Two panoramas of America in London:
Mexico City
(1826) and Rio de Janeiro (1828)
Carla Hermann [1]
HERMANN,
Carla. Two panoramas of America in London: Mexico City (1826) and Rio de Janeiro (1828). 19&20, Rio de Janeiro, v. X, n. 2, jul./dez. 2015. https://www.doi.org/10.52913/19e20.X2.04b
[Português]
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1.
Without
knowing the title Description of a view of the city of St. Sebastian, and
the Bay of Rio Janeiro... [Figure 1] it would take a longer time to identify the city
which is the background of the panorama exhibited in London in 1828. The
minuscule features require a few seconds of observation. The Sugar Loaf and Corcovado mountain, the most important landmarks of Rio de
Janeiro, are shown very discreetly. The structure of the composition, clearly divided into
two planes, has one objective: to emphasize the distance between the static
city in the background and the vessels in the bay, which are anchored, but free
to leave whenever desired. Such vessels are a means of transport of goods and
ideas, equipment capable of taking businessmen, innovation and modernity to the
city that awaits them in the background. It is difficult to ignore the idea
that there is a foreign frigate facing the city which
was once colonial, but now is open to foreign ships and the world. This is how Rio de Janeiro was presented to Londoners
as a place to be explored. A land subject to new trade and production of
knowledge at the eye level of the observer who positions themselves in the
center of the rotunda which hosts the huge circular image.
2.
When compared to another Latin American panorama exhibited in London in
1826, whose protagonist is the City of Mexico [Figure 2],[2] it is possible to notice such distinct ways of thinking about nature
and space that studying its historical context becomes necessary. Similarities
are restricted to where and when the exhibitions took place: both images were
enlarged by Robert Burford to a panoramic size for the rotundas and exhibited
in the same building in Leicester Square, in the British capital, in the short
space of two years from each other. Moreover, as the titles explain by
themselves, both images were based on drawings made in situ in both
cities in 1823. But the similarities end there. Formally, they represent two
very different views. Rio de Janeiro is seen from outside, more specifically
from a ship anchored in Guanabara Bay. The author of the sketches made from the
ship remains unknown. Mexico City, on the other hand, is portrayed from the
roof of its cathedral, located in its main square. W. Bullock's authorship, besides
being identified, plays an important role in the choice of Mexico City as a
theme.
3.
A collector interested in natural history and promoter of exhibitions of
his collections, William Bullock arrived in Veracruz, Mexico, in 1823, to spend
six months visiting the capital and the inland of the country. During this
trip, sponsored by British investors, he devoted himself to collecting
specimens of fauna and indigenous artifacts for his collection, while his son
documented the surroundings and the people they met. Upon his return to Britain
with many artifacts and drawings, he immediately prepared an exhibition
focusing on ancient and modern Mexico which opened to the public in April 1824.
The show was assembled in one of the most important exhibition spaces in London
at the time: the Egyptian Hall, whose proprietor was Bullock. In the area
dedicated to the modern world there were animals dissected by Bullock himself,
as well as plants, fruits, flowers, minerals, clothing, crafts, an indian hut and even a real indigenous youth. A descriptive
catalog, also created by Bullock, explained to the public everything that was
displayed before their eyes. A few weeks later, he published his book of travel
memoirs, entitled Six Months Residence and Travels in Mexico.
4.
The panoramic visualization was not restricted to panoramas per se,
and also needs to be understood within travel narratives and museum exhibits,
complementing the representation of particular and rather specific issues with
suggestions of totality.[3] In this sense, it can be thought that
Bullock intended to offer Londoners a total experience of Mexico. It was in
this spirit that the panorama of Mexico City was exhibited.
5.
