Abstract In 1800, between the first abolition of slavery by the French revolutionary government and its reinstatement in 1802, Marie-Guillemine Benoist exhibited a controversial painting known as Portrait d’une négresse (Portrait of a Negress). A rare example of a portrait focusing on a black woman, the painting has received two main interpretations: some art historians have hailed it as a humane, ennobling depiction of the sitter, while others have criticized its objectification of the black body. This article, by contrast, shows how the ambiguities of the portrait challenge the binary of subjecthood and objecthood that underpinned the enslavement of African subjects. Focusing on the treatment of the subject’s skin, it confronts Benoist’s painting with contemporary textual accounts of skin color and face, revealing how the opacity of the painting challenged the racialized and gendered codes through which bodies were imagined as indexes of subjectivity. The value of Benoist’s painting, however, is not limited to its past meanings ; its opacity has ongoing relevance for our own engagement with portraiture. Building on Édouard Glissant’s concept of opacity, I argue for an imaginative empathy beyond the desire fully to know or understand the other.

中文翻译：

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肖像，种族和主观性：玛丽·吉列明·贝诺伊斯特的肖像肖像

摘要1800年，在法国革命政府第一次废除奴隶制与1802年恢复奴隶制之间，玛丽·吉里明·贝诺斯（Marie-Guillemine Benoist）展出了一幅颇具争议的画作，即《肖像女肖像》。这幅画作是针对黑人妇女的肖像的罕见例子，该画作有两种主要解释：一些艺术史学家称赞它是人道的，使人无法描绘保姆，而另一些人则批评它对黑人的客观化。相比之下，本文显示肖像的模糊性如何挑战主观和客观的二元性，后者是奴役非洲主体的基础。专注于治疗对象的皮肤，它以当代关于皮肤颜色和脸部的文字描述与Benoist的绘画对峙，揭示了绘画的不透明度如何挑战种族和性别代码，通过这些代码将身体想象为主观性的指标。但是，贝诺主义的绘画的价值并不仅限于其过去的意义。它的不透明性与我们对肖像的参与具有持续的相关性。在爱德华·格里桑（ÉdouardGlissant）的不透明性概念的基础上，我主张富有想象力的同情心，超越了完全了解或理解对方的渴望。