{"id":206,"date":"2017-06-01T14:30:58","date_gmt":"2017-06-01T14:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/?p=206"},"modified":"2020-02-20T16:12:44","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T16:12:44","slug":"using-visual-sources-edward-armitages-retribution-1858","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/?p=206","title":{"rendered":"Using Visual Sources: Edward Armitage’s Retribution (1858)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rozene Smith, a\u00a0second year history student at the University of Portsmouth, wrote the following blog entry on how historians can use Retribution<\/em>\u00a0(1858) to reflect on representations of the British Empire\u00a0for the Introduction to Historical Research Unit.\u00a0 The unit is co-ordinated by Dr Jessica Moody, Lecturer in Modern History and Heritage at Portsmouth.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Studying a \u201cMuseum of Empire\u201d unearths a reality of the British Empire as a cornucopia of peoples and cultures, and an \u2018archive\u2019 equally monumental and multifarious.[1] W. J. T. Mitchell championed the \u2018pictorial turn\u2019 and the resurgent ubiquity of images in what became an increasingly visual-oriented culture.[2] The work in question is that of Edward Armitage, student of l\u2019\u00c9cole des Beaux-Arts under historical artist Paul Delaroche, who upon returning to London in 1843 upheld French rationales of academic art.[3] His Retribution<\/em> invokes public enmity concerning the massacre of British women and children at Bibighar in Cawnpore during the 1857 Indian Mutiny, a catalyst for an equally cruel and indiscriminate British vengeance.[4] Public opinion often advocated the \u2018spirit of righteous revenge\u2019 that Armitage\u2019s Retribution intends to embody.[5] Despite this artistic partiality, historians are yet impeded in acknowledging the value of visual sources, particularly in appraisal of their subjectivity and how their utilisation may further comprehension of the past.[6] This analysis proposes advantages that this source presents to the historical community, through analysis of content and purpose both as a non-commercial attempt at restoring Armitage\u2019s career and as public propaganda;[7] iconological substance and the \u201cOthering\u201d and \u201cspecial vulnerability\u201d to be found within;[8] and the benefits presented to historical investigation by the implementation of visual sources.[9] Ultimately, the hesitant approach to visual sources and their analysis necessitates a comprehensive knowledge of related materials and a consistent criticism of context and personal agenda, if the source is ever to be employed as a thoroughfare for historical exploration.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Retribution, 1858 (oil on canvas) by Armitage, Edward (1817-96); Courtesy Leeds Museums and Galleries (Leeds Art Gallery) \/ Bridgeman Images Best wishes Adrian Gibbs Bridgeman Images<\/p><\/div>\n

Images, in Peter Burke\u2019s view, are extensions of the context of their production, and can thus be used to elucidate social constructs and the political and economic power of art as a market commodity.[10] Contrasting with the Crimean War, few commissioned artists were present in India during the 1857 Rebellion.[11] Many took to the subject nonetheless, drawing inspiration from the demands for retaliation that dominated contemporary newspaper reports.[12] Armitage was a primary exponent of public art in Britain. His Retribution<\/em>, one of the most remarkable \u2018public\u2019 artworks of the revolt, was an allegory of this commonly justified revenge, its symbolic nature placing distance between itself and historical analysis of accuracy or authenticity.[13] The Daily News<\/em> described the painting as more suitable for the public space than a domestic setting, with its large, prominent figures, raw colours, and simplified forms.[14] Indeed, Retribution<\/em> was originally a conceptual fresco for the new Leeds town hall and was donated shortly after its completion in 1858.[15] The painting served two purposes: to re-establish Armitage\u2019s reputation as an artist of national subjects, and to propagate public anger and legitimise the atrocities committed by the British following the Bibighar Massacre.<\/p>\n

