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Is this to say that you actually believe the interpretation in OP's first link, that is, that the artist (1) intended the literal racial interpretation and (2) believes that such a future is desirable? The "Uruk-Hai looking" figures are intended as the protagonists? Can you think of any historical example where a political group depicted themselves or their allies in such a fashion, without the slightest connotation of righteousness, beauty or heroism, or do you believe that your outgroup is actually the most morally and aesthetically alien group of humans to have existed on the historical record?
An unofficial reupload on youtube exists. I wonder if Europeans were similarly offended when they discovered that people in African and Asian art look more like natives than Europeans.
it's a peculiar sort of chauvinism.
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I can think of many actually. It's a very common thing in warfare and other pursuits where it's in your interest to be seen as a savage with no regard for decency.
If you want a recent one consider Russians depicting themselves as Orks. If you want an older one, consider Pirates.
But interestingly in the particular example we're seeing here (modern leftist ideological art), there is an ideological reason for it, which is the explicit deconstruction of those things you list: beauty, righteousness and heroism. Those are all oppressive norms of whiteness that must be abolished. And instead we must "center" "ugly bodies" and "black bodies".
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Well he couldn't possibly have missed it, it's pretty damn obvious. Contra OP's suggestion that Mr Peterson is apolitical, he's clearly aware of and makes obvious use of political imagery. A quick glance through his portfolio reveals that. A quick glance at the titles of his paintings reveals that.
Motte: Timeless representation of power dynamics and authoritarian violence with caustic debauchery in a revealing display of...
Bailey/What's In Front of Your Lying Eyes: Destroy America, kill Trump, kill racists, the police are oppressive, democracy is a joke, orgies of violence with the strong and obvious implication of whites being killed en masse.
Context is key. If you look at someone's portfolio and just see stuff like this then sure, you could say he might be far right. There is that whole day of the rope meme after all: https://www.artsy.net/artwork/cleon-peterson-absolute-power-7
Or if his portfolio is all stuff like this then sure, he might be a centrist: https://www.artsy.net/artwork/cleon-peterson-what-have-we-lost
But that's not predominantly what Mr Peterson produces, I've looked through his work and it's pretty clear! Didn't you have to go through English in secondary education, where they'd teach you how to find hidden meaning from far less obvious texts. Robert Frost's Fire and Ice for instance, I was taught that it actually had reference to future world wars which might be fought over hot emotions like desire, or stem from a chilling lack of care for the plight of others, that inaction might doom the world. People read in ridiculously far to hidden meaning in poems and art, yet we're not allowed to take what's immediately obvious from Mr Peterson's portfolio? It all but drips malevolence.
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I don't believe they're intended as the protagonists per se. You were looking for a historical example, so let's look at some ancient Roman art - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Tunisia-3363_-_Amphitheatre_Spectacle.jpg
People making art like this are not identifying with the beast - the protagonist is actually the observer, who is seeing a savage animal painfully kill, torture and degrade their enemies. Cleon himself isn't actually black either, which isn't what you would expect if the black figures were meant to be the protagonists as you describe... but it does match up with the reading that these white figures are his outgroup, and his art is just glorifying the dispossession, dismemberment and raping of his outgroup in the manner that he believes they would find the most distressing.
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