Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds

This multidisciplinary volume chronicles the iconography of sugar, slavery, and the landscape of Jamaica from the beginning of British rule in 1655 to the aftermath of emancipation in the mid-nineteenth century. It provides new perspectives on art, music, religion, and performance in Jamaican society and highlights the role of artistic culture in the resistance mounted by the enslaved. Through its central figure, Jewish Jamaican artist Isaac Mendes Belisario (1795-1849), the book also offers new insight into the Jewish diaspora in the Caribbean.
At the book's core is Belisario's remarkable series of lithographs, Sketches of Character (1837- 38), the earliest visual representation of the Afro-Jamaican masquerade form Jonkonnu (or John Canoe).

Tim Barringer is Paul Mellon Professor of the History of Art, Yale University. Gillian Forrester is Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings, Yale Center for?British Art. Barbaro Martinez Ruiz is Assistant Professor of Art?and Art History, Stanford University.