The relationship between landscape and power, very evident in both
views, is pointed out by William J. Thomas Mitchell, who proposes thinking the
landscape as a verb, not a noun.[4] As a process through which social
identities and subjectivities are formed, the landscape not only means or
symbolizes power relations, but it is also a cultural instrument of power in
itself. Moreover, it performs the role of a cultural means precisely because it
naturalizes social and cultural constructions. It may therefore be an
instrument for establishing certain relationships or ideologies. Robert Aguirre
focuses specifically on British interests in mineral exploration in Mexico as
the motivation behind the panorama exhibition in the London rotunda, for it
would provide information meant to convey a feeling of security to British
investors around 1825-1826 who, after the initial enthusiasm for the Mexican
mines, feared their exhaustion.[5] It is interesting to note that, during his stay in Mexico,
Bullock himself had bought a silver mine in Temascaltepec,
150km away from Mexico City, selling all of his businesses in London (including
his pre-Hispanic collection and the Egyptian Hall) in 1825 to move to America
and dedicate himself to the mining activity.[6]
In order to make sense of the exhibition of these two panoramas, one has to
understand that which some historians call the "informal empire" or
the British imperialist politics of the nineteenth century: the practice of a
set of expansionist actions that meant the cultural colonization of countries
or colonies with which England maintained business relations, or had interest
in doing so. It is called "informal" due to the fact that the
imperialist project was not explicit, but masked by
purely commercial interests. Luciana de Lima Martins[7]
notes that, although Rio de Janeiro had been the headquarters of a naval base
of the Royal Navy in South America from 1808 onwards and there was a squad
positioned to patrol a zone of interests, the confluence of geopolitical with
commercial strategies characterized the "absence of a defined imperialist
project" created by the British.
6.
The
truth is that as of the nineteenth century the strategic importance of Rio de
Janeiro to England started increasing gradually. The city, made capital of
Brazil in 1763, had a rapid populational and commercial growth, and remained as
the second most important naval center of the Portuguese empire, second only to
Lisbon in importance and volume of trade. Moreover, the city port was the ideal
place for stopovers and loading: there was drinking water from the mountains
surrounding the city, wood from the forests and a variety of provisions such as
jerky beef, sugar and tobacco.[8] In the navigation route to southern seas,
the city became an almost obligatory stop for ships on their way to India,
Australia, Cape Town, and China.
7.
Having
said that, we started deconstructing the initial strangeness of the option for
a sea view of Rio de Janeiro with few characteristic elements of the city and
its nature, contrasting with the most famous panorama of the city, executed by Félix-Emile Taunay and exhibited in 1824 at the rotunda of the Passage
des Panorames in Paris. Thought to unveil an
urbanized city, balancing between the mountains and the sea, this expanded
outlook shown in the French capital obeyed another demonstration of the logic
of power: the introduction of the young Brazilian nation, independent from
Portugal, and the recognition of Brazil as an independent nation by France.
8.
The
British panorama, however, shows the city as a background, quite small when
compared to the frigates. Although the Sugar Loaf and Corcovado
mountain, albeit tiny, have received some prominence in the composition
(with the first one in the center of the first part of the panorama shown in
the leaflet), it is clear that the work does not intend to merely present Rio
de Janeiro, but to emphasize the presence of ships before the city.
9.
The
booklet, which was sold together with the ticket for the exhibition and shows
the naval view mentioned above, comprises a historical overview spanning from
the discovery of Brazil to its independence in 1822. According to the text, at
that time Brazil was “happily overcoming its main difficulties and rising
rapidly in distinction and prosperity”[9] – an indication that the country would be
fertile ground for business. Printed materials also informed that the drawing
was made from the frigate of Lord Cochrane, who had been invited to command the
fleet and duly arrived in Guanabara Bay on March 13, 1823.
10.
In
addition to some data and much praise, the text is concluded with a list and
description of places and natural features that are shown in the view. Some
portray the most often cited by travelers of that time (such as the Santa Cruz
Fortress, the Sugar Loaf, Botafogo Bay, Gloria,
Corcovado mountain) while others are more unusual, such as boats and vessels
anchored in the bay (including Lord Cochrane's, according to a comment in the
description)[10], and information about the distance
between places in town and details about the locations from which they are seen
in the picture. Just like Bullock's panorama, which, in order
to lead the visitors’ appreciation of the painting reinforces the
"aesthetics of visual domination when placing the painted image with
references to carefully chosen historical antecedens,"[11]
the Rio panorama also directs our eyes, but in a linear way. Everything that
must be seen is beyond the line of the ships and the background is shown as
something to be conquered by the elements present in the foreground.
11.
According
to the author of the brochure, this view of the harbor, one mile from the town,
is the best and the most comprehensive that could be obtained, from where it is
possible to see the highlands, crowned with monasteries and surrounded by
beautiful mountains interspersed with houses and rich and magnificent gardens.[12]
It is as if the view from the bay was indeed the ideal one, and this is
defended as a way to ensure the best and most real experience for the observer
who stands before the enlarged work in the London rotunda.
12.
