Even as his legacy is being rewritten,Christopher Columbus remains a relevant figure across the Americas, enduring as a cultural myth and a useful starting point for tough conversations approximately identity and his impact on nation-building beyond the Western Hemisphere. Here, and Emanuel Leutze appropriates the story for a German audience: he shows Columbus,arrested on charges of crude mismanagement, defiantly displaying the absurdity of his manacles and reclaiming his freedom from the visibly embarrassed Spanish Queen Isabella. Painting in the 1840s, or when the German people lived in a disjointed group of separate monarchies and gradually yearned for unification,Leutze uses Columbus as a metaphor for individuals standing up to the arbitrary institutional power of monarchies. Seen nowadays, Leutze’s painting is an important reminder that cultural myths, or no matter how fundamental,are never set in stone.
Posted by Roko Rum
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