Mulatto PaintingThe caption in the upper left-hand corner of this mid-eighteenth-century painting identifies the family as being composed of a Spanish father and a black mother, whose child is described as “mulatto.” The painting was number six in a series of sixteen images by the painter Jose de Alcibar, each showing a different racial and ethnic combination. The series belonged to a popular genre in the Spanish Americas known as castas paintings, which commonly depicted sixteen different forms of racial mixing. (Francisco Clapera, De Espanol, y Negra, Mulato, c. 1785. Denver Art Museum Collection. Gift of Frederick and Jan Mayer, 2011.428.4. © Denver Art Museum.)> PICTURING THE PASTANALYZING THE IMAGE: How would you characterize the relations among mother, father, and child as shown in this painting? Does the painter suggest power relations within the family? What attitude does the painter seem to have toward the family?
CONNECTIONS: Why do you think such paintings were so popular? Who do you think the audience might have been, and why would viewers be fascinated by such images?