Watson and the Shark

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[Date] Watson and the Shark * Generally considered the finest painter of colonial America, John Singleton Copley painted portraits and historical subjects. His Boston portraits show a thorough knowledge of his New England models, and his talent as a draftsman and colorist produced pictures of aristocratic elegance and grace. His gripping pictorial drama entitled Watson and the Shark is a visually stimulating and compelling historical painting that evokes many diverse emotions in its audience. John Singleton Copley’s interpretation of a horrifying disaster in Brook Watson and the Shark stands out as a romanticized horror painting. Watson and the Shark, a painting executed in the medium of oil on canvas by Copley, was completed in 1778 and belongs to the ‘18th Century American political’ period. The painting stands 71 ¾ inches (182.2 cm) tall and 90 ½ inches (229.9 cm) wide. It can be found in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., while a full scale copy that Copley made for himself is owned by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The grisly subject depicted in the painting is an account of a traumatic ordeal that 14-year-old Brook Watson experienced in 1749. The painting was commissioned by Watson who had been attacked by a shark in Havana harbor and had been lucky enough to be rescued. The painting is something of an exercise in baroque exaggeration, a going beyond realistic depiction in order to evoke strong emotions in the viewer. The terrible, deadly shape and primeval, gaping mouth of the shark, in close proximity to the swimmer (who is naked, and helpless on his back) suggest that what we are seeing is more than just a depiction of an actual event. The shark becomes a symbol of predatory evil; the swimmer, who is totally vulnerable, becomes a symbol of that which evil victimizes. In looking at this picture we should remember that the actual

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