Harvard. A haven of culture, a paradise of academia and the alma mater of a certain Internet mogul currently getting a lot of press. With an entire campus full of neoclassical buildings and references to America's ancestors across the pond, what better place is there to look at that stalwart fortress of Western culture that was 19th century England? Nineteenth-century England was chock-full of admirers of bygone ages. Artists like William Blake turned to classical motifs and themes to explore their own world.
The pre-Raphaelites and their Romantic friends make an appearance in "The Past and the Present: British Art of the 19th Century," at Harvard's Arthur M. Sackler Museum. Set up in two rotations, the current set of pieces will be on display until Nov. 20, and from Nov. 26 through Jan. 8 the second set of works will be exhibited.
The exhibition is a very interesting look at the role of myth in history. English artists of the 19th century looked for a new order in the order(s) of the past, and it seems appropriate for these artists to be shown in a place that was and is so colored by this constructed past. To be fair, Harvard is not the only American institution that likes to connect itself with classical antiquity: take a look at the White House, for example. This broader connection to American society illustrates an interesting point about the viewer's own role in the dialogue.
Geoffrey Chaucer lives on in a wood engraving by William Morris and Edward Burne Jones, "Leaf from the Kelmscott Chaucer" (1896). A border of classical grape vines winds around the page. The illustration at center shows a man poised in the center of a mass of vines and a rough wooden fence. He is holding a book and quill at arm's length and is poised next to a well and a flowering tree filled with birds. His dress is appropriately antiquated; he wears a long tunic and floppy cap. But the crowning feature of the piece is an excerpt from the prologue of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales": "Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote, The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licuor, Of which vertu engendered is the flour." The woodcut is an exercise in the virtues of 19th century England; it skips over Chaucer's sexual innuendo with ease and proceeds right to a calmly poised gentleman nestled in an idyllic landscape surrounded with honest English countryside. If you need to know more, check out "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" (1891).
An infinitely less peaceful tone pervades in John Martin's "The Deluge," (1831-39) an etching and mezzotint. Martin illustrates the great flood in the Old Testament with an incredible sense of drama. Figures writhe on a cliff projecting into a whirlpool, while rocks cascade from the sky. In the background, a crescent moon, two planets and a comet on a zigzagged path contribute to the general feeling of imminent doom. In the distance the sea is calm, and a tiny rectangle representing the ark floats undisturbed. Martin constructs the well-known biblical narrative as an absolute dichotomy of right and wrong. The immediacy of the image and Martin's highlighting of emotive vignettes among the doomed sinners do not hesitate to warn viewers of their fate if they find themselves on the wrong side of the ark.
One of the most beautiful images in the exhibit is a relief etching by William Blake, the frontispiece for "America a Prophecy" (1973). A huge chained angel, head in his lap, hands in fetters, sits to the left of a trio of woman and her children. All are nude, the women's children hide their faces in her lap or peek out from behind her arms — a heartbreaking illustration of hopelessness. They sit by the angel, who is three times their size, surrounded by classical ruins, while a cannon looms in the bottom left corner. Blake believed in the legitimacy of the American Revolution, but he was also wary of its potential to stray into tyranny. The opening image of this poem does not present a warm outlook for the new country. The woman looks like a defeated Lady Liberty figure, and the chained angel she sits patiently by hints at a chained figure of freedom. The ruins of past great civilizations surround these figures whose futures are uncertain.
"The Past and the Present: British Art of the 19th Century" looks at the diverse ways that the present can be reflected in the past. Instead of calling on a historical reality, the artists in the exhibit prefer to strengthen current ideals by justifying them through the past. Britain's present and destiny make more sense when it is seen as a natural evolution of great ancestors. This is a tradition of myth creation inherited by Britain's wayward child, America. After all, what better way to explain the future than by using the plot of an already-determined past?
