CHAPTER 12

Although historicism in painting is often a matter of borrowing key compositional elements or specific imagery from earlier pictures (chap. 9), it may also take the form of depicting historic places, objects, and personalities. In The Piazza San Marco Seen from the Northwest Corner (after 1756) Canaletto took as his primary subject a landmark urban setting with which he had been familiar since his youth in Venice (appendix 1, no. 18).

By means of a dramatic perspective view of the piazza enframed by a massive foreground arch, Canaletto achieved a powerful scenographic effect underscored by the careful placement of figures, as if they were actors on a vast stage.¹ Although the latter are shown in contemporary eighteenth-century dress (an adaptive historicist feature), they are clearly subordinate to the painter's architectural subject, with its striking ensemble of medieval and renaissance buildings, including the Byzantine Basilica (1063–94), its massive Campanile, and the Procuratie Vecchie (left), completed by Sansovino in the early sixteenth century.

Of all the arts, photography is certainly the most amenable to derivative historicism, as its practitioners may freely choose for their subjects a virtually limitless number of historic places and objects. Even the earliest photographers availed themselves of important architectural and archaeological sites, employing their new medium in much the same way that Piranesi had used his skills as a draftsman to produce etchings of ancient Rome in the mid eighteenth century, following the spectacular excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii (1738 and 1748).

British romantic photographer Samuel Bourne (1834–1912) set his sights on the wonders of India, and around 1865 on the banks of the Ganges he produced this stunning albumen print of "Vishnu Pud and Other Temples near the Burning Gat, Benares" (appendix 1, no. 19).

The temples are sited near stepped ghats that lead down to the holy river, where the cremated remains of the dead are deposited. The diagonal slope of the landscape contrasts dramatically with the striking verticality of the temple spires.²

Historicism has long played an important role in the design of official currencies and postal items. A number of postage stamps issued by the United States Postal Service in the 1990s incorporated actual historical materials into retrospective designs. Especially significant were the "Pacific 97 Triangles" (1997), whose stagecoach and ship images commemorated the opening of the American West by land and by sea (appendix 1, no. 20).

According to Postmaster General Marvin Runyon, "These innovative stamps represent our commitment to provide the philatelic community and the American public with exciting new designs and formats." But the Postmaster General was mistaken. Although these were the first stamps of their kind in American postal history, the triangular shape, which struck many Americans as unusually innovative, actually first appeared in the nineteenth century. The famous "Cape of Good Hope Triangles" (1853) are reckoned "classics" by philatelists due to their history, rarity, and excellence of design. What is more, these "innovative" American triangles, designed by C. Norwood and illustrated by Robert Brangwynne (scenes) and John Thompson (borders), were actually based on nineteenth-century engravings of the Clipper Ship, Richard S. Ely, taken from a small advertising card, and a U.S. Mail Stage Coach drawing attributed to American artist, Harrison Eastman (1823–1886).³