Nelson & Napoleon, National Maritime Museum, London
Long ago, in my childhood, the permanent display about Horatio Nelson at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich seemed simple and clear: the large and melancholy painting of the death of Nelson by Arthur Devis dominated the blood-soaked fragments of the admiral's uniform. Could so great an Englishman really have been so small in stature?
Apart from the eponymous column in Trafalgar Square, these relics sufficed - along with the sombre memorial in St Paul's Cathedral - to immortalise him for the generations brought up on jingoistic yarns about Nelson and his mortal wound in his moment of triumph at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
That was a time when Captain Mahan's hagiographic The Life of Nelson: the Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain, was still the standard work.
But it is two long centuries since the cannon smoke cleared at Trafalgar, and it is quite some time since the 1960s. Each academic year, I have to teach classes covering the period of the Napoleonic wars.
I regularly put the following mildly sadistic inquiries to my transatlantic students when they arrive: 'Have you heard of the Duke of Wellington?' (Silence; no hands are raised; eyes are downcast.) 'Nobody? Very well, how about Admiral Nelson?' (Response as before.) 'Not him either? Has anyone heard of Napoleon Bonaparte?'
All, without exception, know the name of the little Corsican who dominated France and Europe from 1799 to 1815. Not one has yet claimed any cognisance of the other men, each of whom played crucial parts in bringing about his defeat. So it is a curatorial masterstroke of publicity to unite the names of Nelson and Napoleon in this exhibition.
Once set on their title, the curators at the National Maritime Museum have devised a display of astonishing political correctness. They could possibly have gone further; the show might have been called Emma & Josephine.
There is a section called 'The impact of Nelson and naval warfare on women in Britain 1795-1805'. But perhaps someone drew the line at yoking together the celebrated paramours of the opponents.
Linking Nelson with Napoleon changes the direction of the show emphatically. Tellingly, the captions throughout are bilingual. I looked for any that might be mildly censored in French, but I could not find evidence of softening of information that might be unwelcome.
Neither our hero nor antihero appear until the visitor has digested a preamble about French politics in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. An example of Dr Guillotine's humane invention for speedy execution is here, along with a Phrygian cap, the symbol of the sans culottes of the French Revolution.
The question of revolutionary sentiment among the sailors of the Royal Navy is considered, with the mutinies at Spithead and the Nore used as supporting evidence. That, I think, might not have been the case in the 1960s.
After these preliminaries, united by their equally shabby bicorn hats, on display together in a glass case, both men appear at once. Headgear of one kind or another is something of a theme in this show.
Among the hats and caps there are rather fewer swords, model ships, and cannon than might have been expected. Certainly there are drums, maps, and pistols in modest abundance but greater emphasis is placed on the social history of the period: there are plenty of scurrilous caricatures of both men, ephemeral material such as the useful poster bearing the phrase 'Let ENGLISHMEN keep a watchful eye upon FRENCH SPIES'.
There is decorative chinaware, many personal letters, and two musical scores. The Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna has loaned its precious manuscript of the mighty Eroica symphony, with the dedication famously erased by an angry Beethoven on hearing that Napoleon had declared himself emperor in 1804. The score of Haydn's Nelson Mass is also here.
In a way, this exhibition is an object lesson in how the self-image of each man was projected. The ultimate guarantee of courage in a commander is evidenced by his battle wounds. Nelson's injuries are the best-known thing about his appearance.
My students are familiar with Napoleon because he was so often and so variously portrayed: once seen ,who could forget the giant nude statue of Bonaparte by Antonio Canova, now in Apsley House. Nelson also exercised considerable control over how his portraits were promulgated, as demonstrated in the excellent catalogue.
Of course, if Nelson were alive today his scandalous affair with the wife of a peer would guarantee prurient tabloid coverage. All Europe would follow the progress of the strange ménage a trois of Lord and Lady Hamilton and the famous admiral.
The fact that Emma was a notorious exhibitionist, a sort of Paris Hilton figure, given to inflicting her semi-naked 'attitudes' on guests after dinner would just be catnip to the Sun or the News of the World.
Here, those aspects are rather played down in favour of a stress on the love affair between Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson. They had a mutual pact to destroy their letters, but she reneged, so some of his letters to her are shown. Their rings are also here, alongside material relating to the unusually named child of their union, Horatia.
One high-tech exhibit is the animated tableau of the crucial battle at Trafalgar: the engagement is played out with colour-coded digital ship shapes on a large table, with a bilingual commentary punctuated by a ringingly loud musket shot.
Visitor interaction is limited to discovering the names of the ships. After all, I suppose one could not expect to alter the course of the fighting.
As well as going to the press view - inevitably a somewhat peculiar gathering - I went again as a civilian. On the latter occasion, the paying audience was preponderantly old and uniformly white. Mais sacrebleu! et nom d'un nom! Certains gens françaises était parmi les visiteurs. The title is bringing them in.
