oh noooo, a painting or presentation about a historical figure is cropped to focus on the historical figure...

asymmetricsolutions:

medievalpoc: addleton: medievalpoc: orthyog: I get why people want to see images that focus on who the text is about, but seriously (and this is going to sound terrible because of my ignorance beforehand), I had no idea that Japanese people set foot in Rome during medieval times before I saw this post. That is how much context was lost by the cropping of that image. And for fuck’s sake, it’s not like educators can’t show a 2nd damn slide with the whole image. And I’m not even the one who bolded the above, for a change. :) Also, exactly. As others have mentioned (including myself in the op), these are all “historical figures”. Which figures are chosen to represent different things in different lecture materials, handouts, and PowerPoints are important, because the strongly influence our ideas of what a “default” person of a particular area, time period, or event looked like. Say you’re in a Western Civ class, and your prof gives a quick rundown on Rubens. What do you think you’ll see at the header of the slide as a “typical” Rubens? (both are cropped) This? or This? What about Rubens’ studies? Which one is “Study: Head of a Woman”? (full images) This? or This? All four are in fact, pretty typical of Rubens’ work. I just wonder what kind of discussion would happen in the classroom depending on which image was used. All of this. Also, just thought I’d add that Japanese envoys made it all the way to Spain, and some of the members stayed behind, starting their own families there. Wikipedia says that there’s still around 700 people with the surname Japón, which identifies them as descendents of the Japanese envoys that stayed behind. Though this was in the Late Renaissance, I think it’s still worth mentioning, especially since Japan is associated so strongly with being insular. There was a time when Japan was much more open to worldwide relationships, and Japan reached far and wide in seeking out those relationships. LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE JUST SPILLED AWESOMESAUCE ALL OVER THIS POST WOWWWWWW!!!!!! “And for fuck’s sake, it’s not like educators can’t show a 2nd damn slide with the whole image.” -In all seriousness, if you’re doing it correctly, no you really can’t. If I’m doing a presentation, I need NEED to focus on the aspects that are strictly important to the actual point I want you to know. If I want you to know that “Oh, so, he kinda looked like this now moving on” then I don’t have any reason to actually show you the entire image. Or say I wanted to talk about Pope Alexander II. If I crop a painting to just his head, yes you miss out on some context, but that’s not even remotely the point I was making. The point I was making was that he’s a huge asshole who shat on the name of the Church (personal opinion) and here’s a bulletpoint list of why. Now, IT IS TRUE that if you’re in Western Civ and the rundown is done with the cropping, then it can be misleading, but this is only in the context of somehow trying to use brief blurbs of an art in order to illustrate an extremely important artist’s work and demonstrate to a class of mostly-uninterested high schoolers that such and such was probably mostly important. THAT is an example TEACHING BADLY. You have done your job POORLY as an instructor if you think that a blurb about an artist actually teaches people anything whatsoever. The fundamental error is NOT in the fact that skewing of modern attitudes towards the past can occur, but rather that someone somewhere believes that somehow an entire artist’s or historical figure’s body of accomplishments may be summarized in a cropped painting that probably is biased all to hell anyway. So in summary, the problem being focused on is an extremely serious effect of the even more serious problem. This is: instructors are teaching poorly and not thinking about what they’re making their students believe and understand when they give their presentations. Edit: So, midievalpoc is an Art History Blog. That changes things somewhat, and makes my post rather out of context. When we examine the problem from the point of view of Art History, then I’ll also add this: Cropping images, at all, will fundamentally misrepresent a work at all possible non-superficial levels. That is all.

There’s a bit of confusion here because what you’re saying isn’t exceptionally clear, but it seems to me that you’re saying that the use of cropped images is justified in the case of teaching “uninterested high schoolers” or even a college class about, say Elizabeth Maitland Murray, who was quite the woman in her own right

And in fact, probably makes it into LOT OF WOMEN’S HISTORY courses, since she definitely defied patriarchal constructs of White femininity, but you’re more likely to see the image above, because of course we’re focusing on HER, because we have decided that SHE is “important”….but she also very much ascribed to the fashion of having yuor portrait done with a submissive-looking Black servant or enslaved Black person crouching nearby to anticipate your every whim:

The fundamental problem IS, in fact, that we are presenting the historical figures that have been decided are “important” in certain light, in a more flattering light

In the same kind of light that the Tea Party wants us to portray the “Founding Fathers” in, which is to say, the omission of the fact that they owned slaves and in many cases, supported the institution of chattel slavery because that was the source of their wealth and influence.

This is how people go through high school, college, and even grad school and never, ever have to question their ASSUMPTION THAT EVERYONE IN HISTORY WHO WAS “IMPORTANT” WAS WHITE. To the point where they think that every person of color throughout the entirety of history were slaves.

That is how you end up with these young people who genuinely, completely believe the following:

medievalpoc: *slaps forehead* OMG YOU’RE RIGHT We totally can learn much more about History and Art History from this: Than we can from this: [x] I mean, what about this guy???? He’s totally from history!!! But actually this work is about revolutionizing military painting because this is The Surrender of Breda by Diego Velasquez Or, let’s talk about Luis Sotelo the Franciscan Monk! Did you know he traveled literally around the world??? He’s so great! So learned! Just look at him from this painting held in the Vatican!!!!!! But hey let’s NOT talk about the only reason he ever went anywhere, which was because he was accompanied by Hasekura Tsunenaga and his retinue, who were secret Japanese ambassadors to the Pope in Rome, which is where and why they were painted at all: Are we getting any clearer yet? do people realize if they included poc in frozen, they would most likely have to be slaves it’s the same issue with brave, it’s not historically accurate sorry […..] see i never learned any of this but yknow i don’t think anyone does at this point but yeah you get my point i was always taught poc were slaves at any given time before the 1850s yknow

THAT IS A REAL QUOTE FROM A REAL YOUNG PERSON WHO WAS TAUGHT THIS.

Regardless of intent, what comes out at the other end of the education-factory is a massive amount of young people of color with low self esteem and no sense of pride in their history, and a whole gaggle of young white people who feel entitled to tell people of color they shouldn’t expect to see themselves in media, because it’s “not historically accurate”.

In your post, you use the word “important” quite a lot. What I’m saying is that our ideas of WHAT and WHO are and are not “important” have been shaped by our experiences, our education, and what we know about our history.

For example, the keywords for Venus Labor at the Bridgeman Art Library are as follows:

So apparently, unless you’re teaching a class specifically on those subjects, this isn’t an “important” painting to see?

And even then, is this going to be your “go-to” image?

And so, these paintings gather dust, because they’re not “important” and the only place they might even be used are in theme-specific classes, or relegated to various grad school level esoteric specialization type classes that the majority of people in America will never, ever take.

This is exactly HOW these works of art end up unseen, uncared for and uncared about, unanalyzed and generally forgotten.

They do not fit into the dichotomy that has been created of “History” and “Other History”. There is honestly an enormous gap there into which many of the artworks and articles I post here fall.

The problem here is massive; it can’t be borne entirely by any individual educator; it is a systematic problem. But for each educator who find a way to be more inclusive, to change their language choices, to try and give a complete picture and find ways of engaging young minds with something they haven’t seen and contradicts what they have come to expect, a change occurs in the system.

My hope is that with the wealth of research and materials I’ve gathered here, and the degree to which I have tried to make them as accessible as possible, we can create a more complete and accurate way to educate people, with or without the system and the institution.