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Overview
This essay originally appeared in New Zealand Art at Te Papa (Te Papa Press, 2018).
This colonial masterpiece is one of only seven oil paintings by William Strutt relating to his time in New Zealand and by far the most impressive. English-born and French-trained, he was the first professionally trained artist to spend time in the country. Strutt migrated to Australia in 1850 and in 1855–56 tried his hand at a pioneering lifestyle in Taranaki. However, the forest that had initially seduced him with its grandeur began instead to feel ‘oppressive’ and an ‘indescribable feeling of loneliness crept over [his] spirit’.1 He returned to Melbourne, armed with a cache of drawings.
These drawings formed the basis of this ambitious history painting, inspired by newspaper reports of the outbreak of war in Taranaki in March 1860. But Strutt’s painting is not documentary — it is a constructed view that aims to be a gripping picture. The action-packed scene is carefully arranged to draw the eye through the picture in a lively zigzag. Within the exotic setting of the Taranaki region — the mountain in the background — a drama is being played out.
A group of Māori crouch in the undergrowth in a gully, dressed in a combination of traditional and European clothing adorned with huia feathers, pounamu (greenstone) and mako (shark’s tooth) ear pendants, and armed with rifles, tomahawks and traditional Māori weapons like tewhatewha and taiaha. The direction of their aim leads the viewer’s gaze to the left of the painting, where smoke from the returning gunfire of the settlers can be seen through the leaves of a nīkau palm. Meanwhile, a second group of Māori is driving cattle and horses off the settlers’ property in the middle ground of the picture.
Recognising the psychological potential of a history painting, Strutt positions the viewer alongside the Māori in the foreground, as they deploy guerrilla tactics to repel colonial encroachment on their land. While Strutt’s ambition may have been dramatic rather than empathetic, today his unusual vantage point can be seen from an alternative perspective. Rather than a depiction of Māori aggression, this painting can be read as an expression of Māori resistance to colonial occupation.
George Mackanness (ed.), The Australian journal of William Strutt, A.R.A. 1850–52, Mackaness, Sydney, 1958, part 2, p. 11.
Rebecca Rice
Here, artist William Strutt plunges us into a tense moment of Māori resistance to European settlement in Taranaki – a region on the brink of warfare.
Strutt spent less than two years in New Zealand, returning to Melbourne in 1856. Five years later, he was inspired by news of the Taranaki disturbances to compose this painting from detailed sketches.
Dramatic scenes are rare in New Zealand art works from the mid 1800s. Strutt heightens the action by placing us, the viewers, with the group of Māori – an unusual vantage point.