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Welcome to Dr. Lutz Presser's Pictures Gallery |
Tracing Euro-American modernism, post-modernism and post-colonial image making in South East Asian art 1930s to 1990s:
The Image of Women in The Shanghai Posters
Western theories of racism attained proper "scientific" status in the 19th and 20th centuries in the guise of medicine, psychiatry, eugenics, anthropology, demography and so forth. They stand in direct continuity with the theories that categorise non human animals into species, and living beings into humans, animals, and plants--categories modelled on the paradigms of the natural sciences. These included attempts to establish classifications of "kinds" of people based on "typical" data--be it measurements of bodies and body parts, genetic data, or behavioural features.
In The Descent of Man (1871), Charles Darwin unhesitatingly accepted the notion of the natural inferiority of woman compared to man, applying and elaborating on his theories of evolution and devolution expounded in his Origin of the Species (1859). Underpinning the theories of late 19th century scientists such as Darwin, Carl Vogt and Cesare Lombroso was the idealisation of a supremely evolved white male and the concomitant assumption that all others were "degenerate". The theory of evolution became an all inclusive concept used to justify any and all forms of personal and social aggression upon the constitutionally weak, culturally disadvantaged, and economically oppressed. Their theories are in part an elaboration of ancient "Physiognomies", i.e., texts propounding that every feature betokens something. Magnanimity, for example, is indicated by thick hair, erect posture, robust frame, and a broad, flat abdomen; signs of timidity are soft hair, a rounded body, thin calves, pale face and weak blinking eyes. 1
Comparisons between animal and human features generated bizarre interpretations such as the belief that because cattle are seen to be slow and lazy, have thick noses and large eyes, that men with a thick nose and large eyes must also be slow and lazy. It was believed that the analogy of animal features betrayed the same nature in man. Men who had an aquiline nose were believed to be magnanimous, cruel, and rapacious as an eagle. Those whose heads resembled that of a Spanish breed of dog were believed to be quick to anger and great talkers. (Fig. 1). <<<Back More>>>
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