A Cheerful Outlook, by William M. Davis (1829–1920)

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Date

c. 1880

Description

Window broken and crudely repaired; slice of bone on windowsill at lower left; at top right quarter of window is a face looking out. This trompe l’oeil painting—a French phrase meaning “fool the eye”—showcases the artist’s skill while entertaining the viewer with the illusion of a lifelike experience. The young Black boy seen peering through the window belongs to a generation who was no longer facing the institution of slavery. However, the cracked windowpane and bare bone on the windowsill symbolize continuing struggles for Black New Yorkers; a $250 property requirement for voting, a burden not placed on white men, was upheld in statewide referenda in 1846, 1860, and 1869. Not until the 1870 passage of the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution was it law that the “right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” In practice, however, this began the Jim Crow era of finding other ways to disenfranchise Black citizens, such as New York’s 1874 constitutional amendment “excluding from the right of suffrage all persons convicted of bribery or of any infamous crime.”

Type

Image

Region

Long Island

Era

Civil War and Reconstruction

Topic

African Americans, Civil Rights, Community

Repository

Long Island Museum

Identifier

1976.017.0010

Source

Long Island Museum, Stony Brook, NY, Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Ward Melville, 1976

Rights

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