Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance review
Fitzwilliam Museum exhibition features lives affected by the Atlantic slave trade
In recent years, we have begun to appreciate the extent to which Britain's wealth as a mercantile power was "predicated on the centuries-old rapacious plunder of millions of African people", said Colin Grant in The Guardian. Indeed, "charged traces" of slavery can be found throughout the land: "in fine art and botanical gardens, and in stately homes and museums".
One such is Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum, founded in 1816 by Richard Fitzwilliam, whose fortune derived in part from the Atlantic slave trade. The museum's new exhibition is a "bold" attempt to tackle this legacy head-on, gathering together 120 objects with connections to slavery, from collections in Cambridge and beyond, including paintings, sculptures and artefacts. Highlights include "Portrait of an African Man" (c.1525-1530) by Jan Mostaert, thought to be the earliest portrait of a black person in European art, and an "elegant" English 18th century portrait of an unknown man. It's an "innovative" exhibition that explores how "racial enslavement became normalised" in northern Europe. Frans Post's bucolic "A Sugar Mill" (1650), for instance, renders a Dutch slave plantation "idyllic" and "harmonious".
Around 12 million Africans were enslaved by the Atlantic trade, said Tomiwa Owolade in The Times. The exhibition features many fascinating "portals" to the "largely obscure" lives of those affected. You can see the gold weights once used by the Akan people of west Africa to measure their currency; and wooden sculptures illustrating the "customs and cultures" of Caribbean communities. More "striking" still are paintings of various Dutch masters collected by the family of the Fitzwilliam's founders, notably Dirk Valkenburg's "vivid, textured" depiction of enslaved men, women and children at a "ritual slave party" in 18th century Suriname. Unfortunately, however, the show frequently undermines its successes with a "jarring didacticism" over issues of race and empire. As a result, it often feels more like a lecture, and less like an art exhibition.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The show is "impeccably researched" and "well intentioned", said Alastair Sooke in The Daily Telegraph. But you frequently wonder what certain exhibits are doing here. The inclusion of a portrait produced by Rembrandt's studio, depicting a man wearing a breastplate, is justified by the fact that the wooden boards on which it was painted "came from a Dutch colony in Brazil". Elsewhere, a pair of "tortoiseshell tongs" used to "pick up lumps of sugar" makes the cut on account of that commodity's "murderous" connotations.
Slavery was of course "abhorrent", and it is "important to acknowledge past wrongs". Yet exhibitions focusing on the slave trade have almost become a "default mode for our museums and galleries". Consequently, this show is rather less daring, and rather less interesting, than it wants to be.
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (01223-332900; fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk). Until 7 January 2024
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Octopuses could be the next big species after humans
UNDER THE RADAR What has eight arms, a beaked mouth, and is poised to take over the planet when we're all gone?
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Sudoku medium: December 23, 2024
The Week's daily medium sudoku puzzle
By The Week Staff Published
-
Crossword: December 23, 2024
The Week's daily crossword
By The Week Staff Published
-
10 concert tours to see this winter
The Week Recommends Keep warm traveling the United States — and the world — to see these concerts
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
Alan Cumming's 6 favorite works with resilient characters
Feature The award-winning stage and screen actor recommends works by Douglas Stuart, Alasdair Gray, and more
By The Week US Published
-
6 historical homes in Greek Revival style
Feature Featuring a participant in Azalea Festival Garden Tour in North Carolina and a home listed on the National Register of Historic Places in New York
By The Week Staff Published
-
10 upcoming albums to stream in the frosty winter
The Week Recommends Stay warm and curled up with a selection of new music from Snoop Dogg, Ringo Starr, Tate McRae and more
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
The best books about money and business
The Week Recommends Featuring works by Michael Morris, Alan Edwards, Andrew Leigh and others.
By The Week UK Published
-
A motorbike ride in the mountains of Vietnam
The Week Recommends The landscapes of Hà Giang are incredibly varied but breathtaking
By The Week UK Published
-
Nightbitch: Amy Adams satire is 'less wild' than it sounds
Talking Point Character of Mother starts turning into a dog in dark comedy
By The Week UK Published
-
Electric Dreams: a 'nerd's nirvana' at Tate Modern
The Week Recommends 'Poignant' show explores 20th-century art's relationship with technology
By The Week UK Published