Not Black And White: Seeing And Naming Africans In Greek Art

Not Black And White: Seeing And Naming Africans In Greek Art

AIA Society: Nashville
Lecturer: S. Rebecca Martin

How do we know when we are looking at images of Africans in Greek art? And how can we talk productively about what Greeks saw in these images? Neither question has a straightforward answer thanks to the conventions used by Greek artists and the conflicting expectations of ancient and modern people about the representation of “race”. In this lecture, I consider the increasingly popular subject of the representation of Africans in the ancient Mediterranean by focusing on the Greek visual evidence, especially vase paintings of Aithiopians. I first explore the somatic approach used by Frank M. Snowden, Jr. While his influential work is only sometimes useful for identifying Africans in Greek art, it is revealing of the ideological frameworks Americans bring to the subject. I then offer observations about how current scholars employ terms such as “Negro”, “Black”, and “African” (or “Black African”) to describe painted and plastic imagery. I conclude by sharing some alternative approaches for seeing and naming Africans in Greek art.

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