Answer to Question #234119 in History for Sedzani Ndou

Question

Look at “Source A” (see attached pdf instructions for the image), a portrait of the Haitian Revolutionary leader, and former slave, Toussaint Louverture painted by John Kay in 1805. Describe, with reference to at least two visual clues in the portrait, how the artist has represented the future ambitions of the black revolutionaries. What does the source tell us (or not tell us) about the historical context

Answer 1

There are numerous newly found contemporaneous portraits, but the many subsequent visual representations are just as important for understanding Louverture's afterlives. These include works by Kimathi Donkor, Edouard Duval-Carrié, and Ulrick Jean-Pierre, ranging from Cham's caricatures in Le Punch à Paris in 1850 to works by Kimathi Donkor, Edouard Duval-Carrié, and Ulrick Jean-Pierre that are much more contemporary. One of the most striking contributions is Jacob Lawrence's landmark The Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture, published in 1938 in the latter years of the Harlem Renaissance and in the aftermath of the US colonization of Haiti. The collection of 41 photographs demonstrates Haiti's continued worldwide influence on issues concerning African-American identity. Lawrence's painting is in dialogue with previous representations of the Haitian Revolutionary leader, some of which the artist examined at the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library (now the Schomberg Center). Lawrence's use of a comic-book aesthetic foreshadows modern representations of the Haitian Revolution and its leaders in comics like Adam Murphy's Corpse Talk, Guyanese artist Barrington Braithwaite's Drums of Freedom, and Rocky Cotard and Laurent Dubois' new graphic history. Louverture's rising prominence as a global revolutionary figure indicates that he is on his way to becoming the transcultural icon that only Che Guevara has achieved.