ART SECTION IV:EUROPE ENVISIONS THE

EMPIRE

Angelica AguileraDevora LopezValerie Ybarra

Aileen Yum-Chan

BENJAMIN WEST

• 1738-1820• Springfield, Pennsylvania• Adult life was spent in

England• Prolific painter of portraits

and historical events

HIS LIFE…

• He had a natural talent for drawing• Established a strong reputation in his teenage years

• Late 1750’s William Smith noticed him

• Gave him the opportunities he needed:

• Wealthy patrons helped West travel to Rome, Venice, and Florence before he settled in London in 1763

• He exhibited his work at the Royal Academy in 1764

• Was noticed by critics and King George III

• Named court painter

• Also the president of the institution from 1792-1805, 1806-1820

• He influenced many artists who traveled to Europe from North America.

THE DEATH OF GENERAL WOLFE (1770)

• The final moments of the life of James Wolfe who died in 1759

• His characters were dressed in modern clothes in Wolfe’s lifetime, not the timeless drapery inspired by ancient art

• Laid ground work for William Penn’s Treaty with the Indians (1771-1772)

WILLIAM PENN

• (1644-1718)• Founder of Pennsylvania• Fair, heroic, promoter of

freedom, and leader in positive relations with Europeans and Native Americans

• Born to prosperous parents in London

• Attached to the Anglican church

• Agnostic towards: Catholics, puritans, Quakers, etc,.

• He was dedicated to Quakers

• Relationship with family was in jeopardy

• Fathers death in 1670, moved him to promote religious freedom

• King of England gave Penn proprietary grant in 1681 as a payment for a debt owed to his father

• Sylvania – forests• Pennsylvania

• Depicts relationship between Penn and native Americans.

• The creation of a treaty dealing with land for goods and a peace promise

• No formal documentation

• 1682-1683

• Took place 100 years before it was painted

• He imagined it from the legends

• The men kneel and present cloth to Lenape chief, who is surrounded by his men

• Outside of circle the men natives go about their life

• Left side is Europeans, including Penn

• Open arms

PENN’S TREATY

• After the event, Penn returned to England and only briefly visited America

• Thomas Penn commissioned the painting

• Walking Purchase• The painting

demonstrates how art can be politicized

• Shows that native Americans and Europeans were unlike

WILLIAM PENN

WILLIAM HODGES

• 1744-97• London• Trained at young age• Richard Wilson, member of

Royal Academy• James Cook, 1772• GB Royal Navy• First Voyage: 1768-1771• Cape Horn in South America• Second Voyage: 1772-1775,

commanded HMS Revolution, companion, HMS Adventure

• Returned to London in 1776• Popular because public wanted

to see far-off lands

• India, 1780-1784• Governor- General Warren

Hastings and the East India Company

• 1793 published illustrations from his visit

• 1786 He became a member of the Royal Academy

• Full member 1794• The effects of War and The

Consequences of Peace, on bond street in 1794-1795

• Duke of York, was innapropriate, and had a failure in show

• Tried to regain financial position • Failed, and died in 1797,

speculation of suicide.

HMS ‘RESOLUTION’ AND ‘ADVENTURE’ WITH FISHING CRAFT IN MATAVI BAY

• Large landscape painting depicting a protected bay along Tahiti’s northern coast line

• August 1773, based on Hodges documentary sketches of the location

• Served as an accurate documentation of places and people he and members of Cook’s entourage observed during travels

• Would have seemed distant and new to urban European viewers in the Eighteenth century

• Represented a level of domination of a new land

• Although England had not yet established itself as colonial power in the region, exploring and documenting were the first stages of the imperial campaign there.

• Turner was highly accomplished; known for historical and landscaping paintings

• his paintings reveal horrific image of a slave ship caught on a storm at sea, slaves are thrown overboard and are being devoured by fish and sharks

• emotionally provocative landscape paintings

• serves and compliments abolitionist literature by graphically depicting the murder of slaves

• it is shown in The history of Abolition of the slave trade 1808

• demonstrates Turner's support of the abolitionist movement and the 1840 international anti-slavery convention

SLAVE SHIP (SLAVERS THROWING OVERBOARD THE DEAD AND DYING,

TYPHOON COMING ON)

PURPLE AND ROSE: THE LANGE LEIZEN OF THE SIX

MARKS

• Author: James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)

• North American-born artist who made his career in Europe

• Born in Massachusetts; Most of his life abroad

• Father an engineer

• Loved the arts in England; West Point Military

• Not successful, but very creative

• Worked as a cartographer in Europe St. Petersburg

• Moved to Paris-studio of Charles Gleyre (French Impressionist Painters); befriended Gustave Courbet

• Rembrandt van Rijn-highly emotional, evocative works

• “art for art’s sake”-create beauty

• Titles based on music

• Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket made Whistler infamous-”flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face”

• Incorporated artists from the Far East, unlike Impressionists artists in France with Japanese art

• Admired Japanese art (porcelain)

THE PAINTING

• Woman surrounded by Chinese objects-Whistler’s collection

• Joanna Hiffernan-mistress; modeled for many of his works ( Symphony in White, No. 1, and No. 2); relationship with friend

• Relaxed, casual pose• Chinese brocade robe; floral motif in

peach and rose• Philadelphia Museum of Art- Purple and

Rose• Imagines herself as a painter• Imitates Chinese courtly fashion• Dominate colors are beige and brown;

vivid tones of Hiffernan’s robe and blue and white porcelain are accentuated

• Patron of many shops that contained Chinese porcelains-Oxford and Sloan Street shop

