European Vision And The South Pacific 1768-1850: A Study In The History Of Art And Ideas
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good. Jacket: No dust jacket - card cover in good condition. Page Condition: yellowed. Markings: No markings. Binding condition: Good.
At the crossroads of art, empire, and encounter, Bernard Smith's landmark work charts the dramatic collision between European artistic traditions and the unfamiliar peoples and landscapes of the South Pacific between 1768 and 1850. Drawing on the voyages of Cook, Bougainville, and their contemporaries, the study chronicles how European artists, naturalists, and draughtsmen struggled to represent — and inevitably misrepresent — the peoples, flora, fauna, and coastlines of a world utterly foreign to their visual conventions. Smith argues with scholarly precision that the visual culture produced during this era was not merely documentary but profoundly ideological, shaping how the Western imagination constructed and commodified the Pacific Other. A foundational text in the history of art and colonial discourse, this work illuminates the uneasy relationship between observation and invention, science and aesthetics — leaving the reader to question just how much of what we see is truly seen at all.
Author: Bernard Smith
Format: Paperback
Published: 1960, Oxford Paperbacks
Genre: History of arts
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good. Jacket: No dust jacket - card cover in good condition. Page Condition: yellowed. Markings: No markings. Binding condition: Good.
At the crossroads of art, empire, and encounter, Bernard Smith's landmark work charts the dramatic collision between European artistic traditions and the unfamiliar peoples and landscapes of the South Pacific between 1768 and 1850. Drawing on the voyages of Cook, Bougainville, and their contemporaries, the study chronicles how European artists, naturalists, and draughtsmen struggled to represent — and inevitably misrepresent — the peoples, flora, fauna, and coastlines of a world utterly foreign to their visual conventions. Smith argues with scholarly precision that the visual culture produced during this era was not merely documentary but profoundly ideological, shaping how the Western imagination constructed and commodified the Pacific Other. A foundational text in the history of art and colonial discourse, this work illuminates the uneasy relationship between observation and invention, science and aesthetics — leaving the reader to question just how much of what we see is truly seen at all.