I Find This Painting Extremely Depressing And This Is Why.
This is a Brazilian painting called The Redemption Of Cain, there are four people in the composition, there is a family with a baby sitting down and there is an older black lady standing over them her hands raised to the heavens in a prayerful stance.
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As a piece of art it is visually pleasing and well painted, the visuals of the painting are quite serene, it induces a smile on the face of the observer as it tells a story of the pleasant placid serenity of a happy family.
However, underneath that placid serenity beautifully depicted by the artist lays an unpleasant, soul destroying, deeply depressing tale.
Black people in Brazil and most of south America were severely restricted in their life opportunities, they are largely restricted to three main opportunities; sports, art (singing dancing performing) or domestics (house help), this had been the case for centuries and generations and the result of this has created psychological impact on a certain type of black south American mindset which has in turn led that mindset to identify the colour of their skin as the main burden of their life.
The black lady in this painting is of that mindset.
Having identified their blackness as their greatest burden, this mindset sets out to breed the black out of their bloodline so that future generations would not have to "suffer" this burden.
The old black lady to the left of the painting is the mother of the young lady at the centre of painting, the man to the right is the husband of the young lady and the child is their child.
When she was younger, the black lady set about the task of breeding the black out of her bloodline, to that end, she married / had a child with a white guy, that child is the mixed race young lady in the painting, when she grew up, the mixed race lady marries a Portuguese settler, they had a child together, the child in the painting. The child in the painting is either quarter-caste or full white; it is difficult to tell from the painting, either way, job done.
As she looks to the heavens in exaltation, the elderly black lady is thankful that her prayers have been answered.
She has succeeded in breeding the black out of her bloodline within 3 generations
and that is why i find this painting so depressing.
just fantastic
thanks for the comment and the upvote! :)
You got a 11.82% upvote from @votebuster courtesy of @cryptogrind!
Vow such a racist painting. On a lighter note, the mother of the child resembles Obama a lot, doesn't she?
ll ... i suppose .... thanks for your upvote! :)
Lol, so true
Wow this is a very interesting background story to this painting. It’s amazing how it can be looked at and opinions form but by knowing the story behind it completely changes the thought patterns.
I love your reasoning for finding this depressing. Your take on it really makes the painting come to life even though it doesn’t muster feelings of joy. Thank you so much for this post. Now every time I look at a painting or work of art I will take a deeper look at the context and story behind it.
thanks for your comment, it mirrors almost exactly the same explanation that i was giving someone else - thanks for the upvote and feel free to resteem if you like! lol :)
wow i never knew all this
The irony is that Grandma's genes have not gone anywhere and most of them may be expressed in her great-grandchild. I just see the idiocy in the concept of race. Human genetics is far from simple, check out the following article:
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306312715610217
true words my friend, but you have to set it within the context of the time, at that time they simply saw no way out
Really depressing
@cryptogrind thank you appeal to @sportic. Your post will see more than 7K of my followers
I did like it XD
It actually depressing sewing this (as I'm black) but since that was years back I understand why she had to do that but things have improved,I'm that's a little happiness there.
thanks for the upvote! :)