“American Progress is an allegorical representation of Manifest Destiny. Here Columbia, intended as a personification of the United States, leads civilization westward with American settlers, stringing telegraph wire as she travels; she holds a school book. The different economic activities of the pioneers are highlighted and, especially, the changing forms of transportation. The Native Americans and wild animals flee.”  (Wikipedia, “Manifest Destiny. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny )

My idea was to update this symbol to reflect something of the 140 years that have passed since it was created.  My vision is somewhat on the negative side; however I included some positive elements as well.  I place my additions all to the right of Columbia – indicating a linear form of development from the past to the present.  I tried to continue with Gast’s emphasis on transportation, including freeways, a Maglev Train, F-22 jet fighters and the space shuttle launching.

This project metamorphosed as I worked on it – some originally planned elements didn’t work (sometimes after spending some time working on them).  However I am pleased with my overall result.  The cityscape (an aerial view of Tokyo) fit perfectly behind Columbia.  I like the industrial smokestacks and space shuttle in the background, however they are a little hard to see – I couldn’t find anyplace else to put them and had to keep them small to maintain some sort of realistic perspective.  One particular effect I am quite pleased with was duplicating the dark sky in the upper left of the painting, flipping it horizontally and copying it to the upper right side.  This transformed the original bright outlook (bright sky behind Columbia) to a vision of an even darker future.  I made the new dark future even darker than the darkness Columbia is displacing.

I could do this project again and come up with a completely different result – the possibilities are endless.  I could do a strictly historical interpretation or a more positive one – this is just what I ended up with.

One thing I learned is that things can get complicated with a large number of layers, and so it’s a good idea to label them clearly!

I think this idea works pretty well.  There are some elements I would consider changing, if I could find better images.  Over all, I am satisfied with this result.

(Project for class at the College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Illinois – Photo-montage dealing with symbols or metaphors.  Cropped to 12×18 inches to conform with assignment)

You may view a larger size on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tom-henneman/4433204995/sizes/o/

American Progress - John Gast

American Progress, John Gast, 1872 (original)

Georgiana Berkeley - Untitled album page, 1867/71

     This image shows the whimsical nature of many of the collages. Although it is untitled I believe that it was inspired by Charles Darwin’s (then) recently published Origin of Species. Here we have a fantastical bird and a giant tortoise, being ridden by a middle-aged lady and a small child – perhaps in the Galapagos Islands. The boat offshore would be the HMS Beagle, of course. This is a watercolor, the most common medium used.
     Many of the Collages have a whimsical nature as seen here. They are also often humorous, dreamlike or fantastical. Many reflect the mores of the English upper class at this time. Many featured cards – a popular pass time and an easy target for the photo-collage. Another popular theme was the spider web. One of the albums on display depicted a web with the author in the center, surrounded by here various family and acquaintances – a graphical representation of her social network. Also, many of the albums were collaborations between family and friends, and so authorship of a given page is often in question.
     I found many aspects of this exhibit intriguing. The whimsical and playful subjects do not fit in with most peoples ideas of the stolid British upper class of the Victorian Era. The technique foreshadows Photoshop by combining images and media. The albums changed the rules of photography – to quote from the Art Institute web site: “Instead of standing intact as images that referred to a person in a specific time and place, photographic portraits took on new meanings in newly invented contexts. Rather than showing a single point of view, photocollage combined numerous images made from multiple perspectives, and where photographs should have provided truthful records, albums gave rise to fantasy.”
     The albums are a unique window on the way of life of these Victorian ladies. I found the interactive albums to be especially interesting. It is one thing to see the framed pages on the walls or the albums themselves, open to a particular page, in their glass cases. However, paging through an entire album one sees the whole thing – in some sections it may be a simple photo album, in others the photographs are missing – were they removed by a later generation or simply never completed? The incomplete collages offer insight into their construction – which varied considerably. There were two primary approaches – drawing first, and then inserting the photographs, or using a photograph as an inspiration and drawing around it. Some were carefully planned in advance, others done on the spot. There were probably as many methods as there were artists.
     I found this exhibit enjoyable, perhaps more enjoyable than I expected. There is not much information of the web about Victorian photocollage – the best source I found is for this exhibit, at: http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/exhibitions/VictPhotoColl/index I would recommend this show to anyone!