{"product_id":"art-and-race-anne-lafont-9798887120119","title":"Art and Race: The African (Up) Against the Enlightenment's Eye","description":"\u003cb\u003eThis groundbreaking study investigates the close and paradoxical relationship of art and race during the Enlightenment.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In this text, French art historian Anne Lafont examines the complexities and contradictions in Enlightenment-era ideas about race, focusing on the figurations of Africans and other people of color. Through studies of a wide range of eighteenth-century art, Lafont grounds her analysis in the objects themselves and, by doing so, highlights how visual works can reveal the values of the culture that produced them. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e While Lafont locates--unsurprisingly--instances of the marginalization and objectification of Black people, she also draws attention to depictions that present African sitters as subjects in their own right. For example, Anne-Louis Girodet's \u003ci\u003ePortrait of Jean-Baptiste Belley\u003c\/i\u003e (1797) offers a dignified, individualized representation of this formerly enslaved French politician from Saint-Domingue; and portraits of anonymous sitters show them as actual persons whose costumes and poses demonstrate their agency. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Ultimately, Lafont moves beyond artworks to consider the broader intellectual context of the Enlightenment, particularly ideas about freedom, equality, and universal human rights, which were anchored in visual culture and indexed by it. She reveals how these ideals often conflicted with the realities of colonialism and the shifting status of Black people during this era.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Anne LaFont\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798887120119\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Getty Research Institute\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/16\/2027\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 456\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover","brand":"Anne LaFont","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":49001000829183,"sku":"9798887120119","price":50.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/art-and-race-anne-lafont-9798887120119","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}