alexlitandem
Joined: 27 Mar 2007 Posts: 129
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Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 2:49 pm Post subject: |
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Danni,
The following text is a straight `lift' from the NMM site.
I'm still convinced that I have seen - somewhere - a `diagram' of this painting, identifying all those portrayed within it. And, annoyingly, I can't for the life of me recall exactly where. Maybe I have `mis-recalled' ( rather than, Clinton-like, `mis-spoke').
And itt may well be that the text I now quote does satisfy more informed readers but, I'm not being pedantic when noting that there appear to be more people in the painting (Patrick posts above), than are actually named in this extract:
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This is the most famous representation of Nelson’s death, in the cockpit of ‘Victory’ at about 4.30 pm on 21 October 1805. In painting it Devis was responding to a press advertisement of 22 November 1805 from the publisher Josiah Boydell that he would pay 500 guineas for the best ‘Death of Nelson’ painting, for engraving.
Devis may have boarded ‘Victory’ off Portsmouth with the aid of Nelson’s banker, Alexander Davison (one of his patrons), and told her officers that he had been freed from the rules of the King’s Bench to attempt the subject to pay his debts. He worked aboard for a week making notes, sketches and portrait studies before sailing with her for the Nore on 11 December, the day he drew Nelson’s body (and the fatal bullet) during Dr Beatty’s sea-borne autopsy to prepare it for lying-in-state. From this, Beatty commissioned a Nelson portrait – of which Devis made several versions, one shown at the Royal Academy in 1807 – and obtained the illustrations for his own published Narratives. Devis’s care for accuracy also included making a model of the scene to work from.
The group around Nelson are the Revd Scott, his chaplain, rubbing his chest to help relieve the pain, and the purser Walter Burke, supporting the pillow. Nelson’s steward, Chevalier, looks towards Beatty, who feels Nelson’s pulse and is about to pronounce him dead. Captain Hardy was not present when Nelson died but is shown standing behind him, one of a number of liberties that Devis took to make the work more than a documentary record and a worthy historical celebration of Nelson’s patriotic sacrifice. The ’tween-deck height (in which Hardy, over six feet tall, could not stand upright) is exaggerated and the darkness and long outer shadows make Nelson the main source of light – real and symbolic – rather than the three flickering lanterns. Wrapped in a shroud-like white sheet, the wound in his left shoulder covered, he lies at point of death against a massive lodging knee, in a grouping recalling Old Masters paintings of Christ’s deposition from the Cross. The implication is that the light of this world is dimming and the glory of the next already shining on the hero, with the glitter of earthly rewards redundant at his feet, in the decorations and braid of his discarded uniform coat (see UNI0024).
Those present show a range of emotions – concern, sorrow, resignation, distraction and despair. By contrast, Midshipman Collingwood and Lieutenant Yule (rear left and left), with a pile of captured enemy flags being brought in by a seaman, look alertly away, as if towards outer light and the victorious battle just ending above. Guitano, Nelson’s valet, stands in right profile in front of Collingwood, holding a glass from which Nelson took his last sips of water, though it may also imply symbolic meaning. ‘Victory’s’ carpenter, Mr Bunce, stands on the far right above the dazed and wounded figure of Lieutenant George Miller Bligh, with Assistant Surgeon Neil Smith seated far right.
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Or am I just fundamentally bad at `math'?
In any event, my reading of the above suggests to me that the gentleman whose name you were originally most concerned to establish, is actually Beatty.
What is your view? |
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Redfish
Joined: 03 Dec 2007 Posts: 59 Location: Arnhem
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Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 7:57 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for all your work. I was referring to the "the dazed and wounded figure" on the right side of the painting. According to Alex his name is Bligh, according to Patrick it is Smith.
To add to Alex' quote (I just found it on the NMM-website; it is Bligh):
"Bligh is half hidden by a marine in the foreground. He is shown half-length seated, facing to the left, apparently dazed from a wound in his head, wearing a lieutenant's full-dress coat, 1787-1812, with his left hand on the wound in his side."
So Patrick, that woman you speak about; a female Marine?
Danni (really a she, Alex. Surely you do not think that I was trying to pass for someone of the opposite sex? ) |
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