4 ms·

“The tunnels, of course, were lighted. Everything is light, artificial light; darkness is the exception. So when I saw a black gap in the tiles, I knew that it

• bsanr 5y ago
  An addendum: 1909 would have been when Picasso was in his African Period, and 10 years after the publishing of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which both presaged French negrophilie and common early-century European attitudes towards Africans - specifically, as representing closer human proximity to nature and passion, and identifying black iconography (from manufactured works like sculpture and dance to the literal absence of light) with such. I wouldn't be surprised if Forster had encountered such sentiments and been influenced by them, for better or worse.