Sea Currents in Nineteenth-Century Art, Science and Culture : Commodifying the Ocean World

Vast and fluid, the oceanic realm in the long nineteenth century inspired a multifaceted material discourse that intersected with scientific exploration, colonial expansion, industrial development and the rise of middle-class leisure. From the seashore to the seabed, marine life forms and environments, made tangible through a range of representational technologies, processing and marketing, captivated contemporary practitioners and audiences on a local and global scale. How did metropolitan and regional scientists, artists, dealers, designers, manufacturers, traditional craftspeople and the general public experience and value the products and sites of the sea? This book examines the commodification of the ocean world focusing on the transaction of oceanic objects and their effect on consumers in the intersecting realms of art, science, and culture.

Through a combination of historical essays and unique object studies by a spectrum of scholars, curators and scientists, Sea Currents takes a closer look at the material, aesthetic and commercial dimensions of the collection and display, illustration and decoration, and trade and consumption of marine flora and fauna. Embodied in preserved specimens, casts and models, pictured in paintings, prints and photographs, assembled and arranged in aquaria, and stylized in fashion, the decorative arts and architecture, sea products – including seaweeds, shells, corals, anemones, sponges, jellyfish, mollusks, fish and whalebone – were deployed in marine stations and museums, exhibitions and emporia, homes and gardens, and traditional communities around the globe, circulating through formal and informal networks of empire. Engaging with the intersections between art history, the history of science, anthropology, ecocriticism and material culture, the essays in this book explore the currency of marine matter embedded in the economies and ecologies of the oceanic empires that crisscrossed the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans during the long nineteenth century.