• Highly prized by upper and middle class

• Lange Leizen- pattern showing delicate, willowy Chinese ladies

• Lange-Dutch for Long-Long Eliza• Six Marks-markings on the porcelains

that were used to verify the authenticity

• “Six Marks”- refers to a particular Chinese character; authentic signature

• Interests in Imperialists countries were driven by demand imports, such as tea

• Lange Leizen references this history-England has battled with Holland over tea exports from China

• Regardless of his “arts for arts sake” idea; references to tea and British control of trade from China and India are important in understanding the British Empire

A LADY RECEIVING VISITORS

(THE RECEPTION)

• John Frederick Lewis (1805-76)• Painted watercolors and oil paintings • Made a member of the Royal

Academy in 1865• Depiction of the Middle East was

very accurate• Son of an artist (Frederick Christian

Lewis-engraver and a landscape painter)

• Traveled and worked abroad• Contemporaries driven by the art

scene in Paris; however, he was drawn back East

• Traveled to Spain, Greece, Turkey, and then Egypt

• Assumed the life of a wealthy Turkish man-experiences abroad inspired his artistic production

• Life in Cairo documented by William Makepeace Thackery- Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo

• Egypt ruled by Turks in the Ottoman Empire; taken the life of an Ottoman Pasha. AKA governor; “gone native”; photograph of him traveled to England

• Gave the artist legitamacy in his art to be documentary rather than fictional

• Made over 600 watercolor paintings and drawings-Cairo

• London (1851)- these images would be basis for his bigger paintings

• Showed intimate interiors of harems and mosques. Audience would never see them., except through Lewis

• Entered into Western Orientalist construction of the East- influential for decades

THE PAINTING

• Complex interior space with a high ceiling; chamber of the room where the lady of the house is seated

• Sunlight flickers throughout the painting; reflection of the pool we can see the lady and her servant

• Clothed in elegant fabrics• Servant looks at viewer; arrival of visitor;

gazes off into space• Colors bright and vivid; illusion of space is

convincing (one-point perspective)• He catches the relationship with many

upper-class women and her servants• Gazelles were popular domestic pets in

upper-class Egyptian homes-female beauty

• Mandarah-domain of men; subverted the normal social order in a witty manner; the educated member would notice his “error”

• make a statement of woman in the Ottoman empire? Important concern in Great Britain at the time; one of justification of Great Britain’s intervention in the region

• Egypt was a crucial pathway to the trade routes that provdided British access to India

• British interests in India increased during the 19th century/ France sought to expand in this region Suez Canal- water access to important trade routes/ France had an advantageous position

• Great Britain became the largest single shareholder in the canal

• Because of high debts and bankruptcy, the Ottoman Empire gave control to the British in 1882.

• Painting: 1873, French had constructed the Suez Canal; British interest in the region was extremely high; not yet, “poised” to take control of Egypt

SLEEP OF REASON PRODUCES MONSTERS

• Asia

• In his piece, Shonibare quotes The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

• Francisco Goya (1746-1828), a Spanish painter and printmaker, created this famous print in the late 18th century

• The Sleep of Reason is one of a set of 80etchings in a folio called Los Caprichos, meaning The Caprices or The Follies

• Goya produced this particular etching between 1796 and 1798

• The etching depicts a man asleep on a desk, his head in his arms

• The man could either be the artist himself or a representation of the creative mind

• The desk on which the man rests displays the writing “the sleep of reason produces monsters”

• Threatening owls and bats surround the man

• These creatures symbolize ignorance and superstition

• One owl, standing on the table, pokes the main figure with a pen as if to wake him

• A lynx, alert and watchful, lies behind the figure’s chair

SLEEP OF REASON PRODUCES MONSTERS:

DESIGN

• Shonibare created almost an exact replica of Goya’s print

• Differences: Large scale, full color photographs and looks 3D, Shonibare’s choice of clothing for his main figure (Dutch wax cloth), the inscription on the desk is altered (“The sleep of reason produces monsters in Asia?”)

• The varying ages, ethnicities, and continents all reference the complex and far-reaching networks as well as influences of the British Empire

• Shonibare’s work leaves the viewer with a plethora of unanswered questions

• Instead, the artist leaves the unresolved issues as a responsibility for the viewer to question history and find the answers

• Artist: Yinka Shonibare, MBE • Medium: C-print mounted on aluminum • Size: 72 x 49.5 in• Date: 2008

VITAL STATS

YINKA SHONIBARE

• born in London, 1962

• grew up in Nigeria, but moved to England, currently lives in London

• attended a boarding school in England; studied at Wimbledon College in London; Brym Shaw School of Art in London from 1984 to 1989; Goldsmiths College in London

• earned a Master of Fine Arts degree

• a contemporary, post-colonial artist who, in his art, addresses issues with cross-cultural identity and flaws in the British Empire

• issues of cross-culturalism and imperialism

• referenced historical Western art pieces

YINKA SHONIBARE

• When he was 19, however, Shonibare suffered paralysis from transverse myelitis, an inflammation of the spinal cord

• Afterward he became associated with the group called Young British Artists (YBAs); exhibited their work in a 1997 show called Sensation

• 2004: a nomination for the prestigious Turner Prize; one British artist under 50 years of

• 2005: Shonibare received one of England’s greatest honors: he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (rank just below knights, are honored for their military, social, or cultural contribution)

• Exhibitions in the Museum of Contemporary Art (2008), the Brooklyn Museum (2009), and the National Museum for African Art (2009-2010

The End!