Arts & Culture
Unvarnished vision
Published 20 September 2004
Old Masters - Michael Fathers explains why the Omai painted by William Hodges is far more arresting than the celebrated portrait by Joshua Reynolds
Remember Omai? Remember when, last year, Joshua Reynolds's grand full-length portrait of this Polynesian wide boy and 18th-century hitch-hiker from Raiatea island was "saved" for the nation by the generosity of a nameless benefactor who handed over £12.5m to the Tate? Remember the swooning, the breathless wonder, when it arrived at Sotheby's three years ago. The art world said it was not just old Sploshua's greatest portrait, but the perfect representation of the noble savage. And remember the delight from the Spartists in the new universities when they found that a non-white, a man whose tattoos could be seen so clearly, had been painted in the same classical manner as an English aristocrat. After two centuries hidden away in Castle Howard, in North Yorkshire, Omai's apotheosis into hero and unexpected symbol of black pride was complete. Yes, said the art world, this is a great painting.
Unfortunately, there has been a hitch. The owner will not sell and Omai is back in hiding - not on the walls of a grand residence, but in a packing case in a warehouse somewhere in Britain - while the director of the Tate, Nicholas Serota, tries to persuade him to give it up. The owner is not allowed to export Omai but, on the other hand, is not obliged to sell him. The Tate is putting all its chips on its smoothiechops director to fix a deal, and says it remains hopeful. I wouldn't bet on it.
You should try to forget this Omai, a Romantic, artificial creature, and the fantasy surrounding this first Antipodean to do his gap year in Britain after cadging a ride from Tahiti on Captain Cook's support ship. Forget that he was lionised by fashionable London as an early Bob Marley who could play a nose flute, or that he got his social leg-up to George III and Queen Charlotte from the sheep rustler Sir Joseph Banks and the sexual predator Earl of Sandwich. Forget the image- making and the fairy tale, the polemics and the intellectual walloping. The real-ity about Omai is currently hanging in one of the dismally darkened rooms of the National Maritime Museum's Queen's House gallery in London.
What you will see here is an unadorned Omai, painted by an artist who was with Captain Cook on his second voyage to the Pacific. You will find yourself looking at a man whom the great navigator called a "downright blackguard". Cook refused to have him on board, and it was left to his deputy, Tobias Furneaux, commander of the Adventure, to enlist him as a sailor.
Omai arrived in London in July 1774, and this head-and-shoulder portrait by William Hodges is as perfect as a modern studio photograph that captures the aren't-you-glad-to-see-me look of a man who knows he is a celebrity. However, the Hodges portrait also removes Omai from philosophy and the Enlightenment, and anchors him to reality. It is as far away from Reynolds's fantasy as the South Pacific is from the North Sea. This is Omai without noble stance or spotless dressing-up robes, but with matted hair and oily skin.
The Omai portrait is only one revelation in an exhibition devoted to a painter who has been dismissed as a minor dauber of foreign landscapes. What little reputation he has is based on his haunting paintings of the South Pacific, the lonely black ink washes of the freezing southern oceans, and his landscapes of north India for the East India Company. They are all on show. But it is the artist's portraits and his red-chalk drawings of Pacific Islanders, most of them revealed in public in London for the first time, that set the exhibition alight.
Like the Omai painting, they show men and women as they are. They catch the reaction of each sitter as he or she faces beings from the other side of the world. There is fear, curiosity, uncertainty, humour, worry and a strange calmness. They are masterpieces of first contact that should have been saved for the nation. Too late. Most went to Australian museums and libraries years ago. The exceptions are Omai, which usually hangs in the Royal College of Surgeons, and a portrait of Captain Cook, which reveals that the great explorer was a ruthless and probably humourless man who kept self-doubt and temper hidden behind his cold eyes.
There are no icons in the art of Hodges, only reality, which is probably why he is at the bottom of the bill and the theatrical fakery of Reynolds tops it.
"William Hodges 1744-1797: the art of exploration" is at the Queen's House, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London SE10 (020 8312 6565) until 21 November
Post this article to
We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
