MS01.01.03.B01.F25.053

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as picturesque creatures who loved music, fun and dance and
regarded their own state of life as being a part of God's will.
This notion they leared through the teaching of Christian
principles.

In the mid 19th century there developed a sentimental attitude
among genre painters who even saw poverty and the deprived conditions
under which most Blacks lived as a picturesque theme
worthy of the pen of a gentleman but not one which spoke of the
illness of the prevailing social order. Such attitude about black
life prevailed among majority culture artists of all media; writers,
filmmakers, radio and popular media, including visual artists
until the mid 20th century. It is only in recent years that one
notes a drastic change among mainstream visual artists in their
portrayal of a more positive treatment of the Black image in
American art. ^17^