The Paintings used in âBlack Sailsâ (Part 17)
Hey, âBlack Sailsâ fandom? Do you still exist?
Anyway, hereâs my little offering to the gods of the new year: A painting in Thomas Hamiltonâs townhouse in London, which we have so far not discussed:
Itâs hanging right next to the entrance, so Flint has to walk by it every single time he enters the house to visit the Hamiltons (like in the scene above in s2ep5).
Itâs called âWooded Banks of a Riverâ and was painted by Jan Hackaert. It can be found in the Wallace Collection in London (see here: x).
Now, I have to admit that I always struggled with the meaning of this painting (which is also why I have neglected it so far in our âBlack Sailsâ art discussion). The symbolic meaning of landscapes is notoriously elusive, even more so when we talk about their use in TV shows.
Hereâs one idea, though: The fact that Flint has to pass it each and every time he enters the house seems important. Itâs a type of âthresholdâ painting right next to the door, after all.
In the scene above (from s2ep5) Flint exits his horse carriage, enters the house, passes that very painting andâŠ
âŠis then greeted by Miranda and Thomas. Thomas is looking at James with tremendous longing and mentions the fact that Jamesâs 3-months-absence felt like âtwice as longâ.
Thatâs a transition from the dirt of the street and the ugliness of the outside world to exquisite gay yearning in under 30 seconds!
And Hackaertâs painting is right at the centre of this transition. Itâs the threshold James has to cross if he wants to walk from one world into the other, from one realm to the next.
Thatâs where the river in the painting comes in!
Rivers are often symbols for a transition between one realm and another: You cross from one river bank to the other and basically leave one world behind and step into something completely different.
Throughout s2 we have been told (both visually and textually) that the Hamiltonsâ world is a rather different one, adhering to morals and ideals quite different from the outside world, which, even in the screenshots above, is shown to be cold, dirty, cruel and ugly.
Things are discussed in Thomas Hamiltonâs house that follow principles far ahead of their time; this is also true for whatâs practised in the Hamiltonsâ bedrooms. None of that would be acceptable or even legal in the outside world of the early 1700s.
Rivers as symbols of this division between one world and another are extremely common in gay films. Almost every gay film I remember off the top of my head has a scene in which the two protagonists have to either cross a river or even take a dip in the water before falling into each otherâs arms.
Think âBrokeback Mountainâ for just one such example:
The two cowboys (and their sheep) have to cross a mountain stream every time to reach their magic mountain where anything gay goes and the rules of society donât apply anymore:
Sometimes there are no sheep; sometimes skinny dipping is involved in this transition process from societal norms to wild freedom, but they have to cross that river, that border, every time.
Crossing a river has become an established trope in gay film and TV land.
Obviously, the makers of âBlack Sailsâ couldnât put an actual river in the entrance hall of Thomas Hamiltonâs house. But they used that same trope nonetheless: They simply put a painting of a river in it. And it works just as beautifully as an actual body of water would have.
Unfortunately, every once in a while the ugly, cruel outside world intrudes upon the realm of beauty Miranda and Thomas have created for themselves and James. This âoutside worldâ walks across that same threshold and goes about its destructive businessâŠlike here, when Thomasâs father passes the river/border painting and invades their world. The impact of that invasion is what âBlack Sailsâ is arguably all aboutâŠ
All âBlack Sailsâ screencaps were taken from here: http://kissthemgoodbye.net/
All âBrokeback Mountainâ screencaps were taken from here: https://screenmusings.org/.
You can find the rest of my meta about all the other Paintings on âBlack Sailsâ here: x.
gummygunk
kianamaiart
blakekathryn
ellievsbear
snowghoul
dailybridgerton
gracieabrams
romaincrisis
