A Social History of the State of Missouri (detail) - Slaves Used for Lead Mining 1936

This scene of slavery, painted by Thomas Hart Benton, is a detail from "A Social History of the State of Missouri." Can you imagine him painting this? It's a history of making, a history of power and force and violence. Look at how the painter has used the colors, the blues of the sky, the browns of the land and the people. But I’m stuck on that white man with the whip. What was Benton thinking when he made the decision to include that figure? What does it mean for the way we look at painting as a site of inquiry? The painting style, it's realist, but almost cartoonish. It makes you think about the history of seeing and representing the brutal realities of the past. The gestures of the bodies are exaggerated, they speak to a tradition of history painting, but something feels off, and that is how art evolves, how we look at history changes through time, and how artists can open a conversation about that.