Negrophilia

rdf:langString Negrophilia

rdf:langString T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting

rdf:langString Negrophilia was never really about the Negro but about France, its needs, its wants and desires.

rdf:langString The word negrophilia is derived from the French négrophilie that means love of the negro. It was a term that avant-garde artists used amongst themselves to describe their fetishization of Black culture. Its origins were concurrent with art movements such as surrealism and Dadaism in the late nineteenth century. Sources of inspiration were inanimate African art objects (l'art nègre) such as masks and wooden carvings that found their way into Paris's flea markets and galleries alike (products of France's colonial exploitation), which inspired artworks such as Picasso's Les Demoiselles d' Avignon that found their way into Paris as a result of colonial looting of Africa as well as live performances by Black people, many of whom were ex-soldiers remaining in European cities after World War I, who had no choice but to entertain as a source of income. Equally of interest to avant-garde creators were live arts such as dance, music and theatrical performances by Black artists, as evidenced by the popularity of comic artist Chocolat and the musical review Les Heureux Nègres (1902).