m0rninggl0ry
All Star
I'm working on my final essay and came across some very neat information.
As you know, since the colonial era to the American revolution, ideas about African-Americans were used in propaganda either for or against the issue of slavery. Thus,
Watson and the Shark, 1778 by John Singleton Copley
What’s the story?
Well, it’s actually based on a real-life event: 14-year-old Brook Watson was attacked twice while swimming alone in Havana Harbor in Cuba when he was rescued by nearby seamen. He survived but lost his leg. Later he became a wealthy London merchant and staunch Tory, and he actually commissioned Copley’s painting.
The painting needs to be understood in the context of English politics, the American Revolution, and the slave trade.
Tories, did not support the Revolution and used the hypocrisy of slavery against the American agitators for liberty. As a result, writes Boime
Copley’s picture demonstrates a Tory attempt to show sympathy for repressed people, the well-dressed black man at the height of Tory antagonism toward the American Revolution.
Through the work, both painter and patron sent the message that opposition to the rebellion was not identical with opposition to regulated freedom. In Watson, a conservative painter formulated for his conservative client a response to the political attacks of Whig opponents whose own involvement in slavery belied (contradicted) their stated defense of American independence.
Watson, moreover, emphasized his close association with the New World, not just as an armchair spectator or tourist, but as someone who had experienced it in the raw.
Seemingly, Watson announced: “I know more about this world than smug, self-righteous Whigs. I have been there and I have suffered there.”
Copley and Watson found it necessary to invert what was the overwhelming reality on the seas in 1778: placing the black man on top and the white man in the shark-infested waters instead of the other way around.
Copley represented Watson as a victim of divine wrath for his own involvement in slave trading.
The waters, are the colonies, “dangerous breeding ground for revolutionary ideas that threaten the youth of the New World."
@Dip @KidStranglehold @ByAnyMeans @Primetime21 @BlVck_Sh3ll @JahFocus CS @Red Shield @Raymond Burrr @Rainman @Mansa Musa @Meh @Thomas @ElMorenoFeo809 @Poitier @satam55 @KOD @Rekorb
As you know, since the colonial era to the American revolution, ideas about African-Americans were used in propaganda either for or against the issue of slavery. Thus,
Watson and the Shark, 1778 by John Singleton Copley
What’s the story?
Well, it’s actually based on a real-life event: 14-year-old Brook Watson was attacked twice while swimming alone in Havana Harbor in Cuba when he was rescued by nearby seamen. He survived but lost his leg. Later he became a wealthy London merchant and staunch Tory, and he actually commissioned Copley’s painting.
The painting needs to be understood in the context of English politics, the American Revolution, and the slave trade.
Tories, did not support the Revolution and used the hypocrisy of slavery against the American agitators for liberty. As a result, writes Boime
Copley’s picture demonstrates a Tory attempt to show sympathy for repressed people, the well-dressed black man at the height of Tory antagonism toward the American Revolution.
Through the work, both painter and patron sent the message that opposition to the rebellion was not identical with opposition to regulated freedom. In Watson, a conservative painter formulated for his conservative client a response to the political attacks of Whig opponents whose own involvement in slavery belied (contradicted) their stated defense of American independence.
Watson, moreover, emphasized his close association with the New World, not just as an armchair spectator or tourist, but as someone who had experienced it in the raw.
Seemingly, Watson announced: “I know more about this world than smug, self-righteous Whigs. I have been there and I have suffered there.”
Copley and Watson found it necessary to invert what was the overwhelming reality on the seas in 1778: placing the black man on top and the white man in the shark-infested waters instead of the other way around.
Copley represented Watson as a victim of divine wrath for his own involvement in slave trading.
The waters, are the colonies, “dangerous breeding ground for revolutionary ideas that threaten the youth of the New World."
@Dip @KidStranglehold @ByAnyMeans @Primetime21 @BlVck_Sh3ll @JahFocus CS @Red Shield @Raymond Burrr @Rainman @Mansa Musa @Meh @Thomas @ElMorenoFeo809 @Poitier @satam55 @KOD @Rekorb
