Author Archives: cadenalbert

Tea Tax Tempest

by Caden Albert

I chose an image from the during the American Revolution regarding the taxation of America colonists. I really didn’t know what to expect, but this is one of the first images that I found that wasn’t a document or letter of some sort. I was shocked to see this image due to the layers of detail within it.

First, it seems that an angel is projecting an image of a revolutionary battle on a sheet or window covering. This was INSANE to me because how did the artist think of this? Projecting an image onto something else certainly isn’t something from this time, but it’s found clear as day here. It really could be a coincidence that an angel is providing a lens for the future, but it still was pretty damn cool to me.

Secondly, the characters in this room were of such diversity. An angel is the one projecting, two women seem to be discussing the image, a black woman looks upon it scared along side a Native American. This really differed from a lot of the other images that I found at first and definitely different from images that we have seen in class. Interestingly, it looks like there is a Native American man leading the charge at the battle “on screen.”

I couldn’t find anything about it on the website, but the text at the bottom would suggest to me that this was printed in someplace like a newspaper? Some of the language is English, but some other words that are faded at the bottom look like Latin.

Another thing that I found really interesting is the amount of detail found in this drawing. I have to assume it is a drawing because of the lack of color other than the shading and the fact that it was probably printed. To start with the foreground, the two white women look to be of high stature due to their clothing and items that they are holding. I also think the location that they are in is of Roman architecture because of the two huge pillars in the top right corner as well as the drapes and tassel hanging down from the ceiling.

Similarly to a lot of the readings we have done and artwork about Washington, this piece looks like the artist wants to make the American colonists backed by God. The spear, shield, and angel watching over the battle all point to this conclusion. This battle does involve everyone in the colonies and is represented by the black woman and Native American watching over from a distance as well.

I really do think the coolest part of this piece is the projection of the battle on the drapes. To see a technology that didn’t exist until over a century later included in a piece like this is absolutely insane. It does look exactly like a projector because of its ring of light as well as the device the angel is holding. Also, with the rest of the drapes being white and plain, it is clear that this is a live projection.

Caden Albert Blog 1

For my trip I went to the Gibbes Museum of Art on Meeting Street. I’m not a huge fan of art museums, but I was hopeful to actually recognize some material after some of our class discussions. My first picture is of my parents and I because my dad insisted that he should come to help explain things and be included in my blog post. The second photo is one of the pieces on the wall explaining some of the history behind the piece. The one I chose was a massive sculpture of General George Washington made of marble. At first glance it just seemed like a big head, but when I took a closer look I noticed Greek headwear as well as a robe wrapped around his neck. This made me think of other art work we had looked at in class describing Washington to be this God like figure. Interestingly, the sculpture was created based on a painting made in Italy. The sculpture was about the size of five of my heads and easily weighed over 300 pounds. When I saw it, I instantly pictured the full sculpture and it would have had Washington over 12 feet tall if it was all scaled at this size. This was the most interesting to me because nothing outright said that it was made to make Washington appear as a God, but after some of our readings and artwork we looked at I understood where the inspiration came from. As well as the sculpture being super large, it was also set upon a Roman style pillar that was about 4 feet tall. This was cool as well because Charleston had a big revival in Roman architecture around the time that the sculpture was produced. One thing that I did notice outside of this depiction was how often artists had boys (ages ranging from 4-10) in dresses. There were some pieces where they were wearing what I would expect, but the majority had them in longer dresses down to their ankles. Everything that I had ever seen never had them in this type of clothing, and I was wondering if this is what they would have worn. I noticed it only in family portraits, so maybe it would have been a nicer form of dress for special occasions? All in all this museum was really cool to see after learning the history behind them. There was a lot of material upstairs in their vault that I wish I could have seen; especially if it had to do with our time period. Nonetheless it was a really cool experience and I want to hopefully learn more about the things that we hadn’t learned about (such as the common dress for children at the time).