It is
also important to consider that the view from Rio de Janeiro created by the
British is part of a tradition of topographical mapping and coastal views
prepared by the crew of English and Portuguese vessels. As the visual
description was considered superior to any kind of verbal description, and
topographical views were used as guides for sailors, the technical training of
navigation students placed great emphasis on teaching mapping and drawing,
generating the development of a certain visual prowess among members of various
levels of the British Royal Navy. There were so many British officers who
portrayed Rio de Janeiro as a backdrop for the ships which transported them
that future research could be aimed at focusing on a set of previous renditions
taken from the deep end of Guanabara Bay[13]
which may have inspired the image described in the brochure. Along the same
lines, we may say that both the watercolor or engraved views made by sailor
travelers and the panorama in Leicester Square played the same role: making the
mountainous geographical forms of the "carioca" (native of Rio
de Janeiro) coast known to the British public at large, who were eager to
"travel" without leaving their cities.
13.
The
sites chosen as observation points offer more information about the
relationship between landscape and power. In the case of Rio de Janeiro, the
view taken from the bay leads back to our explanation about the relationship
with the observer's eye playing the role of explorer. The radial view taken
from the deep end of the bay does not seek to include the whole (like the view
from the Mexican cathedral intends, as we shall see). It flattens the horizon, in order to simplify it for the observer. The background and
foreground are rectified and appear at different scales. They are aligned to
meet the central spot of the observation deck of the rotunda. It is interesting
to note the coincidence between the word "deck" used in this case and
the most superficial part of a ship. The shape of the platform of the rotunda
is similar to some observation points located on a ship’s
masts. Similarities aside, when placed in upper position, with the line
of the panoramic horizon at eye level, the observer in London may feel at the
center of the bay and possibly in an anchored vessel. At the same time, the
observer becomes aware of being nowhere, since his
standpoint does not correspond to any real place.
14.
The
360º view favors the location of the vessels in relation to the mountainous
coast, showing the mouth of Guanabara Bay, where it meets the sea, in a reduced
size, thereby formally denouncing that the observer is in front of a
constructed view. The public to which this panorama was intended was eager for
novelties and places to be explored and discovered, which explains the decision
for this kind of construction. The intention was not to waste space with
unimportant things in the description the image intended to transmit to
observers. The main feature is a bay crowded with ships, a contingency space
which intermediated communication between Rio de Janeiro and the world, and,
moreover, was dominated by the large vessel of Lord Cochrane, highlighted in
the left corner of the second sheet of the illustrative brochure.
15.
Similarly,
the "flattened" view of the horizon allowed the observer to be in
front of a figure always in perspective, when sliding their eyes across to the
highest point of observation. The flattening as a technical device for
correcting the perspective and marking two distinct planes reaffirms the view
of a foreigner, of one traveler facing another. Ascribing observer the
condition of a traveller was one of the
characteristics of panoramic constructions, considered as real substitutes for
travel. The rotundas were not only places for entertainment and education, but
portals to different worlds: cities within cities, exotic scenarios or even
trips to the past.[14]
16.
The
same condition of a traveller is present in the
Mexican panorama. However, different resources are employed. The manipulation
of perspective occurs in the traces of the drawing, producing an image that
looks as if it were observed through a wide-angle lens. The message is clear:
here, from the top of the cathedral, located in the city center, everything can
be seen. The idea that the vision can be enlarged according to the observer’s
standpoint is enhanced by placing the observer in a symbolic construction of
the Spanish domination. The annihilation of the pre-existing Aztec power
embodied in the top of the cathedral was communicated to the public through
that representation. Even if once again it was known that the view had been
constructed and manipulated to fit in one glance, one had the sensation of
being the conqueror of that space. Mexico City was presented as a distant
place, lush and exotic in its colors, and placed at the feet of the new
"conquerors". Bullock's Mexico seems to have been born already
panoramic, as if its very nature and topography had made it so.
17.
The
standpoint taken from architectural places, usually highlighting construction
landmarks, aimed at showing the British public the magnitude of the Spanish
heritage in Mexico. This was a very important condition for the success of
Mexico City as a trade center; it demonstrated the city had been "domesticated"
by the Spaniards and was ready for establishing contact with the British.
According to Aguirre, the rational urban space organization in Mexico, shown as
similar to European cities, was important to present the nation as a safe place
for the British capital.[15] At the same time, alluding subtly both
in the picture and in the brochure to the colonial past of conquest, Bullock’s
panorama also emphasized the long history of Mexican submission to Europe.
Thus, the city was seen as a place of different and overlapping historical
periods, including the one of the dominant indigenous culture
that lies under the city, which was once colonial and today is modern.
18.
