Hidden in Plain Sight.(Bonnie Greer)(Brief Article)(Interview)

When playwright and author Bonnie Greer first discovered the famous painting "Portrait d'une Negresse" by Marie Benoist, she was shocked that such a striking image of liberty and nobility had been created at the beginning of the 19th century, when most blacks in Europe were enslaved. The work inspired a decadelong search for representations of black people in European art, which were more plentiful than most people realized. (Already, by the 18th century--the first time anyone attempted to get an accurate count--as many as 250,000 people of African descent were living in Europe.) Greer traveled from Poland to Portugal to explore this rich and obscure vein of history, one which has profound implications for the way Europe sees itself, its art, faith and history. Her quest was made into a BBC documentary that runs this week. Greer, who lives in London, took time out from writing her second novel to talk to NEWSWEEK's Tara Pepper about the project. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: You found such a variety of images. What struck you most?

GREER: Some would be grotesque, some would be beautiful, but they always seemed to me to be more than what they were. They always seemed to be mirrors, a way Europe looked at itself. I wanted to explore the European psyche through these images, to celebrate them and say to people: as you go to Le Puy [in the Haute-Loire, southern France] and kiss the feet of the black Madonna there, as you honor [third-century African] Saint Maurice with the Easter fire [in Magdeburg Cathedral, Germany], as you do all these things--look around you because we are in your midst and have always been in your midst.

Did you find a clash between the way Europeans venerate these religious images, and the way they treat the blacks living among them?

That's the contradiction that fascinates me. I went to Poland two years ago to see the [14th-century] black Madonna of Czestochowa and got into a tiff with a monk at the hillside monastery that protects this shrine. I explained to him that in Chicago, where I come from, if I strolled into a Polish-American church when I was growing up there in the 1960s I wouldn't have been welcome, and I think in some parts of Poland that's true now, even though most Polish families have [replicas of] this black Madonna in their homes. And he couldn't admit it to me. Finally he said, "yes, it is true," and he said, "I have to pray on this and talk to my fellow monks."

Do images of ...