CNN Style: Afro-Cuban artist reimagines Renaissance art with Black people at the center
CNN Style: Afro-Cuban artist reimagines Renaissance art with Black people at the center

Consider Michelangelo’s famous “Creation of Adam,” Sandro Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus” or Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” When you think of Western art’s grand visual narratives of humanity’s inception — and all its triumphs, beauty, tragedies and meaning — they likely look very White.

This is because, for centuries, the artistic traditions of the European Renaissance have been the authority of such themes. It was from the 15th to 16th century that “art came to be seen as a branch of knowledge,” according to Britannica, “valuable in its own right and capable of providing man with images of God and his creations as well as with insights into man’s position in the universe.”

But Afro-Cuban American artist Harmonia Rosales is among those seeking to radically change this centering of Western ideologies as standard. A selection of her work in this vein is currently on display in the exhibition “Harmonia Rosales: Master Narrative” at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in Atlanta. (A version of the exhibition was first shown last year at the AD&A Museum at the University of California, Santa-Barbara.)

To view the full story https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/17/style/harmonia-rosales-master-narrative-renaissance-exhibit/index.html