Skip to main content

Gillray's Fictive Pillar

Pillar with Labels.pdf

Design for Naval Pillar (with labels) by James Gillray. Hand-colored etching, published 1 February 1800 by Hannah Humphrey; 54.6 x 30.6 cm. The British Museum

Gillray's Fictive Pillar 

James Gillray was aware of the naval projects and rivalries between John Flaxman, Alexander Dufour and John Opie, and responded by creating a fictive pillar emhpasizing the irreconcilability of the various proposals [1]. Criticizing the politicization and idealization of the Navy’s image, Gillray’s pillar can be regarded as a merger of Flaxman, Dufour and Opie’s design processes. Employing sculptural forms to create an architectural monument, Gillray’s pillar contains an incredible three-dimensionality despite being a two-dimensional print. Rather than creating a fictive pillar with painted images, Gillray saw each individual part necessary to Design for Naval Pillar’s erection. The elements of the pillar whether a hat, canon or deceased sailor, were all sculpted and configured to convey the improbable erection of the actual monument. 

Not only critiquing the actual project, the elements of Gillray’s pillar ridiculed the competitors, sponsors, commenters and ruling elite. Unlike the French State prints directed towards attacking the enemy and boosting moral, English prints of the Revolution condemned the Ministry almost as much as their adversaries.

The next four sections investigate specific elements of the pillar to suggest that the pillar has a dual critique: overtly highlighting Britain's naval prominence over France, while subtly criticisizng the British nation through the insertion of Britannia, the bonnet-rouge, the Jack Tar and Justice's unbalanced scales.  


[1] Gillray would have been aware of the ‘Naval Pillar Project’ through various publications. Details about the project was published in newspapers such as The Gentleman’s Magazine, True Briton, the Morning Chronicle and the Morning Herald