William Hodges 1744-1797: The Art of Exploration

William Hodges is well known as the artist accompanying Cook's second voyage to the South Pacific as official landscape painter. This book forms a major reappraisal of his career and reputation, arguing a central place for him in the development of British art. The eight essays that accompany this catalogue are by some of the foremost scholars in this area. They consider Hodges' work comparatively in terms of the rise of ethnology, the investigation of Indian history, the encounter with peoples 'without history' and the development of empirical science and rationalism. Previous accounts of Hodges have often treated him secondarily to Cook and the history of geographical exploration. This volume redresses this situation in the light of recent developments in the history of eighteenth-century British art, which seek to understand art and aesthetics within a broader frame of social and imperial history. In this work, Hodges is repositioned as one of the most intriguing and controversial painters of his age.