(The Root) — This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. The durable medium of pottery preserves one of the most-intact surviving impressions of ancient Greek civilization. In addition to…

(The Root) — This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.One of the chief treasures of the National Museum of the Middle Ages, or the Musée de Cluny, in Paris…

(The Root) — This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. Within the plain, candlelit space of a large, open-raftered kitchen, a convivial gathering of…

(The Root) — This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. Situated on Boston’s Beacon Hill opposite the State House, the Shaw Memorial evokes a moving combination of intimacy of…

(The Root) — This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. One of the most typical, revealing products of colonial Spanish culture was the casta painting. This Iberian term…

(The Root) — This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.  In a scene scarcely imaginable if not for its all-too-common occurrence in reality, an incident of the 19th-century slave…

(The Root) — This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. Since his “rediscovery” by Stanley in 1871, David Livingstone, the legendary missionary, explorer and abolitionist, has remained one of…

(The Root) — This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. Depicted approximately life-size, a nearly naked young black man stands before a curving dirt…

(The Root) — This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. The history of black people in Spain forms a unique part of the diasporic…

(The Root) — This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. The art of the Italian Renaissance embraced a wondrously varied range of imagery and subjects. One of the most…