Art and Design Commons^™

Imitation Of Life, Tiquasha Hagood

Undergraduate Research Competition

"A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" is an iconic painting by French artist Georges Seurat that features a group of elegantly dressed Parisians spending a leisurely Sunday afternoon on the banks of the Seine. While the painting is widely celebrated for its technical brilliance, it is also notable for the way it reflects the social norms and cultural values of 19th-century France. One such norm was the objectification and exploitation of Black women's bodies, exemplified by the tragic story of Sarah Baartman, a South African woman who was paraded across Europe as a spectacle because of …