During the 1770s, Jeremias Schultz painted the portrait of a young black woman dressed in a beautiful silk gown. She is standing upright looking directly at the viewer while holding an orange blossom in her right hand as the orange tree is positioned behind her. On her left in the background is an obelisk situated in the distance. The arrangement and underlying impressions of this painting greatly portray the themes of the sublime, the romantic imagination, and the picturesque. Through the employment of these concepts, Schultz greatly defies the colonial structure and dominance surrounding black bodies within the time period the painting was produced. The existence of the portrait of a young African American woman painted as something other than a slave, functions within the sublime as it produces strong emotions of terror and challenges power dynamics. The blatant resistance to power brings to light the use of the imagination by looking beyond the limitlessness of the sublime as Schultz rebels against the popular image of the black woman. The outright beauty of the subject dressed in a silk gown objecting to the oppressive structures maintains the notion of the picturesque by looking beyond the smooth and towards the rough and rugged through refusing racial classifications of the black community. Schultz’s portrait is not just one of beauty but also a symbol and act of rebellion against the image of black bodies within the institution of slavery and the construction of society.
Keywords: Portrait, Racial Disparity, Power Dynamics, Sublime, Picturesque