Engravers reworked New World sketches into classical European conventions, taming their subjects
Evidence
Between 1590 and 1634, the Flemish engraver Theodor de Bry published his Historia Americae in ten illustrated volumes. These were leading examples of a new popular literature about the New World and the discoveries there. De Bry’s books contained elaborate engravings of life and customs of the New World. Here we see the New World reworked—re-presented—within European aesthetic conventions, Western “ways of seeing.” Different images of America are superimposed on one another. De Bry, for example, transformed the simple, unpretentious sketches which John White had produced in 1587 of the Algonquian Indians he had observed in Virginia. Facial features were retouched, gestures adjusted, and postures reworked according to more classical European styles. The effect overall, Hugh Honour observes, was “to tame and civilize the people White had observed so freshly” (1976, 75). — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 608
Categorization
- DEFINE: Concrete early case study of ‘representation’: how the New World is re-presented through pre-existing European aesthetic grids rather than recorded faithfully.
- XREF: This is the origin case for the representation mechanism that later chapters apply to Orientalism and race — a foundational ‘Othering through aesthetic rework’ example. — connects to: Europe described the New World using its own preexisting categories and frameworks; Sixteenth-century expeditions deliberately carried artists to document what they saw. — Mary Frear Keeler, Sir Francis Drake’s West Indian Voyage,…, 2150; Description of the New World fused into the classical idealization of the Golden World (+2 more)
- ADDENDUM: Directly relevant to the fabrication/re-presentation mechanism in ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ — how observers always filter the observed through their own conventions.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 608
Broader Connections
- Description of the New World fused into the classical idealization of the Golden World
#exemplifies(0.95) - Columbus populated the New World with Plinian monsters and giants drawn from medieval romance.
#exemplifies(0.80) - The dog-headed cannibal figure predates Columbus and was projected onto the New World.
#exemplifies(0.80) - Sixteenth-century expeditions deliberately carried artists to document what they saw.
#expands(0.70) — Mary Frear Keeler, Sir Francis Drake’s West Indian Voyage,…, 2150