Empiricism, Enlightenment and Aesthetics: Engravings from the 'Endeavour' Voyage, 1768-1771

Abstract

The original paintings and drawings from the Endeavour voyage have been subjected to semiological analysis in wide-ranging scholarly studies. Yet, as the earliest depiction of South Pacific peoples in British voyage publications, the engraved illustrations that were made from them have received little attention. This thesis examines the engraved ethnographic plates in two significant Endeavour publications, the official Admiralty publication edited by John Hawkesworth, An Account of the Voyages undertaken by the Order of His Present Majesty for Making discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere...(1773), and the posthumous publication of Sydney Parkinson's A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas...(1773), and compares their depiction of non- European subjects with that in the original paintings and drawings from which the plates were taken. It shows how ethnographic information, informed by the Eurocentric attitudes and perceptions of contemporary British and European society that were voiced in the daily journals of James Cook, Joseph Banks and the Endeavour artist, Sydney Parkinson, was modified in engraved reproduction. In tracing the history of these two publications, this thesis is able to show how the ethnographic information in the plates in the official Admiralty publication was determined by those who were most closely associated with it the publication, namely First Lord of the Admiralty, John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich, and Joseph Banks, leader of the natural history party on the Endeavour voyage. Together with its editor, John Hawkesworth, they allowed professional and personal considerations to override concerns of authenticity. Texts were altered and plates were specifically commissioned to satisfy those considerations while, at the same time, appealing to the tastes and interests of their elite readers. This thesis is also able to show how, in the absence of a satisfactory empirical methodology, the engravers of the plates in the published Journal adapted original images deploying inappropriate and obsolete styles. This thesis concludes that the engraved illustrations in the two publications therefore failed to respond to either the empirical demands of the Endeavour voyage or the scientific aspirations of the artists who created the original ethnographic documentation.