Not
only is the spatiality of the two panoramas herein discussed different, but the
same applies to temporality: whereas Rio de Janeiro appears as a promise of
future to all those who behold it from the bay and from outside the city,
Mexico DF appears as a place of accumulation of previous history times: that of
the Aztecs, rich and conquered,[16] and that of the Spanish, a dominated and
preparatory period for the use which will be possible from then onwards.
19.
Although
the Mexican panorama is inserted in a visual tradition inaugurated by classicism,
there is something of non-Western tradition that permeates the representation
and may be perceived in place names, which carries the pre-Hispanic memory.
Even in the Western organization of urban spaces there are references to some
architectural and natural landmarks made by Mexicans or inspired by their
themes. For example, the cathedral itself is referred to as "built
precisely in the space formerly occupied by the great Teocalli del Huitzilo Pochtl"[17],
indicating that the most important building, symbol of the Church power and
Spanish domination, has superimposed the icon of the Aztec power, the temple
dedicated to the main god, Huitzilopochtli. Other Spanish territorial
appropriations are indicated in the panorama, as the Calzada
de Guadalupe, “en la árida roca de Tepeyacac [...] donde se alzaba antiguamente el templo de la Ceres mexicana, Tonantzin, sítio en donde hoy se yergue la magnífica iglesia de Nuestra Señora de
Guadalupe,”[18] and the Pyramids of San Juan
(Teotihuacan), in the background of the first picture panel. These Mexican
toponyms contribute to building a sense of modernity, as they represent the
domination of the Aztec empire, relating to what has been said about temporality
and demonstration of power.
20.
Another
noteworthy feature is the lack of buildings in some spaces in the foreground of
this panorama. It is exacerbated by the distortion of the façades to be adapted
to the "wide-angle" view mentioned before. The trick of highlighting
the bare ground, even when sketches are taken from a central and high
standpoint, marks the centrality of that place in relation to the city and the
country [Figure 3].
21.
When
looking at maps made before the nineteenth century, it can be seen that the
absence of buildings in the center of the orthogonal plan of the new Hispanic
city results from the appropriation of the space of central power that Tenochtlitlán, the capital of the Aztec empire in
the post-classical period, had, which can already be seen in the 1524 map
attributed to Hernan Cortés, known as the Nuremberg Map [Figure 4]. The
succession of maps which show an empty "zócalo"
leads to our panorama of the nineteenth century, whose function was to provide
the observer with a synthesis of the entire country. This happens due to its
centrality, which has been constructed and mastered along the centuries. It is
interesting to think that the panorama resumes that which Cortés’s map had done
centuries before: taking advantage of the Aztec spatial logic. After all,
despite having been executed by Europeans and in accordance with European
conventions (houses in perspective, the surrounding cities transfigured into
medieval towers and Renaissance domes), there remains a vision of Tenochtitlán as possessing a mythic and cosmic centrality.
The planimetric distortion, which places the city at the center of a circular
lake (when it was known that in fact there were two lakes, one of freshwater
and one of saltwater, connected by a channel) reflects the indigenous
understanding of the center of an Empire, as well as being related to the Aztec
idea of cyclical time and historical pattern.[19]
The European map may have been guided by a pre-Hispanic spatial representation,
or the author of the wood engraving work may have based his work on indigenous
motifs. It is also necessary to think that this Aztec representation may have
helped Spain represent Mexico as a major conquest of the Crown, with
indications of urban planning and extra channels being dug appearing on the
maps, features that could be understood by King Charles I and the Europeans as
signs of civility, thereby highlighting the Spanish ability to subjugate a
sophisticated people.
22.
Finally,
it should be noted that when we see the two panoramas side by side, we face
very different views which cater for different interests, but which are
conditioned to a single logic: the informal imperialism. If the rotundas
intended to offer the observer the illusion of an overall view, they also
placed the observer in a superior position to that of the represented
landscape, using psychological tricks such as the height, since the observation
deck positioned the eye of an average-height observer at the same level as the
horizon. The observer occupied a prominent position
and the view suggests that everything that was unveiled before the observer’s
was subjected to their domination and control. Thus, the panorama symbolized
the relationship between center and periphery, essential to the British Empire.
It established a double centrality: the one of the observation deck – both the individual and London as the center of the
world – from which it was possible to see everything else. By bringing to this
center of the world faraway cities such as Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro –
until then unknown to the British public – the impression was created that the
Empire knew no bounds.
Bibliographic
references
AGUIRRE,
Robert. Informal Empire – Mexico and Central America in Victorian
Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005.
