Analyzing Racial Undertones in Mount's 'The Power of Music'

The Power of Music, is nearly gold in an oil on canvas form, created by William Sidney Mount in 1847. The painting is very intriguing, the time this was made greatly influences the potency of its message. Being painted in the 1840’s I associate this painting with the idea of very strong racism at the time, and it makes me question why is it that a white man painted this picture of a black man being the main focus of the picture because analyzing it well, it seems as if the emphasis goes on the black man, rather than the white people in what seems to be the foreground. Also, I noticed that the light is focused on the black man while the white men are in a much darker place which makes one question why it is that this painter chose to do this.

The point here is that this piece and this author were part of a racial revolution or reform in which music is empowered with the ability to join races together, despite their differences or past experiences with each other. The idea that there is a focus on the black man rather than the white folk must have created some sort of controversy in the life of William Sydney Mount because white people must have been upset with this concept, however, he created other pieces with similar attributes. His point is to incorporate black people with white people and instead of segregate, desegregate the white and black race. I saw this from the picture because the black man is included, although he has yet not interacted with the white people he is present, and he seems to have been reeled in by the beautiful sound of a sweet melody on the violin. That led to the thought that ties to the title of this work of art and that is that the power of music is greater than that of the people, that music may cause emotion that may overflow onto others such as how music outgrew the black man’s fear of being attacked by the white men or things of that nature. Or in his other works like Dance of the Haymaker the two races are almost unified in comparison to the relation sip they shared at that point in time because through music, or power the black child was able to have a good time with the white people, even though the child was outside, he was very able to enjoy the time with the white people through the music and dance that they had provided.
In The Creolization of American Culture: William Sidney Mount and the Roots of Blackface Minstrelsy, there is evidence that supports the idea of how Sidney Mount was strictly emphasizing on his idea about diversity in New York in the 19th century with focus in the different races and how they all came to be together.

Being that the United States in this century developed into a very diverse melting pot of races from all around the world and how they came together to develop o cultural revolution. During the Jacksonian era there was high inputs of immigration into the United States which “allowed for multiethnic groups to develop” (page 40). After there being several races there was always that racism present and showing them that Interaction should not be something that should be feared and this led to the revolutionary paintings from William Sidney Mount which typically depict diversity of cultures or races with an emphasis on music. Christopher J. Smith claims that through William Sidney Mount, blackface minstrelsy became what it came to be in the mid-19th century. So blackface minstrelsy was very common in the 19th century which was basically a form of entertainment through comic books, plays, or writings which consisted of white people dressing as black people to play their part because they were not allowed to be actors or write anything that they wanted. This is how Sidney’s work is interpreted, the people are not painted in order to spark the blackface minstrelsy he began to paint from different or unpopular perspectives of certain races, mostly people of color. After a few paintings the minstrelsy developed which could have been anything from walking cows and picking up cow manure, to mocking the African American race in order to seem like better people, or in order to have superiority over the black people. Although this was probably meant to mock the black race, it most likely had a positive impact in the aspect that it felt a bit more common to see

black people together with white people. Slowly then it became more and more normal. This was performed through the white man painting their bodies black, rather than just having black people being the actors because they would rather paint white men over having black people be actors. This then ties back to Mr. Sidney integrating black people in with whites which was the spark for social integration although the process was slow and perhaps not very positive at first, it was the initiative that set the whole idea into motion and it was the minstrel shows and other things that kept its momentum going.
Kevin Michael Scott in his scholarly work, “The ‘Negro Touch’ and the ‘Yankee Trick’: William Sidney Mount and the Art of Race and Ethnicity” also agrees with the idea that William Sidney Mount was the start of a revolution in race and/or culture. Kevin Michael states that “Mount’s popular works helped create the image of the Yankee” such as works like the The farmer Husking Corn from 1833. According to Scott, the farmer appears very proud which leads to the patriotic side of the Americans during the Jeffersonian era who were considering themselves the Yankees due to this proud image they portrayed about themselves, or really the way the William Sidney portrayed them which he states in pages 235- 236. There is also the idea that ties back how this is all a revolution in the racial sense because William Sidney Mount was very influential with his work and this led to “Yankeeism” in the United States in the 19th century. Mr. Mount was intentionally bringing power to his work not only by integrating races but by empowering others and or even creating new ones even if it was unintentional as we see was the result with this work of art above.