''Dressing for the Carnival'' is an 1877 painting by the American painter, printmaker and illustrator

Winslow Homer Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in ...

. Homer painted African Americans, completely avoiding the stereotypes with which their collective image had been flooded during the period of

Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...

after the American

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

. The 1870s and 1880s produced innumerable images of African Americans at carnival time, mindless, jolly, condescending. But Homer's Dressing for the Carnival is unlike all of them: a deeply nuanced and, in the end, tragic scene of preparation for festivity. A group of people is preparing for the African-American festival known in the South as

Jonkonnu Junkanoo is a street parade with music, dance, and costumes with origin in many islands across the English-speaking world, English speaking West Indies, Caribbean every Boxing Day (26 December) and New Year's Day (1 January). These cultural par ...

and in the North as

Pinkster Pinkster is a spring festival, taking place in late May or early June. The name is a variation of the Dutch word ''Pinksteren'', meaning "Pentecost". ''Pinkster'' in English almost always refers to the festivals held by African Americans (both free ...

. It entailed the costuming of a Harlequin-like figure or Lord of Misrule, and this Homer depicts: a man caparisoned in bright, tatterdemalion clothes, yellow, red, and blue, with a liberty cap on his head. Two women are sewing them on him. The one on the right extends her arm, pulling the long thread right through, in a gesture of compelling and somber gravity; she is a classical Fate, seen below the Mason-Dixon line. Next to her, but apart from her, gazing at the vesting ceremony with wonder, are some children, one of whom holds a Stars and Stripes (for by Reconstruction, the rituals of the Fourth of July had been overlaid on those of Jonkonnu). Homer makes us sense how far the hopes of emancipation still are from the realities of black life in the South.Robert Hughes, American Visions, The Epic History of Art in America, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2006

References

{{Winslow Homer 1877 paintings Paintings by Winslow Homer Paintings in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Paintings of children Black people in art