Title: "La Girafe et les Osages"
Year: 1827
Creator: G. Renou
Collection: "Everything Giraffe"
The object focused on in this post is not the painting about, but rather a passage of G. Renou's "La Girafe et les Osages"as translated and displayed by the American Philosophical Society Museum. The translation reads:
"They're deceiving you, my good red skins, they're deceiving you. They're not showing you around for your own education. It is to display you as curious beasts. Perhaps you didn't know this. No, you couldn't possibly believe that you were a tool for a new kind of industry. Oh, Osages! You've been taken to the opera, to the most fashionable places, to the Gaité [theater], to the Tivoli Gardens; but it's not for your own beautiful eyes. They are taking advantage of you, good red skins. Alas!"
This passage is displayed in the "Everything Giraffe" part of the exhibition, which describes the effect Zarafa, a baby giraffe, had on French society when she visited there in 1827. Her time in Paris coincided with the visit of six Osage men and women from the American frontier. The passage reinforces the concept of spectacle shown by the other "giraffe-mania" objects.
Zarafa was so hugely popular, and such a source of inspiration, that giraffes started to crop up everywhere: from dinnerware to souveniers to fashion (all of which is displayed in the exhibit). The fervor with which this exotic animal was embraced was later mimicked by the Egyptomania that ensued after King Tutankhamun's tomb was found in the 1920s. Then, too, the concept of the foreign became a fad that grew to be more spectacle than honor of its original inspiration.
The Osages, although little mentioned in the exhibition, were also part of this spectacle, and the writers of the bourgeoning romanticism of the era, such as Renou above, noted this. Although this passage exemplifies the racism of the "noble savage" concept (the idea that a race is purer, yet less Machiavellian and clever, than another), it advances into the belief that a people should be treated with compassion, no matter who they are or where their from. In other words, it is progress.
It is thought that the Osages also visited Zarafa, which would have been a fascinating meeting between three continents. It would have been interesting to read more about the Osages' experience and journey as compared to Zarafa's. It would have been especially illuminating to read actual quotes of the Osages, considering that even in the passage about, where a giraffe gets to wax poetic about the woes of humanity, they have no voice.
Visitors from the Osage Nation might have their own account of their predecessors' travels. If so, it would really be a necessary addition.
Zarafa was so hugely popular, and such a source of inspiration, that giraffes started to crop up everywhere: from dinnerware to souveniers to fashion (all of which is displayed in the exhibit). The fervor with which this exotic animal was embraced was later mimicked by the Egyptomania that ensued after King Tutankhamun's tomb was found in the 1920s. Then, too, the concept of the foreign became a fad that grew to be more spectacle than honor of its original inspiration.
The Osages, although little mentioned in the exhibition, were also part of this spectacle, and the writers of the bourgeoning romanticism of the era, such as Renou above, noted this. Although this passage exemplifies the racism of the "noble savage" concept (the idea that a race is purer, yet less Machiavellian and clever, than another), it advances into the belief that a people should be treated with compassion, no matter who they are or where their from. In other words, it is progress.
It is thought that the Osages also visited Zarafa, which would have been a fascinating meeting between three continents. It would have been interesting to read more about the Osages' experience and journey as compared to Zarafa's. It would have been especially illuminating to read actual quotes of the Osages, considering that even in the passage about, where a giraffe gets to wax poetic about the woes of humanity, they have no voice.
Visitors from the Osage Nation might have their own account of their predecessors' travels. If so, it would really be a necessary addition.
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