This study of colonialism and art examines the intersection of
visual culture and political power in late-eighteenth-century
British painting. Focusing on paintings from British America, the
West Indies, and India, Beth Fowkes Tobin investigates the role of
art in creating and maintaining imperial ideologies and
practices--as well as in resisting and complicating them.
Informed by the varied perspectives of postcolonial theory, Tobin
explores through close readings of colonial artwork the dynamic
middle ground in which cultures meet. Linking specific colonial
sites with larger patterns of imperial practice and policy, she
examines paintings by William Hogarth, Benjamin West, Gilbert
Stuart, Arthur William Devis, and Agostino Brunias, among others.
These works include portraits of colonial officials, conversation
pieces of British families and their servants, portraits of Native
Americans and Anglo-Indians, and botanical illustrations produced
by Calcutta artists for officials of the British Botanic Gardens.
In addition to examining the strategies that colonizers employed to
dominate and define their subjects, Tobin uncovers the tactics of
negotiation, accommodation, and resistance that make up the
colonized's response to imperial authority. By focusing on the
paintings' cultural and political engagement with imperialism, she
accounts for their ideological power and visual effect while
arguing for their significance as agents in the colonial
project.
Pointing to the complexity, variety, and contradiction within
colonial art, "Picturing Imperial Power" contributes to an
understanding of colonialism as a collection of social, economic,
political, and epistemological practices that were not monolithic
and inevitable, but contradictory and contingent on various
historical forces. It will interest students and scholars of
colonialism, imperial history, postcolonial history, art history
and theory, and cultural studies.
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