Interracial relationships in the 15th century
For years I have been looking at paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. His paintings act upon my mind like a catalyst.
This guy must have been a true freethinker without fear.
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Shakespeare wrote a whole play around the subject "Othello" based on "A Moorish Captain" by Cinthio, published in 1565.
Outside of religious communities interracial relations and even marriage were rare but not really frowned upon.
It makes me laugh to see for example the queen of Sheba played on screen by Gina Lollobrigida, who went to great pain to explain how the Ethiopian queen MIGHT have been white but was none the less unable to excuse her being Italian.
(To be fair a black actress Vivica A. Fox finally did get to play Sheba in 1997)
LenHazell53
Level 9
June 15, 2019
2
Thanks for sharing the painting.
Interracial relationships been around for much longer and also been around in the UK Royal family.
Queen Sophie Charlotte and King Charles Stuart II. They tried to portray Queen Charlotte as white everytime they made another painting. There's an original painting in Buckingham Palace of Queen Charlotte where she's dark
<a href="https://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-egyptian-hercules/king-charles-stuart-ii-king-of-england-aka-the-black-boy/comment-page-4/#comments" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="forumlink">[africaresource.com]
TimeOutForMe
Level 8
June 15, 2019
1
@linxminx
Costume history. Very interesting. Indiana in India wore see-through skirts and high heels about 1000years ago. Yet as we all know about writers writing to suit themselves - they traced fashionable high heels to Europe about 450 year's ago.
Perhaps for another lesson.
The truth has a way of surfacing.
We see it everyday in South Africa. How writer's here too write books to favour one race and discard the other.
They also used hand mirrors to apply make-up
Uhh well of cause there are reasons for so many things
khristopher612
Level 1
June 15, 2019
0
I've always assumed booze or narcotics played some role in his artistic vision.
Sgt_Spanky
Level 8
June 15, 2019
3
This is a snippet from "The Garden of Earthly Delights". If you've never seen the whole thing, you should Google it, and give it a good look. I don't know if he was a free thinker, or else he'd just had some really bad acid trips, but this guy was a nightmare!
Fit50something
Level 7
June 15, 2019
2
It is quite amazing that Hieronymus Bosch included erotic contacts between people of different races. During his lifetime the encounter with people from different "races" must still have been a rare event.
PontifexMarximus
Level 8
June 14, 2019
3
The Netherlands were one of the greatest seafaring nations and were involved in the slave trade so there would have been many African slaves around during his lifetime so I don't see why his depiction of black people is so unusual .
I don't know who sponsored him as a painter but most were sponsored by the church so they were a bit limited in their subject matter.
@Moravian I know he was from a family of painters and he married a rich wife. He apparently kept no notes or journals, so much of his life is a mystery. I had to study him in a college art history course. But I think some religious brotherhood he belonged to was indeed among his first commissions.
This all made me think of Elton John's Captain Fantastic album art which was influenced heavily by old Bosch....
@Freespirit64 A wealthy spouse is very useful if you are a painter. I haven't seen the Elton John album cover before but I have an early Cream album with a hieyeronemus Bosch painting on the cover.
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