TOP: “A perforated rock fortified on the top,” a drawing by H. D. Sporing, who sailed on Captain Cook’s first expedition to the South Pacific in 1769. The naturalist, Sir Joseph Banks, described the scene as “most truly romantic.” BELOW: Four years later the pencil drawing was used as the basis for an engraving to illustrate John Hawkesworth’s “Voyages” (1773). Here the engraver has altered the scale of the figures, added canoes in the foreground, and has invested the scene with a grandeur that Sporing’s careful drawing did not possess. The second version was titled: “A fortified town or village called a Hippah built on a perforated rock at Tologa in New Zealand.” Both illustrations come from a new edition of “European Vision and the South Pacific,” by Bernard Smith (Harper and Row, Pitmans, 1985, 370 pp., $39.95). Professor Smith’s study of the manner in which European artistic conventions influenced perceptions of the South Pacific was a pioneering study when it first appeared in 1960. This edition, profusely illustrated, demonstrates how this remarkable work bridges the disciplines of history, art criticism, geography, and anthropology.

Press, 10 August 1985, Page 20

TOP: “A perforated rock fortified on the top,” a drawing by H. D. Sporing, who sailed on Captain Cook’s first expedition to the South Pacific in 1769. The naturalist, Sir Joseph Banks, described the scene as “most truly romantic.” BELOW: Four years later the pencil drawing was used as the basis for an engraving to illustrate John Hawkesworth’s “Voyages” (1773). Here the engraver has altered the scale of the figures, added canoes in the foreground, and has invested the scene with a grandeur that Sporing’s careful drawing did not possess. The second version was titled: “A fortified town or village called a Hippah built on a perforated rock at Tologa in New Zealand.” Both illustrations come from a new edition of “European Vision and the South Pacific,” by Bernard Smith (Harper and Row, Pitmans, 1985, 370 pp., $39.95). Professor Smith’s study of the manner in which European artistic conventions influenced perceptions of the South Pacific was a pioneering study when it first appeared in 1960. This edition, profusely illustrated, demonstrates how this remarkable work bridges the disciplines of history, art criticism, geography, and anthropology.