Customer Reviews

Encounters With Paradise: Views of Hawaii and Its People, 1778-1941

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Art history adds truth that political history lacks. One hundered sixty paintings and sketches were gathered for an exhibit at the Honolulu Acadmey of Arts. This book " ENCOUNTERS WITH PARADISE" documents the event. Each painting or drawing is combined in the book with a brief but thoughful commentary.

We can study the world of some of the earliest peoples through their writings, art, and architecture. In ancient Egypt, for example, we have hieroglyphics, grand burial sites, and more.

In ancient Hawaii, there were no written records. No preserved paintings of people and places, with the exception of symbols carved into rocks of stylistic forms and animals.

When Europeans commingled with the native people on "the Sandwich Islands," the diseases left behind rapidly depopulated the islands from a quarter of a million residents to a few tens of thousands in only 150 years (and David Stannard argues the pre-contact population may have been much, much higher, even up to one million residents).

What is known about these uncontaminated Hawaiians comes in large part from the memories of literate Hawaiians like David Malo, the records of seamen and missionaries, and through the brushes and pens of the artists who traveled to the Hawaiian Islands from the last 1700s until the introduction of photography.

This collection of paintings, drawings, and sketches, Encounters With Paradise: Views Of Hawaii And Its People, 1778-1941, corresponds with a 1992 exhibition organized by the Honolulu Academy of Arts. This book, by David Forbes, reproduces a number of the works in this collection, as well as providing some background of the artists, the juxiposition of the artist with Hawaii and things Hawaiian, and the unique characteristics of the subject or subjects of the artist's eye and brush.

For example, the landscapes seem much more denuded of vegetation than you may expect, and the spacing of houses and villages seem to point away from Stannard's higher population estimates. And Waikiki, in particular, has been transformed today into something with no resemblance to its earlier version, a land of salt ponds, coconut trees, and scattered native homes. Finally, Diamond Head, even 200 years ago, attracted those with an artistic eye; it appears either featured or in the background of a great many paintings.

The depopulation of the Hawaiian Islands was a tragedy of immense proportions. The people that put ink to paper were some of the very few that provide us with a glimpse of Hawaiian life before the impact of the missionaries, the whalers, and the western businessmen. Remember, these native peoples were sailing thousands of miles between the islands of Polynesia when the inhabitants of Western Europe were afraid to leave the view of the coastline in their boats because of their fears of sea monsters and the edge of the earth.

This is a suburb book for people interested in early Hawaiian life and culture, even recognizing that it fails to capture 99% of Hawaiian life. The few records are all the more precious because of their scarcity.