Colouring the Caribbean : Race and the Art of Agostino Brunias

Agostino Brunias's paintings have often been understood as straightforward documents of visual ethnography that functioned as field guides for reading race. This book offers the first comprehensive study of Agostino Brunias's intriguing pictures of colonial West Indians of colour made for colonial officials and plantocratic elites during the late-eighteenth century. It talks about the so called 'Red' and 'Black' Caribs, dark-skinned Africans and Afro-Creoles, and mixed-race women and men. The book explores the role of the artist's paintings in reifying notions of race in the British colonial Caribbean and considers how the images both reflected and refracted common ideas about race. Although some historians argue that the conclusion of the First Carib War actually amounted to a stalemate, Brunias clearly documents it as a moment of surrender, with Joseph Chatoyer considering the terms of his people's submission. Young's Account of the Black Charaibs mobilised subtle and not-so-subtle allusions to the rebellion in Haiti to construct a narrative of the Carib Wars. The book analyses the imaging of Africans and Afro-Creoles in British colonial art. The painting named Mulatresses and Negro Woman Bathing, Brunias replaces his more quotidian trade scenes and negro dancing frolics with a bathing tableau set against a sylvan Eden. In Linen Market, Dominica, one arresting figure captivates the viewer more than any other. Brunias may have painted for the plantocractic class, constructing pretty pictures of Caribbean life that reflected the vision of the islands upon which white, colonialist identities depended. "Colouring the Caribbean ia 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 developing notions of race. Perceived as straightforward documents of visual ethnography, Brunias's paintings have been understood as visual field guides for reading race in the colonial West Indies. For the first time, the 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"--Page 4 of cover 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 reflectedand 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. The first monographic study of the painter Agostino Brunias, this book offers a compelling, original analysis of his representation of race in the British colonial West Indies, reconsidering the way in which the artist's oeuvre has previously been understood 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. Front matter Contents List of figures Acknowledgements Introduction Brunias’s tarred brush, or painting Indians black: race-ing the Carib divide Merry and contented slaves and other island myths: representing Africans and Afro-Creoles in the Anglo-American world Brown-skinned booty, or colonising Diana: mixed-race Venuses and Vixens as the fruits of imperial enterprise Can you find the white woman in this picture? Brunias’s ‘ladies’ of ambiguous race Coda – Pushing Brunias’s buttons, or rebranding the plantocracy’s painter: the afterlife of Brunias’s imagery Index A monographic study of the painter Agostino Brunias, this text offers a compelling, original analysis of his representation of race in the British colonial West Indies, reconsidering the way in which the artist's oeuvre has previously been understood