Historical Question for Prof. Tilley

It's been a long, long time since I did any serious reading about the War of 1812. I'm afraid I don't remember enough about this particular action to comment intelligently.

I do know from experience that reconstructing such an event is difficult, and more than one interpretation is often possible. The diagrams in publications inevitably are based on written accounts, even the best of which have potential problems. The best eyewitness accounts were written by the participants shortly after the fact, on the basis of memory - and memory, especially when dealing with an event like a naval battle, often plays tricks. And different participants have different motives in writing down what they remember. Imagine what it would be like to reconstruct a single-ship action like that - one that took place far out of sight of land, with no visible points of reference. If two eyewitness accounts of that action differ significantly I'm not at all surprised.

You didn't mention the origin of the painting. If it's in a "Modern Marine Masters" exhibition, it sounds like it's by a modern artist. That individual probably worked from the same written accounts that are available to the rest of us.

About all I can say beyond that is that the best and most accessible source on the subject is the multi-volume The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History, edited by William S. Dudley and published by the Naval Historical Center. Bill Dudley is a fine historian and an expert on sorting through documents; I'm confident that whatever he included in that collection about the Constitution/Java fight is the most reliable material that could be found.

Your comments on my models are deeply appreciated. I work scandalously slowly and constantly get diverted to other stuff (e.g., spending a ridiculous amount of time at the computer), but I may conceivably have something new to show off by the end of the summer. At the moment I'm working on a 1/700 warship - but that wonderful old Revell Golden Hind, which another forum member kindly made available to me, is calling loudly.

John:
I agree with what you have saiid, but I would also recommend looking into Tyrone Martin's research on the Constitution. He is, by far, the best authority on the ship and her career. Schoonerbum should read what he has to say about this battle in "A Most Fortunate Ship." I don't have my copy in front of me right now, but I believe he supplied diagrams of the various battles.

Russ

'A Most Fortunate Ship' shows the Java to windward of the Constitution, similar the same map as is in Roosevelt's book. Actually there is a note on Roosevelt's map...

"This differs somewhat from the English Diagram: the American officers distinctly assert that the Java kept the weather-gage in every position"

Looks like another Roosevelt vs. James diatribe.

As it turns out, the artist in question is English, using his country's version of the battle I guess. The painting and artist's bio can be seen at:

http://www.mysticseaport.org/shop/su-allartworks.cfm?ar=204&pg=Artists

The painting in question is at the bottom of the scroll.

Somewhat unpatriotic of Mystic to be pandering limey mythology, eh?

He, the artist, is the illustrator for the covers of all the latest reprints of the Alexander Kent Bolitho novels.

Scott

Some of the military art I've done had deliberate errors to fit all the requisite images on a magazine or book jacket. While the discrepancies are usually caused by demands of the client, it's the artist whose name is on the piece that generally takes the flak for innaccuracies.

That reminds me of a funny story. My mother was commissioned to do a series of paintings for Malmstrom Airforce Base. I was to do models for the same project. One painting was to depict the P-39s and B-25s being prepped to be flown to Russia. These planes would have been done in Russian colors and markings, but since our commision was during the cold war, we were told by the Airforce to do the planes in silver with US markings, since they didn't want anything "Russian".

Now that the cold war is over, the models have been redone to historical accuracy, however, her artwork is still in distribution, and she still gets comments from history buffs about the inaccuracy of the planes.

The same issue about the reality of perspective and projection of a painting would hold true if the painting was done for illustration and print purposes. The printer would assign limits on the size, and the artist must scale down to maintain those limits. Which, in many cases, is easier said than done.

Scott

All this is a good demonstration of why historical research and modern art really are two different, though connected, worlds. Those paintings Mystic is advertising are beautiful; I'd be delighted to have any of them hanging on a wall of my house. But the museum where I used to work wouldn't have been interested in acquiring any of them - because they aren't contemporary with the ships and events they represent. As this thread has established, even conscientious and thoroughly competent artists have to contend with all sorts of considerations other than historical accuracy.