The game of nationhood: art, football, and Australian federation
2013; Routledge; Volume: 37; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/14443058.2013.841724
ISSN1835-6419
Autores Tópico(s)Commonwealth, Australian Politics and Federalism
ResumoAbstractHiding in plain sight in Sydney's Centennial Park, Tomaso Sani's We won! (1893) is the first monumental sculpture of a footballer erected anywhere in the world. Commissioned by New South Wales Premier Henry Parkes in 1891, it is often mistaken for an emblem of “muscular Christianity”. But Parkes's commitment to public sculpture, his personal involvement in the planning of Centennial Park, and his growing prominence in the Australian federation movement meant that this commission had deep political significance. We won! was the culmination of Parkes's career-long support of public sculpture in Sydney; he was involved in around half of the statues erected in the second half of the nineteenth century. Its athletic subject reflects Parkes's belief in the emergence of a virile, native-born generation. Rather than merely representing an athlete, the statue embodied the theories of Parkes's friend Thomas Hughes (author of Tom Brown's Schooldays); the footballer embodied “faithful endurance” in the face of personal weakness and political conflict. Envisaged as an “expression of victory”, the young footballer ultimately represented Parkes's personal and political triumphs over poverty and factional opposition. While Parkes always insisted that he wanted no monument erected in his own honour, We won! is his surrogate memorial.Keywords: Henry Parkesartfootballpublic sculptures Notes1. Doulton, Football 1878 reproduced in Art Journal, The Illustrated Catalogue of the Paris International Exhibition (London: Virtue & Co, 1878), 188. John Rogers, Football 1891, Yale University Art Gallery online catalogue, http://ecatalogue.art.yale.edu/detail.htm?objectId=8918.2. James Barnet, “Architectural Work in Sydney New South Wales,” Journal of the Royal British Institute of Architects, 3rd ser., 6.17 (1899): 517.3. Henry Parkes, Fifty Years in the Making of Australian History, vol 2 (London: Longmans Green & Co, 1892), 402–3.4. Sir Henry Parkes, Diary 1 January–31 December 1891 (Sydney: State Library of New South Wales (SLNSW), manuscript). Digitised version online at http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemDetailPaged.aspx?itemID=855793.5. Charles E. Lyne, Life of Sir Henry Parkes (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1897), 565.6. Lyne, Life of Sir Henry Parkes, 400.7. Giovanni Fontana to Sir Henry Parkes, 15 February 1881, Sir Henry Parkes Papers, Mitchell Library, SLNSW, vol 14, A884, 412–14.8. “The Society of Artists,” Sydney Morning Herald, September 30, 1895, 3.9. Tom Roberts to Henry Parkes, 2 October 1895, Sir Henry Parkes Papers, Mitchell Library, SLNSW, CY reel 56, vol 34, A 904, 243.10. Henry Parkes to Varney Parkes, 10 June 1887, Sir Henry Parkes Papers, Mitchell Library, SLNSW, CY 4462, Parkes Family correspondence, microform A 1052, frame 0167–68.11. Anonymous letter [Signed ‘Friend’] to Henry Parkes, undated [c. 1893?], Sir Henry Parkes Papers, Mitchell Library, SLNSW, vol 51 A921, 390 and 390A.12. J.D. Fitzgerald's intention to challenge Parkes on this matter in parliament is reported in “Hoyle,” Evening News [Sydney], March 17, 1893, 4.13. “Mr Woolner's Medallions,” Empire [Sydney], June 2, 1854, 2.14. Henry Parkes, Fragmentary Thoughts (Sydney: Samuel Lees, 1889), 14. The monument can now be found outside of the Mitchell Library.15. Henry Parkes, Fragmentary Thoughts, 15–16.16. Henry Parkes, Australian Views of England (London: Macmillan, 1869), 39.17. NSW Parliamentary Debates (NSWPD), vol 27, Legislative Assembly, 1887, 2452.18. “Concerning Pictures and Statues,” Bulletin, March 30, 1889, 4. And as that anonymous letter writer had predicted, Dibbs attacked Parkes in parliament for signing an £11, 500 contract for the Phillip monument without advising the house; “Legislative assembly,” Sydney Morning Herald, February 3, 1893, 6.19. “The Lang Memorial: Unveiling of the Statue,” Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal, January 29, 1891, 4.20. James Barnet to Henry Parkes, 28 December 1881, Sir Henry Parkes Papers, Mitchell Library, SLNSW, vol 6 A876 reel 28. Sir Frederick Leighton also visited Fontana's studio to review and endorse the model. Barnet also discusses a statue of the late Prince Albert, which appears to have been abandoned.21. Asmodius, “Pins,” Hawkesbury Chronicle and Farmers Advocate, Saturday April 17, 1886, 2.22. ‘M’, “The Post Office Carvings,” Sydney Morning Herald, February 