Historical racism still negatively affects the way paintings of Black people are perceived, research finds

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Historical racism still negatively affects the way paintings of ****** people are perceived, research finds

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Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

There is little doubt that historical racism has influenced the content and composition of several famous figurative paintings. In March 2024, this could be seen in the debate around the exhibition of the Rex Whistler mural,

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(1927), at the Tate Britain.

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whether such artworks should remain on public display.

There are several shocking elements of Rex Whistler’s mural, originally commissioned by the Tate as

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including the image of a ****** child chained to a horse and cart as it moves at speed. The debate raises the question—does the ongoing presence of artworks like this in public spaces serve to confront or maintain historical ******* views?

In some instances, the ******* attitudes behind such paintings have been explicitly expressed by artists or painting owners, making them well-documented. Take, for example,

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(1715–1787), a painter who had several enslaved people living in his household. Another example is Gilbert Winter Moss (1828–1899), a banker who owned

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painting The Hunted Slaves (1861). According to the

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, Moss’s family was deeply involved in the ****** trade. In other cases, things aren’t so clear-cut.

But even if not explicitly expressed, ******* attitudes may have been implicitly held, to an extent that they were able to influence the creative process. Implicitly held ******* attitudes are mental associations that, when triggered by race, can guide people’s judgment and actions. As a researcher in psychology, I wanted to explore if implicitly held ******* attitudes affect the viewing of paintings when the images themselves make no suggestion of ******* inequality.

Alongside my colleagues,

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in a series of recent studies of portraits of ****** and white people.

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, we used gaze-mapping technology to measure the eye movements made by visitors to the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.

The measurement of when and where our eyes move, and how long they focus on specific objects, provides a time-sensitive index on what is important to viewers. We measured the eye movements of the visitors to the gallery who agreed to take part in our study as they looked at a set of five portraits of ****** sitters (including

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, 1937) and five portraits of white sitters (including

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, 1951).

Their task was to say how much pleasure they experienced when looking at each painting. We also assessed the visitors to the gallery on their implicit ******* attitudes and actual contact with different ******* communities.

Our results

Our study showed that visitors to the gallery who reported little contact with ****** people and who held negative implicit ******* attitudes reported experiencing little pleasure when viewing paintings showing ****** sitters.

Perhaps more surprisingly, though they reported little pleasure, these visitors focused their attention more on the faces of the ****** sitters than others did. The results suggest that little contact with ****** people, combined with holding negative implicit ******* attitudes, can be associated with an undue focus on ****** faces when viewing these paintings.

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that negative implicit ******* attitudes have not only influenced the historical content and composition of some paintings, but continue to exert an influence on the viewing of paintings in the present day. Moreover, the influence of negative implicit ******* attitudes on the viewing of paintings exerts its effect even when the images themselves are quite neutral.

Whether or not ******* paintings are removed from public spaces, our results show that implicit ******* attitudes will, for some viewers, continue to exert an influence on their perception of paintings representing ****** people and culture.

Provided by
The Conversation

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Historical racism still negatively affects the way paintings of ****** people are perceived, research finds (2024, September 25)
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