Art and Emancipation in Jamaica Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez Ruiz, Stephen Banfield, Kenneth Bilby, Catherine Hall, Stuart Hall, Kay Dian Kriz, Verene A. Shepherd, Holly Snyder

Coinciding with the bicentenary of the abolition of the British slave trade, this multi-disciplinary volume chronicles the iconography of sugar, slavery, and the topography of Jamaica from the beginning of British rule in 1655 to the aftermath of emancipation in the 1840s. Focusing on the visual and material culture of slavery and emancipation in Jamaica, it offers new perspectives on art, music, and performance in Afro-Jamaican society and on the Jewish diaspora in the Caribbean. Central to the book is Sketches of Character (1837-38), a remarkable series of lithographs by the Jewish Jamaican artist Isaac Mendes Belisario, constituting the earliest detailed representation of the masquerade form 'Jonkonnu'. Innovative scholarship traces the West African roots of Jonkonnu through its evolution in Jamaica and continuing transformation today; offers a unique portrait of Jamaican culture at a pivotal historical moment; and provides a new model for interpreting the visual culture of empire.

Tim Barringer is Paul Mellon Professor of the History of Art, Yale University, and the author of Reading the Pre-Raphaelites and Men at Work: Art and Labour in Victorian Britain (Yale). Gillian Forrester is Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings, Yale Center for British Art, and co-author of The Line of Beauty (Yale). Barbaro Martinez Ruiz is Assistant Professor, Department of Art and Art History, Stanford University.

'The quality of the scholarship that has produced this book is exceedingly high, and revelation follows revelation in text that is often provocative, yet the writing is never inaccessible and the suppositions of these scholars ultimately ring true. Including hundreds of rare portraits, the book is also a visual feast.' David Katz, Sky Writings