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拍品專文
Cook was moored at Matavai Bay twice on the second voyage, and Hodges ventured inland from Point Venus to sketch the present landscape on 4 May 1774, during the expedition's second extended anchorage between 22 April and 14 May 1774. Hodges visited the picturesque site following the recommendation of George Forster who described 'a place where the hill on the east side formed a perpendicular wall, not less than 40 yards high, beyond which it had some inclination, and was crowned with shrubberies to a great height. A fine cascade fell from this fringed part along the wall into the river, and made the scene more lively, which in itself was dark, wild and romantic ... I recommended it to Mr. Hodges to visit the cascade which I had found in the valley; and accordingly the next day he went up with several gentlemen, and took a view of it, and of the basalt pillars under it.' (J. G. A. Forster, A Voyage round the world..., London, 1777, I, pp.87-9). George's father, Johann Reinhold, also reported the visit: 'Four of the Gentlemen & among them Mr Hodges went up the Tooāòroo valley in order to draw there some singular stones & Cascades, which my Son had recommeded to Mr. Hodges.' (M. E. Hoare (ed.), The "Resolution" Journal of Johann Reinhold Forster 1772-1775, London, 1982, III, p. 504).
The location is a two-hour hike upriver, involving criss-crossing the waters of the Tuauru, before you arrive at a tall cliff, a striking geological formation made of basalt pillars, known as 'Les Orgues basaltiques', and 'Pahu Ofa'i'. A waterfall flows into the deep pond at the base of the cliff, known as a sacred bathing site. The site was visited by most of the early voyagers who anchored in Matavai Bay: there are accounts, amongst others, by Banks on Cook's first voyage, by Forster on the second voyage, by Bligh on the Bounty's voyage, 1788-89, by Tobin on Bligh's second breadfruit voyage in 1792, by Dumont d'Urville in 1823, and by Darwin in 1835:
'The fall of water is the least curious part; the cliff over which it comes is perpendicular, forming an appearance as if supported by square pillars of stone, and with a regularity that is surprising. Underneath is a pool eight or nine feet deep into which water falls; and in this place all the natives make a point of bathing once in their lives, probably from a religious idea.' (William Bligh, 17 Dec. 1788).
There are two small panels of this landscape, one without figures, in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (Joppien and Smith, 2.109) and one with the same seated female figure on the right and bather in the water, in a private collection, U.K. (Joppien and Smith, 2.110). These two latter female figures feature in the foreground of Hodges's two Tahitian masterpieces 'A View taken in the Bay of Otaheite Peha', 1776 (Joppien and Smith, 2.42) and 'Tahiti Revisited', 1776 (Joppien and Smith, 2.43), in both of these latter pictures the seated female represented as a Tahitian woman with tattooed buttocks. The complete figure group on the right, with minor variations in the position of one of the female figures and with a statue of a herm in lieu of the cloaked figure above the women, features in Hodges's 'Landscape, Ruins and Figures', 1790, now in a private collection, England (G. Quilley and J. Bonehill, William Hodges, 1744-1797: the Art of Exploration, London, 2004, p.197, no.76).
Hodges produced a handful of wash drawings but no finished pictures survived from the two ice-edges cruises in the Antarctic in the southern summers of 1772-3 and 1773-4, perhaps this classically trained artist found too few points of reference in the alien environment of the Southern Ocean, populated by little other than strangely shaped icebergs. In contrast, Cook's watering places in the temperate zone of southern New Zealand and in the tropical Society Islands provided terrain that prompted a flurry of brilliant sketches and canvases, beginning in Dusky Bay, New Zealand, where he quickly overpainted a canvas of icebergs with a beautiful depiction of the Resolution's anchorage in 'Pickersgill Harbour'. Here, wooded, rocky and cascaded coves brought to mind the romantic Italian landscapes of Salvator Rosa, the furtive Maori presence standing in for Rosa's banditti. In Tahiti, already described as a new Cythera by Bougainville, the expedition arrived to be greeted by 'nymphs swimming around the sloop ... more than sufficient to entirely subvert the little reason which a mariner might have left to govern his passion'.
