Kara Walker's Etching Analysis

[2] Five years after hooks’ published her essay, artist Kara Walker’s etching “Untitled (John Brown)” expands the essay’s ideas to apply to more mediums than simply cinema. Walker’s piece is a physical embodiment of the very skepticism hooks has theorized. The seemingly unfinished sketch is her take on the moment when radical white abolitionist John Brown is being led to his execution for leading the infamous Harper’s Ferry raid. A famous lithograph that was distributed throughout the nation during the early abolitionist movement was composed by Currier and Ives and illustrates Brown as a hero kissing a baby a grateful mother presents to him (Oh). Walker chooses instead to turn this idea on its head and imagines a powerless Brown clad in a …show more content…
To understand how she applies the oppositional gaze hooks describes, it is important to note the great significance her work places on the act of looking and from there note how this creates an interpretation that opposes the traditionally-accepted representation of its subject. The image itself appears to be occurring within a fisheye lens, a type of visual distortion that is commonly used to achieve a wider scope and array of angles of view, allowing for a variety of perspectives to be analyzed. One of importance is the gaze of the black woman depicted in the etching. Walker’s primary use of this artistic effect is to turn the audience’s attention to this character and by doing so, she is able to invert the power dynamic between the black female figure and the other characters in the image. While the original lithograph was an uplifting piece that honors the actions of Brown, Walker completely departs from this narrative. Upon viewing her piece, a viewer would at first focus on John Brown’s figure, but find him powerless, at the hand of his captors, but also by this domineering black female figure standing adjacent to him. The next perspective of importance is this woman’s and although her face is turned to look at Brown, she certainly exudes the calm in the midst of a storm that only one in control of such a situation could have. With this in mind, the power in this situation is taken from the white man by this black woman, who forces Brown to kiss the penis of the baby she places before him. The piece is filled with sexual imagery that demeans Brown from the child’s genitals to the almost erotic nature of his attire which is merely comprised of a girdle. Typically, the white male would be the one in the position of power, but this work shows a dominant female figure who disgraces him by forcing him to kiss the infant’s penis, an embodiment of this transfer of power. The