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Withering Britannia

http://i.imgur.com/KUAgAtV.jpg

Detail of Britannia from Design for Naval Pillar by James Gillray

Withering Britannia

The allegorical figure of Britannia at the summit of the pillar is yet another motif used as a subtle attack against Britain. Despite appearing stoically positioned with the figure of Victory in her palm, Gillray’s other known depictions of Britannia must be assessed in order to uncover her true meaning. In no other works that Gillray produced is Britannia executed with such a stark sense of authority [1]. Either presented as a weakened figure or caricaturized as obese or infantile, Britannia’s stoic stance in Design for Naval Pillar is an anomaly. In a well known example, The Genius of France Triumphant,-or-Britannia Petitioning for Peace the national icon appears enfeebled, offering her crown and shield to a French figure with the head of a guillotine. Rather than radiating authority, she begs as Fox and other political figures stand behind her wearing the bonnet-rouge.

In Nursery, with Britannia Reposing in Peace Britannia is equated to an infant, vulnerably sleeping in a cradle with her thumb in her mouth. Gillray depicts her in such a manner in reference to her declined military and political power. Through the 1790’s Britannia was bounded by propriety and remained a sedated opponent to the improper, energetic, bare-breasted figure of French Liberty. Britannia was slowing being replaced by John Bull, the new allegorical figure of Britain [2]. John Bull became a more effective figure to emit patriotism to the British population because he was able to ‘speak for the British public in ways that she [Britannia] could not' [3]. Between 1793 and 1811 the British army quadrupled in size—scholars believing John Bull as an active dimension of army identity [4]. In Design for Naval Pillar, Britannia atop the pillar does not contribute herself as a strong, authoritative figure, but rather one who turns her head at the first sight of political corruption. From her declining statue and Gillray's strong opinions of the nation’s lack of control, Britannia atop the pillar can be interpreted as reigning over the numerous political and national failures of England. 


[1] After consulting the artist’s catalogue raisonné, The Works of James Gillray, from the Original Plates, with the Addition of Many Subjects not before Collected, by Charles Whiting, which includes 627 prints by Gillray, I have not found Britannia rendered in a similar stoic manner as in Design for Naval Pillar

[2] Emma Major, Madam Britannia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 64. 

[3] Tamara Hunt, Defining John Bull: Political Caricature and National Identity in Late Georgian England (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 144. 

[4] Catriona Kennedy, “John Bull into Battle: Military Masculinity and the British Army, 1793-1815,” Gender, War, Politics: The Wars of Revolution and Liberation in Transatlantic Comparison, 1775-1820, ed. K. Hagemann, G. Mettele, and J. Rendall (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 129.