Witnessing slavery : travelling artists in an age of abolition

Abstract

This thesis examines the imagery of slavery by European artists who travelled to the New World between 1770 and 1840. A tumultuous period, it saw the rise of abolitionist movements, particularly in Britain, and the erosion (although not the end) of colonial slavery. I examine a wide range of imagery— from cheaply produced woodcuts, sketches, watercolours and book illustrations, to lavish oil paintings—against the shifting backdrop of abolitionist politics. I demonstrate that visual culture was frequently and effectively utilised by those across the political spectrum, and participated in a range of complex debates that raged throughout the period. My particular focus is on a range of artists who travelled to, and often lived in, colonial slave societies, particularly the British West Indies and Brazil. They included Agostino Brunias (1730-96), John Gabriel Stedman (1744-97), Jean-Baptiste Debret (1768-1848), James Hakewill (1778-1843), Augustus Earle (1793-1838) and Johann Mauritz Rugendas (1802-58). Such artists engaged directly with the increasingly urgent subject of colonial slavery, meeting the demands of an expanding middle class public who were ever more curious about the world beyond European shores. I argue that the epistemological authority of artists who worked ‘on the spot’ was highly significant, increasingly so as the political temperature rose in the decades around the turn of the century. In this period of rapid imperial expansion, revolution, and profound anxieties, itinerant artists were valued in particular for their perceived role as eyewitnesses. Drawing on a range of pictorial strategies which served, variously, to inform, reassure, mobilise or delight viewers, such imagery is shown to be deeply embedded within the global web of empire.