Abstract
The body of drawings and sketches created by the Scottish painter David Roberts (1796-1864) during his expedition to the Holy Lands in 1838-9 marked the high point of his professional career. This paper will look at the period after his return to Britain in July 1839, particularly to 1842. It will suggest that although Roberts was no doubt influenced by his Scottish Presbyterian upbringing, religious faith was not as central to his trip as has often been supposed. It was instead through the business acumen of his publisher F.G. Moon that this body of work came to be regarded not merely as an aesthetic achievement but as a cause célèbre. A skilful and coordinated marketing campaign elevated these drawings to the status of a pilgrimage; a contemplative journey through the sites of biblical antiquity. Through detailed analysis of contemporaneous accounts it will show how one of the costliest publications of the era was disseminated, passing from prestigious galleries and the libraries of a wealthy elite through a continuum of public art exhibitions and popular media including panoramas, dioramas and the newly-emerging field of dissolving views. This will provide a rare case study into the interconnectedness of London’s exhibition culture in the 1840s.
Highlights
Ballantine noted, this would be ‘the great central episode of his artistic life’ (Ballantine, 1866: 231)
In September 1841 we find Moses Gompertz at a Masonic Lodge in York with his Grand Moving Diorama through Turkey and Syria, culminating in spectacular fashion with the bombardment of St
I have suggested that the emphasis on biblical sites in the lithographic publications which recorded Roberts’ great expedition was due in large part to the astute publisher Moon who made this, rather than Egyptian antiquities, the primary focus
Summary
ISSUE 1 – Between Texts and Images: Mutual Images of Japan and Europe ISSUE 2 – Japanese Pop Cultures in Europe Today: Economic Challenges, Mediated Notions, Future Opportunities ISSUE 3 – Visuality and Fictionality of Japan and Europe in a Cross-Cultural Framework ISSUE 4 – Japan and Asia: Representations of Selfness and Otherness ISSUE 5 – Politics, arts and pop culture of Japan in local and global contexts ISSUE 6 – Mediatised Images of Japan in Europe: Through the Media Kaleidoscope ISSUE 7 – Layers of aesthetics and ethics in Japanese pop culture ISSUE 8 – Artists, aesthetics, and artworks from, and in conversation with, Japan part 1 (of 2) ISSUE 9 – Artists, aesthetics, and artworks from, and in conversation with, Japan part 2 (of 2). A privileged area of investigation concerns the mutual cultural influences between Japan and other national or regional contexts, with a special emphasis on visual domains, media studies, the cultural and creative industries, and popular imagination at large. Mutual Images is registered under the ISSN 2496-1868. Mutual Images uses English as a lingua franca and strives for multi-, inter- and/or trans-disciplinary perspectives. As an Open Access Journal, Mutual Images provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.
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