RULER, SAINT AND SERVANT: BLACKS IN EUROPEAN ART TO 1520

During the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance European artists created several thousand images of the dark-skinned peoples of Africa. Since these centuries saw the birth of modern Western attitudes toward black Africans, an investigation of such early representations is desirable and revealing. This study describes the varied range of black characters depicted in all media between about 1260 and 1520, and examines the relationship between these characters and the historical events of this period.;The gradual development of the black Magus/King from suggestive indications in Early Christian texts up to his universal acceptance in the visual arts by 1520 determines the study's structure. Particular chapters focus on the origins and later history of the motif of a black attendant to Magi who are as yet all white; the literary basis for the legend of the black Magus/King; the initial appearances of this character in fourteenth century Germany; and his spread throughout Europe in the fifteenth century. Other chapters treat pejorative imagery and depictions of black retainers as reflections of contemporary social practice. Much attention is also devoted to the critical role played by the Holy Roman emperors Frederick II and Charles IV in propagating images of pious blacks; and the legend of Prester John, that powerful but distant Christian ruler who was by the mid-fourteenth century identified with the Emperor of Ethiopia, is proposed as the most important model for the figure of the black Magus/King. Narrower issues concerning the transmission of iconographic motifs are considered in detail, but the study concentrates on the ways in which the position of blacks in Western society and geopolitical thought determined the nature of their portrayal in the arts.;Two types of representations are given special emphasis, because they are abundant and because they seem to have had the most profound effect on Western ideas: the black as one of the three Magi/Kings, and the black as servant or slave. The black Magus/King was an admired figure, while the servant or slave was usually the reverse; but an interdependence between these genres can nevertheless be observed. The consequent ambiguity of European attitudes toward blacks as expressed in art is a major theme of this study.