The article The Cultural Politics of Worldmaking Practice: Kehinde Wiley's …show more content…
The piece Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps, 2005, is an appropriative work referencing J.L. David’s Napoleon Crossing the Alps,1801 -a classical equestrian portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte. Historically, a portrait composition favours representing the white body. Even on the rare occasion, the model was a person of colour, the aspects of the paintings continued to favour whiteness. Christian and European cultural iconography was still overwhelmingly apparent in these portraits, and the subjects were lit in ways that favoured the lighter complexion. When black bodies are included in portraits of white models, they are used as decorative objects; adornments to the main subject of the painting. They are condescendingly shown as status symbols of the slaveholders, rather than human beings. Consequently, always depicted in the background or to the side, never obscuring the white