The Chemistry of an Imperialist Fantasy
Sanford Robinson Gifford did not paint Siout Egypt because he wanted to capture the gritty reality of nineteenth-century North Africa. He painted it because wealthy Americans in 1874 were desperate to buy a fantasy. He sat in his New York studio five years after his actual trip and flipped through old pencil sketches. Then he built a beautiful lie out of oil paint and light.
The sky glows because Gifford understood the chemistry of illusion. He layered multiple thin glazes over the canvas to literally trap and reflect real light. The resulting atmosphere is heavy and ancient and completely fabricated. He stripped away the actual local life and replaced it with a pure poetic mood. He knew his audience perfectly. The elites of the Gilded Age wanted exotic travelogues to hang in their parlors. They wanted the romance of the East without the dust or the messy politics of reality.
Critics absolutely ate it up. They praised the luminous air and the masterful brushwork. They conveniently ignored the imperialist undertones driving the entire art market. Gifford gave them exactly what they paid for when he handed over this beautifully lit ghost town. The canvas is just twenty-one by forty inches. It is small enough to fit over a heavy wooden mantle but vast enough to swallow the truth. It remains a masterpiece of light and a monument to the stories we tell ourselves when we want the world to be prettier than it actually is.
References
Avery, Kevin J. A Tent in Corsica Sanford R Gifford and the Lure of the East. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.
Kelly, Franklin. Hudson River School Visions The Landscapes of Sanford R Gifford. Yale University Press, 2003.
Novak, Barbara. Nature and Culture American Landscape and Painting 1825 to 1875. Oxford University Press, 1995.