In the present panel, unknown until its appearance at auction 2005, Hodges works up a large panel from his sketches taken on the spot years earlier. He composes a Tahitian landscape with a classical figure group on the right, overlooked by a cloaked figure, embodying death. Three female figures in the left foreground, as pale as Europeans, are identified as Tahitians or initiates by their tattooed buttocks and the Tahitian sun hat worn by the figure on the extreme left. Beyond, in the water, on the point and distant slopes, Tahitians, painted in a darker hue, bathe and disport. The interchange of these female figures, modelling either classical nymphs or Tahitian women, underlines Hodges's comparison of Tahiti with a classical Arcadia. Hodges's two earlier large Tahitian landscapes ('A View taken in the Bay of Otaheite Peha' and 'Tahiti Revisited') deliberately connote the 'Et in Arcadia ego' theme. Another late picture, 'Landscape, Ruins and Figures' (private collection) places similar figures in a classical landscape, and reverses the comparison:
'Perhaps what is most striking is the way [the] figure of the seated nude is taken straight from Hodges's views of Vaitepiha Bay, Tahiti ... It may be, therefore, that this capriccio on a classical subject is intended to be an essay in comparative religion, making connections between the culture of Polynesia and the Society Islands and that of classical Rome or Greece, in a manner similar to such propositions by Banks, the Forsters and others. On the other hand, the association with Tahiti might suggest an erotic theme, an idea supported by the fact that the herm figure that is the object of devotion is adapted from the antique sculpture Venus with a Herm that Hodges also used in his representation of The Merchant of Venice for Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery, also in 1790... The association of Venus with Tahiti was, of course, a well established one.' (G.Quilley and J. Bonehill, Ibid., p.198). The present panel, uniquely, puts both the voyage and classical narratives in the same frame, comparing and contrasting the innocent Tahitian idyll with the classical group, with death embodied, on the right, a final synthesis and summation by Hodges, finished towards the end of his career:
'It is almost certain that this Tuauru Valley painting was completed some fifteen years later than 'Tahiti Revisited' - towards the end of Hodges's illustrious career. In the intervening period he had spent three years in India travelling extensively in the East India Company's territories and through parts of the old Mughal empire. Following his return to London he initially worked almost exclusively on large scale paintings of the subcontinent and on the engraving of the plates for Select Views of India. Only towards the end of the 1780s, after the disastrous financial failure of this publication, did he turn back to his former interests. The completion of Tuauru Valley can be dated to circa 1791 on a direct comparison with his 'Landscape, Ruins and Figures' (private collection), exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1790. Each is painted on a high quality panel, in rich colouring, and contains pronounced classical overtones. The four female figures to the right of the composition in the 1790 painting are replicated with minimal rearrangement in the Tuauru Valley picture. In both paintings Hodges advanced his interest in historical landscape painting by comparing the Polynesian culture with the ancient culture of Greece and Rome. The sensuous nature of his figures suggest strong erotic overtones - an aspect of Hodges' work that has until recently been ignored or at least suppressed by art historians.' (Charles Greig, 2005).
The location is a two-hour hike upriver, involving criss-crossing the waters of the Tuauru, before you arrive at a tall cliff, a striking geological formation made of basalt pillars, known as 'Les Orgues basaltiques', and 'Pahu Ofa'i'. A waterfall flows into the deep pond at the base of the cliff, known as a sacred bathing site. The site was visited by most of the early voyagers who anchored in Matavai Bay: there are accounts, amongst others, by Banks on Cook's first voyage, by Forster on the second voyage, by Bligh on the Bounty's voyage, 1788-89, by Tobin on Bligh's second breadfruit voyage in 1792, by Dumont d'Urville in 1823, and by Darwin in 1835:
'The fall of water is the least curious part; the cliff over which it comes is perpendicular, forming an appearance as if supported by square pillars of stone, and with a regularity that is surprising. Underneath is a pool eight or nine feet deep into which water falls; and in this place all the natives make a point of bathing once in their lives, probably from a religious idea.' (William Bligh, 17 Dec. 1788).
There are two small panels of this landscape, one without figures, in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (Joppien and Smith, 2.109) and one with the same seated female figure on the right and bather in the water, in a private collection, U.K. (Joppien and Smith, 2.110). These two latter female figures feature in the foreground of Hodges's two Tahitian masterpieces 'A View taken in the Bay of Otaheite Peha', 1776 (Joppien and Smith, 2.42) and 'Tahiti Revisited', 1776 (Joppien and Smith, 2.43), in both of these latter pictures the seated female represented as a Tahitian woman with tattooed buttocks. The complete figure group on the right, with minor variations in the position of one of the female figures and with a statue of a herm in lieu of the cloaked figure above the women, features in Hodges's 'Landscape, Ruins and Figures', 1790, now in a private collection, England (G. Quilley and J. Bonehill, William Hodges, 1744-1797: the Art of Exploration, London, 2004, p.197, no.76).