COSTELOE, Michael. El Panorama de
México de Bullock/Burford, 1823-1864: história de una
pintura. In: Historia
Mexicana, v. 59, n. 4, april/june 2010, pp. 1205-1245.
DELLA
DORA, Veronica. Putting the world into a box: a geography of Nineteenth-Century
'traveling landscapes'. Geogr. Ann.
89B (4), p. 287-309.
DESCRIPTION of a view of the City of
Mexico, and surrounding country: now exhibiting in the Panorama,
Leicester-Square; painted by the proprietor, Robert Burford, from drawings
taken in the summer of 1823, brought to this country by Mr. W. Bullock. London: Printed by J. and C. Adlard, Bartholomew Close, 1826. Fonte: The Getty Research
Portal. Available at: http://archive.org/details/viewofthecityofmex00burf
Accessed on 08/27//2013.
DESCRIPTION of a view of the city of St.
Sebastian, and the Bay of Rio Janeiro: now exhibiting in the Panorama,
Leicester-Square; painted by the proprietor, Robert Burford, from drawings
taken in the year 1823. London: Printed by J. and C. Adlard, 1828.
Source: The Getty Research Portal. Available at: http://archive.org/details/gri_000033125008613255
Accessed on 25/02/2014.
MARTINS,
Luciana de Lima. O Rio de Janeiro dos navegantes – o olhar britânico (1800-1830).
Rio de Janeiro: Jorge
Zahar, 2001.
MITCHELL, W. J. T.
Landscape and power. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 2002.
MUNDY, Barbara.
Mapping the Aztec Capital: the 1524 Nuremberg Map of Tenochtitlan, Its Sources
and Meanings. Imago Mundi. The International Journal for the History
of Cartography, v. 50, issue 1, 1998, pp. 11-33.
_____________________________
[1] Universidade do Estado do
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
[2] The complete title is Description of a view of the city of the City of
Mexico, and surrounding country: now exhibiting in the Panorama,
Leicester-Square; painted by the proprietor, Robert Burford, from drawings
taken in the summer of 1823, brought to this country by Mr. W. Bullock. Both panoramas mentioned in this text are named
after the titles of the brochures that accompanied their exhibition in the
London rotunda. These brochures are evidence of the tracing of the drawings
which survived until the present days as none of the monumental round pictures
exists anymore.
[3] AGUIRRE, Robert. Informal
Empire – Mexico and Central America in Victorian Culture.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005, p. 43.
[4] MITCHELL, W. J. T. Landscape and power. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2002, p. 2.
[5] AGUIRRE, Op. cit.,
p. 44.
[6] COSTELOE, Michael. El Panorama de México de Bullock/Burford, 1823-1864: história de
una pintura. In: Historia Mexicana, v. 59, n. 4, April/June 2010, p. 1208.
[7] MARTINS, Luciana de Lima. O Rio de Janeiro dos navegantes – o olhar
britânico (1800-1830). Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar, 2001, p.71.
[8] Ibidem, p. 70.
[9] Description of a
view of the city of St. Sebastian, and the Bay of Rio Janeiro […]. London: Printed by J. and C. Adlard, 1828, p. 6
[10] "At about the
same time this view was taken, and His Lordship's vessel, along with other ships
that made up the Brazilian Navy, are represented in various parts of the
bay." Description of a view of the city of St. Sebastian, and the Bay
of Rio Janeiro […], Op.
cit., p. 9.
[11] AGUIRRE, Op. cit.,
p. 43.
[12] Description of a
view of the city of St. Sebastian, and the Bay of Rio Janeiro […], Op. cit.,p.
6.
[13] According to Luciana
de Lima Martins (Op. cit., p. 96) at least Harry Edmund Egdell, George Lothian Hall, Owen Stanley, Samuel Hood Inglefield and James Glen Wilson did it.
[14] DELLA DORA, Veronica.
Putting the world into a box: a geography of Nineteenth- Century 'traveling
landscapes'. Geogr. Ann. 89B (4),
p. 296.
[15] AGUIRRE, Op. cit.,
p. 44.
[16] The brochure text
starts with the statement that the Mexico City would be "the oldest known
city in America […], the
splendid and little known city of Tenochtitlan,"
alluding to a magnificent and important historical past. (Description of a view of the city of the City of
Mexico, Op. cit., p. 2)
[17] Description
of a view of the city of the City of Mexico,
Op. cit., p. 30.
[18] Ibidem, p. 31.