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1. 1 media/Federal_Sauvages.jpg 2016-05-04T18:16:58-07:00 Zachary Ziebell 8eecdb2214ffc2e89ec5ed5f180953625d845cc7 19th-Century US Pacific Caroline Frank 15 image_header 2018-11-01T18:38:54-07:00 Caroline Frank a1a5e7e9a2c3dba76ecb2896a93bf66ac8d1635e

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• 1 media/QuincyHs.jpg 2016-05-04T16:29:46-07:00 Republicans with Imperial Visions 11 plain 2018-10-11T19:27:35-07:00 The 18th-century emphasis on Western superiority found in chinoiserie styles has been maintained in the newly globalized forms of classical antiquity. Such superiority is evident in spatial arrangements creating enhanced perspective for an explicitly depicted or assumed Western male viewer. An example of the former would be the military officer depicted watching dancing natives in Carrington’s Paysage des Indes. An example of the latter is found in Col. Josiah Quincy's house, built in 1770, a time when Americans were seriously contemplating fulfilling geographic independence with political independence. Here we see a neoclassical portico protruding below a Chinese fretwork balustrade surround of a half-windowed monitor stylistic. The façade exhibits a continuum from Mediterranean antiquity to the Asia-Pacific, intertwining artistic motifs reflective of both politically charged spheres of reference. This monitor is one of the earliest examples of its type in America and is a precursor to the early-19th-century all-seeing master of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon, an emerging architectural and cultural trend, in which an omniscient observer, by means of his universal knowledge, dominates those being observed.[8] In Quincy’s home, the virtuous pretensions of a republican American (evident in the classical entrance) blend with a worldly ambition (in the home’s Chinese crown), enclosing the all-knowing man. From his monitor, Col. Quincy had a clear view of all the shipping lanes in and out of Boston Harbor.[9]
  
  Decorative arts and fashion are integral to a society’s social, economic, and political history. As historians, we miss so much in stopping at written text or, as art historians, at formal descriptions of design elements. Taking a broader view, with an eye to historical commercial and political contexts, we can see both Asian and imperial aesthetics entering into what has been generally described as the neoclassical simplicity of the early republic. This blending of Western origins with a ready and voluptuous Asian-Pacific landscape within the very homes of U.S. leaders was closely intertwined with business decisions and political agenda, subliminally encouraging colonization and empire.
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  ^{[8] Joao Wilbert of “Signal Hijack”, demonstrates the timeless power of omniscient knowledge in http://jhwilbert.com/projects/signalhijack/research.html (accessed Jan. 26, 2014); Christopher Wirth, “Watching the Watchers: Hackers Use Surveillance Images for Mischief,” Newsweek, Oct. 10, 2008.
  [9] "Josiah Quincy House,” Historic New England website, http://www.historicnewengland.org/historic-properties/homes/quincy-house (accessed Jan. 26, 2014)}