General Johnson Saving a Wounded French Officer from the Tomahawk of a North American Indian

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General Johnson
Saving a Wounded French Officer
Johnson saving Dieskau.jpg
Artist Benjamin West
Year1764–1768
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions129.5 cm× 106.5 cm(51.0 in× 41.9 in)
Location Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Derby

General Johnson Saving a Wounded French Officer from the Tomahawk of a North American Indian is a painting by the British-American artist Benjamin West, completed between 1764 and 1768. It depicts a scene during the French and Indian War, and was painted a few years after the event depicted in the painting, and is now in the collection of Derby Museum and Art Gallery. [1] [2]

Contents

Description

The painting is important as it is a contemporary view showing all three major groups involved during the French and Indian War [1] (which could be called more comprehensively "the British, French and Indian War" [3] ). It depicts Irish soldier Sir William Johnson preventing an indigenous auxiliary from taking the scalp of Baron Dieskau, [4] a wounded and defeated French soldier lying on the ground. [2]

West was an early American painter. He claimed to have been first taught how to make paint by a Native American childhood friend who demonstrated how paint could be made by mixing clay with bear grease. [5] The painting has fine detail on the indigenous figure, whose plucked scalp and tattoos are shown in more detail than the Europeans' uniforms. West is known to have had a collection of North American artefacts which he used in his paintings. [6]

Benjamin West probably began this painting soon after his arrival in London, in 1763, when West returned from Italy, where he spent three years. Following The Indian Family, a painting of about 1761, this one demonstrates the same willingness to show "the proper dress and accoutrement". [7] Thus it provides us with one of two known contemporary pictures of the British Light Infantrymen for the French and Indian War period. [8] Whereas in the Italian painting, accuracy and authenticity were intended to give a generic representation of the Indian life, the new one employed them to make a report of a recent historical event. [4]

Although the subject matter and some "physical and symbolic details" could be found more closely corresponding to the Battle of Fort Niagara (1759), [9] the painting is usually related to an incident that occurred during the campaign of 1755 around Lake George, when the French commanded by Baron Dieskau, with their Indian allies, were opposed by a mixed troop of Mohawk and New England militia, led by Johnson. After having repulsed an attack against their camp, the British and their auxiliaries took over. Dieskau, wounded three times, had his life saved by Johnson, who protected him from the Mohawks wanting revenge for their killed kinsmen. [4] He actually survived and was taken as a prisoner to New York, then to London, and then to Bath for treatment of a still unhealed wound. At the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, he was repatriated to France, where he died in 1767. [10]

West returned to the American war in his The Death of General Wolfe , exhibited in 1771, a much larger work that made his reputation, though causing controversy through its use of contemporary costume.

Historical context

West's The Death of General Wolfe, 1770 Benjamin West 005.jpg
West's The Death of General Wolfe, 1770

By showing the European Johnson restraining the aggressive actions of an indigenous auxiliary, the painting has been identified by some art historians as promoting European standards of honor and laws of war, in contrast to the traditional "warlike" values of indigenous warriors such as scalping and killing prisoners of war. It has also been identified as referring to the concerns and debates that the employment of Indian allies aroused among Europeans, throughout the numerous conflicts in North America. [4] Johnson's actions in the painting contrasts against Johnson's historical reputation which has included him being described as a "White Savage" for his positive outlook on indigenous traditions during times of conflict. [11]

At the beginning of the French and Indian War, a young George Washington is said to have allowed Indian chief Tanaghrisson seal their fresh alliance by smashing the skull of Joseph Coulon de Jumonville, a wounded French officer they just took as prisoner, then washing his hands in the man's brain. The Jumonville affair caused a scandal in Europe, where it accelerated the outbreak of the Seven Years' War. [3]

The same questions persisted during the American War of Independence. In 1777, both Houses of the British Parliament debated over the employment of Indian auxiliaries. The Earl of Chatham's speech in the House of Lords made November 20, which advocated against the employment of Indian allies against the American Patriots on the grounds that they would target non-combatant colonists and cannibalise them, was indicative of opposition to long-standing recruiting traditions in Europe. [4]

Further reading

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References

  1. 1 2 "Benjamin West Painting". The French & Indian War. warforempire.org. Archived from the original on 27 March 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2011.
  2. 1 2 ""General Johnson saving a Wounded French Officer from the Tomahawk of a North American Indian" by Benjamin West, PRA". Derby City Council. Archived from the original on 23 December 2010. Retrieved 18 August 2011.
  3. 1 2 Joel Achenbach (16 December 2006). "Clash of Empires: The British, French and Indian War, 1754-1763". The Washington Post. p. C01. Archived from the original on 12 November 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2011.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Stephanie Pratt, American Indians in British Art, 1700-1840, University of Oklahoma Press, 2005, 240 p. ( ISBN   978-0806136578), p. 75-76.
  5. ↑ Music and Art Archived 2014-08-10 at the Wayback Machine , Catherine Fuller, WGBH, retrieved 28 June 2014
  6. ↑ Pratt, Stephanie (2005). American Indians in British art, 1700-1840. Univ of Oklahoma Pr. pp. 85, 198. ISBN   978-0-8061-3657-8 . Retrieved 18 August 2011.
  7. ↑ Pratt, Stephanie (2005). American Indians in British art, 1700-1840. Univ of Oklahoma Pr. pp. 75–76, 240. ISBN   978-0-8061-3657-8 . Retrieved 18 August 2011.
  8. ↑ "Uniforms of the 46th Regiment of Foot" (PDF). Schroth's New York Company. p. 2. Retrieved 18 August 2011.
  9. ↑ Pierre Pouchot, Michael Cardy (translation) and Brian Leigh Dunnigan (edition and notes), Memoirs on the Late War in North America Between France & England ((in French)Mémoires sur la dernière guerre de l'Amérique septentrionale entre la France et l'Angleterre, Switzerland, Yverdon, 1781), Youngstown (N.Y.), Old Fort Niagara Association, 1994, 568 p. ( ISBN   9780941967143), p. 232 (note).
  10. ↑ Turnbull, James R. (1974). "Dieskau, Jean-Armand, baron de Dieskau". In Halpenny, Francess G (ed.). Dictionary of Canadian Biography . Vol. III (1741–1770) (online ed.). University of Toronto Press. Retrieved 18 August 2011.
  11. ↑ O'Toole, Fintan. White Savage: William Johnson and the Invention of America. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005. ISBN   0-374-28128-9
  12. ↑ Conlin, Jonathon (2004). "Benjamin West's General Johnson and Representations of British Imperial Identity, 1759–1770. An Empire of Mercy?". Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies. 27 (1): 37–59. doi:10.1111/j.1754-0208.2004.tb00277.x.
  13. ↑ Caffey, Stephen Mark; Art History, The University of Texas at Austin. (2008). "Chapter 1 - West's First Heroics of History Painting". An Heroics of Empire: Benjamin West and Anglophone History Painting 1764--1774. University of Texas at Austin. pp. 33–42. ISBN   978-0-549-77858-5 . Retrieved 14 March 2017.
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