Sea Currents in Nineteenth-Century Art, Science and Culture - Commodifying the Ocean World

How did scientists, artists, designers, manufacturers and amateur enthusiasts experience and value the sea and its products? Examining the commoditization of the ocean world during the nineteenth century, this book demonstrates how the transaction of oceanic objects inspired a multifaceted material discourse stemming from scientific exploration, colonial expansion, industrialization, and the rise of middle-class leisure.

From the seashore to the seabed, marine organisms and environments, made tangible through processing and representational technologies, captivated practitioners and audiences. Combining essays and case studies by scholars, curators, and scientists, Sea Currents investigates the collecting and display, illustration and ornamentation, and trade and consumption of marine flora and fauna, analysing their material, aesthetic and commercial dimensions. Traversing global art history, the history of science, empire studies, anthropology, ecocriticism and material culture, this book surveys the currency of marine matter embedded in the economies and ecologies of a modernizing ocean world.

List of contents

List of Illustrations
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements

1. Commodifying the Ocean World in the Long Nineteenth Century, Kathleen Davidson and Molly Duggins (The University of Sydney, Australia; National Art School, Sydney, Australia)

Part One: Wave - Circulating Marine Products

2. Ambergris in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Medicine, Perfume and Natural History, Georgina Cole (National Art School, Sydney, Australia)

3. Imperial Coral: The Transformation of a Natural Material to a Qing Imperial Treasure, Pippa Lacey (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK)

4. Echoes of Empire: The Painted Museums of Leroy de Barde, Jessica Priebe (the National Art School, Sydney, Australia)

5. 'Native Manufactures': Sailors' Valentines and the Caribbean Curio Trade, Molly Duggins (the National Art School, Sydney, Australia)

Part Two: Shore - Coastal Economies and Ecologies

6. Reading the Wrack Line on the French Atlantic Shore, Maura Coughlin (Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island, USA)

7. An Intense Curiosity: Marine Research Stations and Marine Specimens in the Late Nineteenth Century, Jude Philp (Macleay Museum, The University of Sydney, Australia)

8. The Tears of Pearls: Archaic Labour, Fisheries and Waste in Ceylon and Beyond, Natasha Eaton (UCL, UK)

9. Culture Keeping and Money Making: Aboriginal Women's Shellwork from the South Coast of New South Wales, Priya Vaughan (the National Art School, Sydney, Australia)

Part Three: Seabed - Materializing Submarine Environments

10. Their 'Colours are Brilliant, but Fugitive': Coral Concerns from Imperial Expeditions and the British Museum to the Royal Academy and Drury Lane, Kathleen Davidson (The University of Sydney, Australia)

11. Aquariums Under the Rising Sun: A Cultural History of Early Public Aquariums in Japan, 1882-1903, Yuichi Mizoi (Kansai University, Japan)

12. Merging the University Museum and Volksbildung: The Curatorial Strategies of Berlin's Museum für Meereskunde in 1900, Stefanie Lenk (The University of Göttingen, Germany)

Part Four: Oceanic Objects - Museum Case Studies

13. 'An Imitation of Seaweed': Nature and Design in a Late Eighteenth-Century Printed Cotton, Ann Christie (Independent Researcher)

14. Fashioning Whale Bone: Scrimshaw and the Nineteenth-Century Tradition of the Decorative Busk, Martha Cattell (Curator and Independent Researcher)

15. The Ornamental Glass Window of the Maison des Océans in Paris: A Celebration of Evolution, Jacqueline Goy (The Oceanographic Institute, Monaco) and Robert Calcagno (Government Advisor, Ministry of the Equipment, Environment and Urban Planning, Monaco)

16. Trade Connections: The Acquisition of Blaschka Models of Marine Invertebrates by Museums in Australia and New Zealand, Jan Brazier, Curator of History, Macleay Collections, Chau Chak Wing Museum (The University of Sydney, Australia)

Bibliography

Index

About the author

Kathleen Davidson is Honorary Research Associate, University of Sydney, Australia.Molly Duggins is Lecturer in Art History and Theory at the National Art School, Sydney, Australia.

Her research has been supported with fellowships and grants from the Yale Center for British Art, the State Library of New South Wales, The Strong National Museum of Play, and Winterthur Museum and Library.

Summary

How did scientists, artists, designers, manufacturers and amateur enthusiasts experience and value the sea and its products? Examining the commoditization of the ocean world during the nineteenth century, this book demonstrates how the transaction of oceanic objects inspired a multifaceted material discourse stemming from scientific exploration, colonial expansion, industrialization, and the rise of middle-class leisure.

From the seashore to the seabed, marine organisms and environments, made tangible through processing and representational technologies, captivated practitioners and audiences. Combining essays and case studies by scholars, curators, and scientists, Sea Currents investigates the collecting and display, illustration and ornamentation, and trade and consumption of marine flora and fauna, analysing their material, aesthetic and commercial dimensions. Traversing global art history, the history of science, empire studies, anthropology, ecocriticism and material culture, this book surveys the currency of marine matter embedded in the economies and ecologies of a modernizing ocean world.

Foreword

Examines the commodification of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Ocean worlds during the long nineteenth century focusing on the transaction of marine objects

Additional text

Sea Currents forwards an important intervention for historians to consider the oceans beyond their conventional treatment as surfaces or metaphors...In light of this lacuna in historiography, Sea Currents offers an elaborate collection of histories that recognizes both the material and metaphorical seas.

Product details

• Authors: Dr Kathleen (Honorary Research Associate Davidson, Kathleen Davidson, Davidson Kathleen, Molly Duggins
• Assisted by: Kathleen Davidson (Editor), Molly Duggins (Editor)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.06.2021
• EAN: 9781501352782
• ISBN: 978-1-5013-5278-2
• No. of pages: 336
• Dimensions: 158 mm x 238 mm x 22 mm
• Series: Biotechne: Interthinking Art, Science and Design
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Art history; NATURE / General, ART / History / General, History of art / art & design styles, natural history, History of Art, Nature and the natural world: general interest