12, 1887, 9.23. Submission by James Barnet to the Under Secretary for Public Works, May 13, 1884 in Legislative Assembly NSW, Post Office Carvings (copies of minutes, reports & c.) (Sydney: Government Printer, August 26, 1884), 9.24. Submission by James Barnet, Post Office Carvings, 7.25. Submission by James Barnet, Post Office Carvings, 7.26. Barnet cited in J. Britton and A. Pugin, Public Buildings in London, vol. 1 (London: J Taylor, 1825), 25 in his submission. On page 26, Pugin insists that realism was required so that a sculpture would serve as a document for future historians, a remark Barnet echoed in his instructions regarding Fontana's Queen Victoria.27. The animosity towards Italian sculpture at the 1878 exposition was widespread. The official American report dismissed Italian sculpture as “trivial” and “wanting of dignity of purpose and seriousness of style and subject”: Reports of the United States Commissioners to the Paris Universal Exposition, vol. 2 (Washington: Government printing office, 1880), 129. French critic Henry Jouin declared that Italian sculpture was in decline: La Sculpture en Europe 1878 (Paris: Plon, 1879), 122. Italian critics were still responding to attacks on the use of “modern figures in contemporary dresses” in 1880: Art Journal, n.s, 6 (1880): 95.28. George Lacon James, Shall I Try Australia? (London: Upcott Gill, 1892), 17.29. James, Shall I Try Australia?, 20.30. “A Barnetopolis,” Bulletin, April 16, 1887, 14.31. NSW PD vol 27, Legislative Assembly, 1887, 2325.32. “Parkes’ State House,” Bulletin, July 9, 1887, 4.33. “The Centenary of Australia. The Third Day. Opening of the Centennial Park. The Dedication,” Sydney Morning Herald, January 27, 1888, 3.34. There were eventually 37 sculptures in the park. The programme can at best be described as eclectic, featuring, among other subjects, Diana the huntress, the four seasons, Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disraeli, William E. Gladstone, the assassinated US presidents Abraham Lincoln and James A. Garfield, and representations of Civil War soldiers.35. James Barnet to Henry Parkes, 3 March 1891, Sir Henry Parkes Papers, Mitchell Library, SLNSW, v 49 A919, 869–70.36. NSW PD, vol 27, Legislative Assembly, 1887, 2452.37. Parkes, Fifty Years, vol. 2, 401.38. W. Fredric Morrison, The Aldine Centennial History of New South Wales, vol. 1 (Sydney: The Aldine Publishing Co, 1888), 368.39. Morrison, The Aldine Centennial History, 369.40. Morrison, The Aldine Centennial History, 378. 41. A.W. Martin, Henry Parkes (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1980), 196; Parkes, Fifty Years, vol. 1, 169.42. Henry Parkes to Reginald W. Mackinnon, 5 November 1892, Sir Henry Parkes Correspondence, Mitchell Library, SLNSW, A 55, 88.43. Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857; London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1949), 251.44. Parkes, Fragmentary Thoughts, 38; Parkes, Fragmentary Thoughts, 18; Henry Parkes to Thomas Hughes, 19 April 1896, Sir Henry Parkes Correspondence, Mitchell Library, SLNSW, v 45 A 915, 474–75.45. Thomas Hughes, The Manliness of Christ (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1867), 21.46. “Working Lads’ Picnic at the National Park,” Sydney Morning Herald, January 28, 1888, 10.47. Hughes, The Manliness of Christ, 73.48. Hughes, The Manliness of Christ, 33.49. Hughes, The Manliness of Christ, 52.50. Henry Parkes, Speech at Corowa, 13 August 1893, “Appendix A: Federal Union of Australasia,” in Official Report of the Federation Conference (Corowa: James C. Leslie, 1893), 49. Online transcription at SETIS, University of Sydney Library, http://adc.library.usyd.edu.au/data-2/fed0039.pdf.51. Martin, Henry Parkes, 383.52. Henry Parkes to Edmund Barton, 22 March 1895, Sir Henry Parkes Correspondence, Mitchell Library, SLNSW, A 55, 320.53. “Great Parkes: Is Parkes Great?,” Bulletin, August 8, 1891, 6.54. Parkes, Diary 1 January–31 December 1891, entry for December 31, 1891.55. Hughes, The Manliness of Christ, 143.56. Henry Parkes to Thomas Woolner, 12 October 1876, Sir Henry Parkes Papers, Mitchell Library, SLNSW, Vol. 2, CY 84 A932, 513–14.57. Parkes, Fifty Years, vol. 2, 381–82.58. Annie T. Parkes, “Preface,” in Henry Parkes, Emigrant's Letters Home (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1896), 8.59. W.G. McMinn, Nationalism and Federation in Australia (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1994), 2.60. Richard Cashman, “Introduction,” in Sport, Federation, Nation, ed. Richard Cashman, John O'Hara, and Andrew Honey (Petersham: Walla Walla Press, 2001), 3.
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