Posted on 03/18/2024 5:51:25 AM PDT by Red Badger
IMAGE: Alex Tabarrok/X
Imply ‘only those with a historical tie to the land have a right to belong’
A British museum owned by the University of Cambridge recently “overhauled” its displays with “new signage,” one of which states paintings of the British countryside can conjure up sinister “nationalist feelings.”
According to The Telegraph, the Fitzwilliam Museum underwent a “refurbishment” over the last half-decade with “an emphasis on reflecting the ‘evolution of its collection.’”
The museum reopened last week with galleries based on themes rather than chronology. A sign for the new “Nature” gallery reads
Landscape paintings were also always entangled with national identity.
The countryside was seen as a direct link to the past, and therefore a true reflection of the essence of a nation.
Paintings showing rolling English hills or lush French fields reinforced loyalty and pride towards a homeland.
The work “Hampstead Heath” by John Constable (pictured) has more: The “dark side” of its alleged nationalism carries the “implication that only those with a historical tie to the land have a right to belong.”
According to the report, signage for such images comes not long after the group Wildlife and Countryside Link complained to legislators that the British countryside is viewed “as a ‘racist colonial white space.”
Fitzwilliam Director Luke Syson said signage for images like Constable’s “suggest some new ways of looking, without insisting on them.” He scoffed at the notion the museum was becoming “woke.”
“Being inclusive and representative shouldn’t be controversial; it should be enriching,” Syson said. “I would love to think that there’s a way of telling these larger, more inclusive histories that doesn’t feel as if it requires a pushback from those who try to suggest that any interest at all in work by women artists or artists of colour – or subject matter that takes us into the world of LBGT culture – is being ‘radical chic’ or what would now be called ‘woke.’”
From the story:
A sign for the new Identity gallery informs visitors that portraits of uniformed and wealthy sitters “became vital tools in reinforcing the social order of a white ruling class, leaving very little room for representations of people of colour, the working classes or other marginalised people”.
It adds that “portraits were often entangled, in complex ways, with British imperialism and the institution of transatlantic slavery”.
Paintings in this space include Joseph Wright’s (1734-97) portrait of Richard FitzWilliam, who bequeathed £100,000 to fund what is now the Fitzwilliam Museum.
Labelling for the portrait points out that FitzWilliam’s wealth “came from his grandfather, Sir Matthew Decker, who had amassed it in part through the transatlantic trade of enslaved African people”.
The gallery also displays paintings intended to broaden representation with works by John Singer Sargent, the subject of “speculation he led a secret, queer life”, and works by artists in the Jewish diaspora, and a modern work by Joy Labinjo, the British-Nigerian artist.
Sharon Heal, director of the London-based Museums Association, noted last year her organization had “doubled down on […] efforts to support the wider sector to address the legacy of empire, including racism, in museums.”
Her group dedicated £20,000 (about $25,500) to anti-racism initiatives and made “decolonisation” a “central plank” of its Code of Ethics.
And just FYI...I wouldn’t have minded going mattress shopping with Carol Cleveland back then. And I wouldn’t have minded telling her there was trouble at the mill either.
> The Left is an ideology of softness, weakness, and pity as opposed to any ideologies based on strength, achievement, and hard work. <
I’d add moral cowardice to that list.
Here’s what I mean. Conservatives will usually speak up when they see one of their own doing something wrong. A good example of this is the conservative opposition to Bush II’s invasion of Iraq. There were many complaints about that invasion here. And those complaints continue to this day.
But liberals rarely speak up when one of their own does something wrong. In many cases it’s a form of cowardice. A good example of this is allowing biological men into women’s locker rooms. That’s just wrong, and most liberals have got to know it.
But they stay silent, out of fear of being called names. Bigot, hater, whatever.
TWICE!
I absolutely can not wait for the day when these people are driving at gunpoint into the howling wilderness with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
L
The left, instead of heading his warning used it as an instruction manual.
That's when the communists (CPUSA) realized that they had to court American blacks.
And the rest is history (as they say).;-)
But all of these dogs allear to be “cis” straight, maybe a problem?
Face it...EVERYTHING is racist in CCW (Current Clown World). There are no exceptions. These leftist lunatics know no bounds.
Yep. And sexual perversion. In fact, you can add all kinds of character defects.
But then American blacks started getting too wealthy and educated, so the powers that be had to start IMPORTING POOR DISAFFECTED PEOPLE by the millions................
I grew up in the exurbs, but the "footprint" of metro areas keeps growing and eventually engulfs the old exurbs.
I recently visited a friend who still lives near where I grew up, and I was shocked to see the local McDonalds's menu where I grew up now has "hamburguesas".
Methinks all immigration (legal and illegal) has to stop for at least 50 years.
We grew from a nation of 150 million in the 1950s to 200 million in the 1970s, to over 330 million today.
We now have the third largest population after China and India, and there is no end in site to our exponential population growth.
If we don't put a stop to this now, you will soon have to learn Spanish, Chinese, or Hindi in order to be able to speak to your neighbors.
But! "The First Peoples had an historical tie to the lands and we stole them from them so need to return it to them to right this historical wrong!" (My summary of general leftist arguments regarding the "original peoples." This is not true on many levels, but representative of Woke Schizophrenia in action.
He predicted even more than what people think:
Two-way television that watches you just as you watch it.
Cameras everywhere, on every street, in every building, in every hallway, even in the forests.
The ‘SPEAKWRITE’ machine.
MASS ENTERTAINMENT becoming the center of people’s lives.
A continuous state of war going on somewhere.
NEWSPEAK where words are re-defined or outright eliminated due to their being declared obscene.
[They have always hated “the rustic folk” ...]
Someone needs to explain to them what the Sickle in “Hammer and Sickle” stands for.
They ought to replace those paintings with paintings of country side outhouses and then they could pontificate on which pronouns people should use when referring to the turds residing therein.
Yes, I've posted similar sentiments here before. I don't get it. They fought the Nazis and many other invaders to protect their island, yet gave it away on a silver platter to muzzlime scum and woke morons.
Indeed!
Stalin and Mao had a solution for this.
It’s time for the whole western world to go full Pinochet.
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