Iconology is often employed in understanding artistic symbolism, due to its emphasis on \u2018underlying principles which reveal the basic attitude of a nation, period, class, or religious or philosophical persuasion\u2019.[16] Images offer indispensable evidence for historians by unearthing cultural associations as historical evidence.[17] In her study of Retribution,<\/em> Alison Smith wrote that the Bengal Tiger, a symbol of the bloodthirsty Sepoy, is on the verge of defeat by a furiously focused Britannia.[18] The allegorical nature of the piece avoids graphic detail: the dead woman protecting her infant is not mauled, and the child crouched fearfully behind them appears entirely safe.[19] The cross emblazoned on Britannia\u2019s sword invokes Christian might, and detritus on the ground is the only other embodiment of the \u2018carnage of war\u2019.[20] Images of vulnerable white women in the hands of Sepoy rebels resonated in public imagination, birthing a powerful trope in imperial iconography: the sanctity of white womanhood and threat of interracial rape and violence.[21] Such crude stereotypes yet serve their purpose in highlighting distinctions by which the British could \u2018Other\u2019 the Sepoy.[22] Yet, the dangers of assuming, as iconologist thought often does, that images express the \u2018spirit of the age\u2019 are often stressed, notably by Ernst Gombrich in his criticisms of Arnold Hauser and Erwin Panofsky.[23] Furthermore, Sarah Barber argued, the idea that art can capture the Zeitgeist is a fundamentally Eurocentric approach given Europe\u2019s monopoly on popular art.[24] It is ultimately unwise to assume cultural homogeneity of an age from artwork, but it can provide more nuanced analyses of contemporary engendering of female vulnerability, and global perceptions of the British Empire, in its might, superiority, and anxieties over its subjects.<\/p>\n

The utility of visual images has been much debated since the arrival of Mitchell\u2019s \u2018pictorial turn\u2019.[25] He espoused the longstanding dominance of literature\u2019s subsidence to visual cultures, highlighting necessities among historians to rethink all issues of visual sources.[26] Peter Claus suggested that to use visual sources appropriately, historical provenance and context must be established beyond doubt for them to enhance historical understanding and,[27] as Francis Haskell posed, the \u2018historical imagination\u2019, which both creates and reflects historical reality.[28] There is yet opposition to the use of visual sources: Burke argued that our perception of art is a \u201cpainted opinion\u201d, a collection of rhetorical devices intended to coerce, incite or indoctrinate.[29] One could surmise that visual sources may be used in historical study, to either underline pre-established arguments with more conventional historical sources or as evidence open to historical analysis.[30] While art remains an intellectual product and thus cannot be considered objective, and it is true that our analysis techniques are primitive in comparison with those we bring to bear on textual evidence, images can shed new light on historical episodes when wielded skilfully.<\/p>\n

The implementation of visual sources as historical evidence relies on historians\u2019 treatment of the source.[31] Although the painting was foremost an avenue for Armitage\u2019s professional resurgence, it inadvertently offers an exemplary propagandist product, epitomising public outrage toward the Bibighar Massacre.[32] However unwise to presume the mid-nineteenth century zeitgeist from Armitage\u2019s Retribution <\/em>alone, one can obtain an intimate understanding of the \u201cOthering\u201d and special vulnerability afforded to British women occurrent in this era, through the iconology of art.[33] Retribution <\/em>is a product of imagination, however, and cannot be deemed truly objective\u2014some Pyrrhonism must be maintained.[34] Similarly, historians\u2019 techniques for analysing visual sources are underdeveloped against those of more traditional sources.[35] Ultimately, the historian must immerse themselves in surrounding material, and remain always critical of context and artists\u2019 personal agenda\u2014only then can the source be used to inform historical argument together with conventional historical sources or viewed as evidence open to analysis.[36] A torrent of imperialist art punctuated nineteenth century British society that today allows democratic equality previously disfigured by racial hierarchy and imperial domination.[37] The validity of visual content as historical evidence aside, Retribution <\/em>could pave the way for new contexts of appreciation and, potentially, reparation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rozene Smith is a second-year History student at the University of Portsmouth who aims to specialise in historical international relations and their present-day applications to global politics.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(We would like to pay special thanks to Leeds Art Gallery <\/a>and Bridgeman images for supplying a high res version of the artwork for this blog post).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Notes<\/p>\n

[1] Alison Smith, \u201cIntroduction: The Museum of Empire,\u201d in Artist and Empire <\/em>ed. Alison Smith, David Blaney Brown and Carol Jacobi. (London: Tate Enterprises, 2016), 10.<\/p>\n

[2] \u00a0Neil Curtis, \u201c\u2019As if\u2019: Situating the Pictorial Turn,\u201d in The Pictorial Turn, <\/em>ed. Neil Curtis. (Oxford: Routledge, 2010), 3.<\/p>\n

[3] Leeds Art Gallery Online. \u201cRetribution.\u201d http:\/\/www.leedsartgallery.co.uk\/gallery\/listings\/l0009.php<\/a>, last accessed 5th<\/sup> February 2017.<\/p>\n

[4] Robert Johnson, British Imperialism <\/em>(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 34.<\/p>\n

[5] Alison Smith, \u201cImperial Heroics,\u201d in Artist and Empire<\/em> ed. Alison Smith, David Blaney Brown and Carol Jacobi. (London: Tate Enterprises, 2016), 105.<\/p>\n

