Aesthetics of Abolition in late 18th Century England

Aesthetics of abolition in late 18th century England sought to engender empathy for the cause of abolishing slavery. However, the emblem of the abolition committee, a 1787 Wedgwood slave medallion featuring a kneeling figure in chains, reflected and promulgated racial stereotypes of the time that continue today in a proliferation of bodies of color represented in images of violence and poverty in the media. The subjugated figure on the Wedgwood ceramic medallion and its immediate status as collectors’ item were contradictory to ideas of equality, consistent with the hypocritical nature of the medallion’s Neoclassical aesthetics, popular at the time to champion principles of democracy yet rife with allusions to social and economic hierarchies. Representations of the black figure in fine art paintings and popular prints reflected underlying attitudes of paternalistic agency and the trend of social benevolence among the rising white industrial middle class. In addition, images of artifacts from the slave trade were used as emblems for the abolitionist cause. Late 18th century visual culture, juxtaposed with texts such as slave narratives, articles published by free black citizens in London, and Mary Wollstonecraft’s review of Olaudah Equiano’s slave narrative, serves to deconstruct symbols employed by the abolitionist movement such as shackles, chains, and the ship. Appropriation of the symbols and rhetoric of colonial slavery and abolition to address gender relations and female subjugation offers a further intersectional perspective of social reform movements of the late 18th century.