On Holbein, Thomas More, The Salvation Army, Barbara Arneil, and Hobbes

Yesterday, Barbara Arneil (UBC) visited us and gave a splendid lecture on colonialism as a distinct ideology developing ideas from her recent book, Domestic Colonies: the turn inward to colonies.  (See the picture just below.) Part of her argument was that Locke developed the ideology of modern colonialism (as distinct from imperialism). During her lecture she remarked that her cover was inspired by  the cover of General William Booth's (1890) In Darkest England and the Way Out. Booth founded the salvation army, and In Darkest England presents a "scheme of social selection and salvation." This scheme "will be governed, not on the principle of counting noses, but on the exactly opposite principle of admitting no noses into the concern that are not willing to be guided by the directing brain. It will be managed on principles which assert that the fittest ought to rule, and it will provide for the fittest being selected, and having got them at the top, will insist on universal and unquestioning obedience from those at the bottom." For good measure, Booth adds, "If anyone does not like to work for his rations and submit to the orders of his superior Officers he can leave. There is no compulsion on him to stay." (I have reproduced the full cover of that below.)

 

As it happens, on Monday (recall) I had posted a piece on Thomas More's Utopia. In it I noted the connection between Locke's and More's ideologies of colonialism, and in it I treated Arneil's earlier book John Locke and America: The Defence of English Colonialism as authority.

So, I was primed to make the following suggestion. Booth's cover seems to me manifestly inspired by, or a re-interpretation of, the cover art for Thomas More's (1516) Utopia. Below two versions of it: first is the original cover. I believe the artist is unknown. Second is a (1518) cover of Froben's edition, published in Basel; this cover is by Ambrosius Holbein (the brother of Hans; Hans Holbein made a very famous surviving portrait of Thomas More and one -- destroyed in fire -- astounding portrait of More's family). Ambrosius Holbein's cover is clearly inspired by, but not identical to, the original cover art. (It's possible, of course, Ambrosius Holbein was the artist of the original cover, but I believe that is unknown.)

As an aside, it seems not much is known about Ambrosius Holbein. But he made one spectacular painting (see here), which tends to be dated to the same year as the cover of the Froben edition.  

In particular, some other time I'll return to the details of the Holbein cover. But here I just want to point to the two bridge-like connections (at eleven and one o' clock)  between the island in the center of the image and two land-masses. It is not entirely clear to me what Holbein is trying to convey, although, as I noted earlier in the week, from their island, the Utopians do dominate the surrounding countryside and plant colonies in them. In my view, More's Utopia is the source of the modern ideology of colonialism (with the gospel of work, with surveillance techniques, and (recall) eugenics). 

The artist of Booth's book-cover, has drawn at least five dotted lines, which represent four kind of colonial emigrations: two to the "colony across the sea;" one emigration pattern for "domestic servants" to "British colonies;" one emigration pattern to "Canada, US, etc" to "foreign lands;" and one emigration pattern to "all parts of the world." (This may be hard to see in the picture above, but if you blow it up it's pretty clear.) While there are differences between Booth's scheme and the Utopian one, the cover arts also reveal non-trivial similarities.

One final thought: I do not mean to suggest that the cover to Booth's is only inspired by the Utopia cover. It is pretty clear that the bottom half of the image represents a kind of state of nature within society. This part of the image evokes Leviathan's famous cover; but the little men that make up  the Leviathan are now drowning in (society's) misery in the cover to In Darkest England and The Way Out