Eastman Johnson’s Slavery Paintings: Beautiful Stereotypes

In Chapter 9: Recordkeeping and Societal Power in Archives: Recordkeeping in Society, Eric Ketelaar writes that racial classification facilitates control. Within the scope of “Jim Crow, Recontextualized, 1870-1930,” my presentation focuses on how Eastman Johnson’s genre paintings of formerly enslaved African Americans during the early 19th century helped to entrench the idea of white Americans’ superiority over people of color. Due to the beautifully executed works of formally trained artists like Johnson, the internalized idea of African Americans’ racial inferiority both subtly and overtly continues in the present day.

Johnson’s paintings, such as “Negro Life in the South” (1859) of enslaved people cavorting in their master’s backyard, gave the impression of his sensitivity to African Americans. Even though critics have viewed Johnson’s paintings as uplifting the humanity of 19th century African Americans, I seek to analyze how his depictions of African Americans in aspects of daily life gave credence to African Americans being relegated to a particular ‘place’ in society. As part of the Jim Crow visual imagery including racist stereotypes, cartoons, caricatures, and product advertisements that proliferated during the mid 1800s - early 1900s Johnson’s works benignly validated African Americans’ lower social status in an inferred position as “Other.”

Several works by Johnson will be used as part of the presentation including Negro Life in the South aka Old Kentucky Home (1859), A Ride for Liberty - Fugitive Slaves (ca. 1862), Fiddling His Way (1866), The Lord is My Shepherd (1863) and Dinah, Portrait of a Negress (ca. 1867).