The Arts

Colouring the Caribbean

Race and the art of Agostino Brunias

by Mia L. Bagneris

Description

Colouring the Caribbean offers the first comprehensive study of Agostino Brunias's intriguing pictures of colonial West Indians of colour - so called 'Red' and 'Black' Caribs, dark-skinned Africans and Afro-Creoles, and people of mixed race - made for colonial officials and plantocratic elites during the late-eighteenth century. Although Brunias's paintings have often been understood as straightforward documents of visual ethnography that functioned as field guides for reading race, this book investigates how the images both reflected and refracted ideas about race commonly held by eighteenth-century Britons, helping to construct racial categories while simultaneously exposing their constructedness and underscoring their contradictions. The book offers provocative new insights about Brunias's work gleaned from a broad survey of his paintings, many of which are reproduced here for the first time.

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Reviews

Colouring the Caribbean is the first comprehensive study of Agostino Brunias's West Indian paintings. Working primarily in St. Vincent and Dominica at the end of the eighteenth century, Brunias painted for plantocrats and the colonial elite, creating romanticised pictures featuring Caribbeans of colour - so called 'Red' and 'Black' Carib Indians, dark-skinned Africans and Afro-Creoles, and people of mixed race. The book explores the full scope of these images, investigating their role in reifying then inchoate notions of race. Perceived as straightforward documents of visual ethnography, Brunias's paintings have been used as visual field guides for reading race in the colonial West Indies. For the first time, this book investigates how the artist's images both reflected and refracted ideas about race, helping to construct racial categories while simultaneously exposing their constructedness and underscoring their contradictions. Though grounded in close visual analysis, it uses various critical lenses and an interdisciplinary array of materials, including period historical and literary texts and secondary scholarship from a variety of fields, to inform its interpretations and conclusions. Ultimately, it offers provocative new insights into Brunias's work, gleaned from a broad survey of the artist's paintings, many of which are reproduced here for the first time. A critical addition to the bookshelves of historians working on the art and visual culture of the Anglo-American world, Colouring the Caribbean will also be of interest to scholars in race and gender studies, African diaspora studies, Atlantic world studies, slavery studies, colonial and postcolonial studies, and eighteenth-century studies.

Author Biography

Mia L. Bagneris is Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Art History and Director of the Africana Studies Program at Tulane University.

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Bibliographic Information

  • Publisher Manchester University Press
  • Publication Date November 2023
  • Orginal LanguageEnglish
  • ISBN/Identifier 9781526174581 / 1526174588
  • Publication Country or regionUnited Kingdom
  • FormatPrint PDF
  • Pages272
  • ReadershipGeneral/trade
  • Publish StatusPublished
  • Dimensions234 X 156 mm
  • Biblio NotesDerived from Proprietary 4124
  • SeriesRethinking Art's Histories
  • Reference Code15957

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