Prof. Wunsch Publishes Article on Pastel and Race in "Journal18"

Art History Professor Oliver Wunsch recently published an article in Journal18 on Rosalba Carriera's Four Continents. The article examines how and why the Venetian portraitist used the novel medium of pastel to define the skin color of allegorical figures representing Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Professor Wunsch explains how demand for novel surfaces and materials in the early eighteenth-century art market shaped the artistic construction of racial categories. He also demonstrates how artists exploited the art market’s growing emphasis on materiality to produce—and profit from—dermal distinctions not yet widespread in the broader European discourse on skin color.