BIROn - Birkbeck Institutional Research Online

    Swollen detail, or what a vessel might give: Agostino Brunias and the visual and material culture of colonial Dominica

    Thomas, Sarah (2022) Swollen detail, or what a vessel might give: Agostino Brunias and the visual and material culture of colonial Dominica. Atlantic Studies 19 (1), pp. 60-85. ISSN 1478-8810.

    [img]
    Preview
    Text
    47913.pdf - Published Version of Record
    Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.

    Download (7MB) | Preview

    Abstract

    This essay asks how colonial visual imagery might be interrogated alongside material culture in order to recover some knowledge of the quotidian lives of the enslaved. It encourages viewing that focuses on the material traces hitherto neglected by scholars: vessels for carrying fresh water. If archaeologists have focused on the tangible remains of pots, we suggest ways in which artistic representation might also offer insights into everyday living. Detail has become a recurrent theme in Art History precisely because it offers a methodology which allows the humble things of the everyday to become the focus of attention. Here we explore attention to detail as a way of thinking anew about colonial visual culture, focussing on the work of professional artist Agostino Brunias, a long-term resident of Dominica.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Historical Studies
    Research Centres and Institutes: Museum Cultures, Centre for
    Depositing User: Sarah Thomas
    Date Deposited: 16 May 2022 12:53
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 18:16
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/47913

    Statistics

    Activity Overview
    6 month trend
    122Downloads
    6 month trend
    96Hits

    Additional statistics are available via IRStats2.

    Archive Staff Only (login required)

    Edit/View Item Edit/View Item