. Multicultural advocacy has

liberated casta painting from the curio

cabinet, but the genre's problematic

content may later land it in another

closet.

"New World Orders: Casta Painting and

Colonial Latin America" at the Americas

Society, Sept. 26-Dec. 22, 1996, 680 Park

Avenue, New York, NY 10021.

YASMIN RAMIREZ is a New York art historian

and critic.



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