Overview
Isaac Mendes Belisario was a Jamaican Jewish artist whose Sketches of Character presented hand-colored lithographs of Afro-Jamaican occupations, dress, festivals, and Jonkonnu masquerade. Published shortly after the formal end of slavery in the British Caribbean, the images preserve valuable visual detail while reflecting the racial categories and colonial gaze of an elite observer. Belisario’s Jewish background formed part of Jamaica’s long Sephardic history, but it did not place him outside the island’s social hierarchy. His work requires simultaneous attention to artistic achievement, emancipation, performance, racial representation, and the legacies of slavery.