David Brady teaches at the New York University in London
Project data
Cost: £515,000
Funders: Zvi Meitar Family Fund, BP Shipping
Exhibition design: Ralph Appelbaum Associates UK
Exhibition ends: 13 November
Long ago, in my childhood, the permanent display about Horatio Nelson at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich seemed simple and clear: the large and melancholy painting of the death of Nelson by Arthur Devis dominated the blood-soaked fragments of the admiral's uniform. Could so great an Englishman really have been so small in stature?
Apart from the eponymous column in Trafalgar Square, these relics sufficed - along with the sombre memorial in St Paul's Cathedral - to immortalise him for the generations brought up on jingoistic yarns about Nelson and his mortal wound in his moment of triumph at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
That was a time when Captain Mahan's hagiographic The Life of Nelson: the Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain, was still the standard work.
But it is two long centuries since the cannon smoke cleared at Trafalgar, and it is quite some time since the 1960s. Each academic year, I have to teach classes covering the period of the Napoleonic wars.
I regularly put the following mildly sadistic inquiries to my transatlantic students when they arrive: 'Have you heard of the Duke of Wellington?' (Silence; no hands are raised; eyes are downcast.) 'Nobody? Very well, how about Admiral Nelson?' (Response as before.) 'Not him either? Has anyone heard of Napoleon Bonaparte?'
All, without exception, know the name of the little Corsican who dominated France and Europe from 1799 to 1815. Not one has yet claimed any cognisance of the other men, each of whom played crucial parts in bringing about his defeat. So it is a curatorial masterstroke of publicity to unite the names of Nelson and Napoleon in this exhibition.
Once set on their title, the curators at the National Maritime Museum have devised a display of astonishing political correctness. They could possibly have gone further; the show might have been called Emma & Josephine.
There is a section called 'The impact of Nelson and naval warfare on women in Britain 1795-1805'. But perhaps someone drew the line at yoking together the celebrated paramours of the opponents.
Linking Nelson with Napoleon changes the direction of the show emphatically. Tellingly, the captions throughout are bilingual. I looked for any that might be mildly censored in French, but I could not find evidence of softening of information that might be unwelcome.
Neither our hero nor antihero appear until the visitor has digested a preamble about French politics in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. An example of Dr Guillotine's humane invention for speedy execution is here, along with a Phrygian cap, the symbol of the sans culottes of the French Revolution.
The question of revolutionary sentiment among the sailors of the Royal Navy is considered, with the mutinies at Spithead and the Nore used as supporting evidence. That, I think, might not have been the case in the 1960s.
After these preliminaries, united by their equally shabby bicorn hats, on display together in a glass case, both men appear at once. Headgear of one kind or another is something of a theme in this show.
Among the hats and caps there are rather fewer swords, model ships, and cannon than might have been expected. Certainly there are drums, maps, and pistols in modest abundance but greater emphasis is placed on the social history of the period: there are plenty of scurrilous caricatures of both men, ephemeral material such as the useful poster bearing the phrase 'Let ENGLISHMEN keep a watchful eye upon FRENCH SPIES'.
There is decorative chinaware, many personal letters, and two musical scores. The Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna has loaned its precious manuscript of the mighty Eroica symphony, with the dedication famously erased by an angry Beethoven on hearing that Napoleon had declared himself emperor in 1804. The score of Haydn's Nelson Mass is also here.
In a way, this exhibition is an object lesson in how the self-image of each man was projected. The ultimate guarantee of courage in a commander is evidenced by his battle wounds. Nelson's injuries are the best-known thing about his appearance.
My students are familiar with Napoleon because he was so often and so variously portrayed: once seen ,who could forget the giant nude statue of Bonaparte by Antonio Canova, now in Apsley House. Nelson also exercised considerable control over how his portraits were promulgated, as demonstrated in the excellent catalogue.
Of course, if Nelson were alive today his scandalous affair with the wife of a peer would guarantee prurient tabloid coverage. All Europe would follow the progress of the strange ménage a trois of Lord and Lady Hamilton and the famous admiral.
The fact that Emma was a notorious exhibitionist, a sort of Paris Hilton figure, given to inflicting her semi-naked 'attitudes' on guests after dinner would just be catnip to the Sun or the News of the World.
Here, those aspects are rather played down in favour of a stress on the love affair between Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson. They had a mutual pact to destroy their letters, but she reneged, so some of his letters to her are shown. Their rings are also here, alongside material relating to the unusually named child of their union, Horatia.
One high-tech exhibit is the animated tableau of the crucial battle at Trafalgar: the engagement is played out with colour-coded digital ship shapes on a large table, with a bilingual commentary punctuated by a ringingly loud musket shot.
Visitor interaction is limited to discovering the names of the ships. After all, I suppose one could not expect to alter the course of the fighting.
As well as going to the press view - inevitably a somewhat peculiar gathering - I went again as a civilian. On the latter occasion, the paying audience was preponderantly old and uniformly white. Mais sacrebleu! et nom d'un nom! Certains gens françaises était parmi les visiteurs. The title is bringing them in.
David Brady teaches at the New York University in London
Project data
Cost: £515,000
Funders: Zvi Meitar Family Fund, BP Shipping
Exhibition design: Ralph Appelbaum Associates UK
Exhibition ends: 13 November
