Decolonization: the power of the painted image (Part I)

"Iconographies and precise references to masterpieces of European art can today be found within globalized creations, by authors who (also) incorporate other continents’ visual and symbolic cultures. In this way some European ‘iconic’ works end up providing the plot for an encounter/clash between significant contexts which are profoundly different, giving life to alienating yet familiar images. If the citation of a painting that is accredited in Western Art History attracts a large audience, the sedimentation within it of ‘other’ traditions often remains obscured; the painting becomes the victim of a lack of curiosity, the unfortunate inheritance of contemporary visual education. Restrained by European artistic standards or, in any case, prisoner of a separation between cultures (now completely outdated), the eye is unable to ‘see’ beyond what it already knows.A different perspective must emerge, restoring value and equal interest to the multilateral symbolic and iconographic structures that such works propose, applying a method of ‘iconological investigation’ not only to the analysis of the modules of Western origin, but also to those of ‘other’ origins. In this vein, the present work analyses the reinterpretations of two works by Sandro Botticelli created in recent years by Harmonia Rosales (American with Afro-Cuban roots) [...]. It aims to be an experiment in critical decolonization of the gaze."