[6] Peter Claus and John Marriott, History: An Introduction to theory, method and Practice <\/em>(Essex: Pearson Education, 2012), 263.<\/p>\n

[7] Joan W. M. Hichberger, Images of the Army: The Military in British Art, 1815-1914 <\/em>(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), 62.<\/p>\n

[8] Peter Burke, Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence <\/em>(London: Reaktion Books, 2001), 34.<\/p>\n

[9] Claus and Marriott, History, <\/em>265.<\/p>\n

[10] Burke, Eyewitnessing, <\/em>12.<\/p>\n

[11] Hichberger, Images of the Army, <\/em>62<\/p>\n

[12] Peter Harrington, British Artists and War: The Face of Battle in Paintings and Prints, 1700\u20131914<\/em><\/p>\n

(London: Greenhill books, 1993), 144.<\/p>\n

[13] Smith, \u201cImperial Heroics\u201d, 105.<\/p>\n

[14] Smith, \u201cImperial Heroics\u201d, 105.<\/p>\n

[15] Hichberger, Images of the Army, <\/em>63.<\/p>\n

[16] Sol Cohen, \u201cAn Innocent Eye: The “Pictorial Turn,” Film Studies, and History,\u201d History of Education Quarterly<\/em> 43, no. 2 (2003): 258.<\/p>\n

[17] Claus and Marriott, History, <\/em>275.<\/p>\n

[18] Smith, \u201cImperial Heroics\u201d, 105.<\/p>\n

[19] Smith, \u201cImperial Heroics\u201d, 105.<\/p>\n

[20] Smith, \u201cImperial Heroics\u201d, 105.<\/p>\n

[21] Gautam Chakravarty, The Indian Mutiny and the British Imagination <\/em>(Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 2005), 127.<\/p>\n

[22] Jennifer Pitts, A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism In Britain and France <\/em>(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 64.<\/p>\n

[23] Ernst Hans Gombrich, The preference for the primitive: episodes in the history of Western taste and art <\/em>(London: Phaidon Press, 2002), 155.<\/p>\n

[24] Sarah Barber, \u201cIntroduction,\u201d in History Beyond the Text: A Students Guide to Approaching Alternative Sources <\/em>ed. Sarah Barber and Corinna M. Peniston-Bird. (Oxford: Routledge: 2009), 17.<\/p>\n

[25] Curtis, \u201c\u2019As if\u2019: Situating the Pictorial Turn\u201d, 3.<\/p>\n

[26] W. J. T. Mitchell, Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation <\/em>(Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1995), 11.<\/p>\n

[27] Claus and Marriott, History, <\/em>275.<\/p>\n

[28] Francis Haskell, History and its Images: Art and the Interpretation of the Past<\/em> (London: Yale University Press, 1995), 26. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

[29] Burke, Eyewitnessing, <\/em>122.<\/p>\n

[30] Claus and Marriott, History, <\/em>262.<\/p>\n

[31] Claus and Marriott, History, <\/em>275.<\/p>\n

[32] Hichberger, Images of the Army<\/em>, 62.<\/p>\n

[33] Sarah Barber, \u201cIntroduction,\u201d 17.<\/p>\n

[34] Haskell, History and its Images,<\/em> 26.<\/p>\n

[35] Curtis, \u201c\u2019As if\u2019: Situating the Pictorial Turn,\u201d 3.<\/p>\n

[36] Jonathan Willis and Laura Sangha, Understanding Early Modern Primary Sources<\/em> (Oxford: Routledge, 2016), 265.<\/p>\n

[37] Smith, \u201cIntroduction: The Museum of Empire,\u201d 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rozene Smith, a\u00a0second year history student at the University of Portsmouth, wrote the following blog entry on how historians can use Retribution\u00a0(1858) to reflect on representations of the British Empire\u00a0for the Introduction to Historical Research Unit.\u00a0 The unit is co-ordinated by Dr Jessica Moody, Lecturer in Modern History and Heritage at Portsmouth. Studying a \u201cMuseum of Empire\u201d unearths a reality of the British Empire as a cornucopia of peoples and cultures, and an \u2018archive\u2019 equally monumental and multifarious.[1] W. J. T. Mitchell championed the \u2018pictorial turn\u2019 and the resurgent ubiquity of images in what became an increasingly visual-oriented culture.[2] The work in question is that of Edward Armitage, student of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15],"class_list":["post-206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-learning_in_focus","tag-history","tag-primary-sources"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/leeds-armitage-retribution.png?fit=620%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p91PlX-3k","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=206"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions\/217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}