Hodges produced a handful of wash drawings but no finished pictures survived from the two ice-edges cruises in the Antarctic in the southern summers of 1772-3 and 1773-4, perhaps this classically trained artist found too few points of reference in the alien environment of the Southern Ocean, populated by little other than strangely shaped icebergs. In contrast, Cook's watering places in the temperate zone of southern New Zealand and in the tropical Society Islands provided terrain that prompted a flurry of brilliant sketches and canvases, beginning in Dusky Bay, New Zealand, where he quickly overpainted a canvas of icebergs with a beautiful depiction of the Resolution's anchorage in 'Pickersgill Harbour'. Here, wooded, rocky and cascaded coves brought to mind the romantic Italian landscapes of Salvator Rosa, the furtive Maori presence standing in for Rosa's banditti. In Tahiti, already described as a new Cythera by Bougainville, the expedition arrived to be greeted by 'nymphs swimming around the sloop ... more than sufficient to entirely subvert the little reason which a mariner might have left to govern his passion'.
In the present panel, unknown until its appearance at auction 2005, Hodges works up a large panel from his sketches taken on the spot years earlier. He composes a Tahitian landscape with a classical figure group on the right, overlooked by a cloaked figure, embodying death. Three female figures in the left foreground, as pale as Europeans, are identified as Tahitians or initiates by their tattooed buttocks and the Tahitian sun hat worn by the figure on the extreme left. Beyond, in the water, on the point and distant slopes, Tahitians, painted in a darker hue, bathe and disport. The interchange of these female figures, modelling either classical nymphs or Tahitian women, underlines Hodges's comparison of Tahiti with a classical Arcadia. Hodges's two earlier large Tahitian landscapes ('A View taken in the Bay of Otaheite Peha' and 'Tahiti Revisited') deliberately connote the 'Et in Arcadia ego' theme. Another late picture, 'Landscape, Ruins and Figures' (private collection) places similar figures in a classical landscape, and reverses the comparison:
'Perhaps what is most striking is the way [the] figure of the seated nude is taken straight from Hodges's views of Vaitepiha Bay, Tahiti ... It may be, therefore, that this capriccio on a classical subject is intended to be an essay in comparative religion, making connections between the culture of Polynesia and the Society Islands and that of classical Rome or Greece, in a manner similar to such propositions by Banks, the Forsters and others. On the other hand, the association with Tahiti might suggest an erotic theme, an idea supported by the fact that the herm figure that is the object of devotion is adapted from the antique sculpture Venus with a Herm that Hodges also used in his representation of The Merchant of Venice for Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery, also in 1790... The association of Venus with Tahiti was, of course, a well established one.' (G.Quilley and J. Bonehill, Ibid., p.198). The present panel, uniquely, puts both the voyage and classical narratives in the same frame, comparing and contrasting the innocent Tahitian idyll with the classical group, with death embodied, on the right, a final synthesis and summation by Hodges, finished towards the end of his career:
'It is almost certain that this Tuauru Valley painting was completed some fifteen years later than 'Tahiti Revisited' - towards the end of Hodges's illustrious career. In the intervening period he had spent three years in India travelling extensively in the East India Company's territories and through parts of the old Mughal empire. Following his return to London he initially worked almost exclusively on large scale paintings of the subcontinent and on the engraving of the plates for Select Views of India. Only towards the end of the 1780s, after the disastrous financial failure of this publication, did he turn back to his former interests. The completion of Tuauru Valley can be dated to circa 1791 on a direct comparison with his 'Landscape, Ruins and Figures' (private collection), exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1790. Each is painted on a high quality panel, in rich colouring, and contains pronounced classical overtones. The four female figures to the right of the composition in the 1790 painting are replicated with minimal rearrangement in the Tuauru Valley picture. In both paintings Hodges advanced his interest in historical landscape painting by comparing the Polynesian culture with the ancient culture of Greece and Rome. The sensuous nature of his figures suggest strong erotic overtones - an aspect of Hodges' work that has until recently been ignored or at least suppressed by art historians.' (Charles Greig, 2005).