Gypsy Encampment
Description:
Within a rocky landscape is situated a large, cave-like dwelling constructed of leaves and branches. Six adult figures and two small children sit or squat around a smoky fire, while two additional figures approach the encampment with freshly caught fish. Most of the figures have short-cropped hair and are partially covered by hooded cloaks.
Copyright:
Copyright 2009, Department of Special Collections, Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI
Primary Works:
Dissertation on the Gipseys (London, 1807)
Accession Number:
Thordarson T 1836
Height (in centimeters):
20
Width (in centimeters):
12
Printing Context
This image is the plate opposite the introduction in Dissertation on the Gipseys: representing their manner of life, family economy, occupations & trades, marriages & education, sickness, death & burial, religion, language, science & arts. &c &c: with an historical enquiry concerning their origin & first appearances in Europe, by Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb Grellmann (London, 1807).Associated Events
1744 Vagrancy ActAssociated Texts
The prints which populate Dissertation on the Gipseys seem to have been gleaned from a variety of sources, and Grellmann never explicitly connects text to image. Thus, it is up to the reader to make such connections. While a number of passages discuss the housing of gypsies more generally, in the following excerpt Grellmann explicitly connects gypsy living conditions with their perceived status as a distinct race:The Laplanders, Samoieds, as well as the Siberians, likewise, have brown yellow-coloured skins, in consequence of living, from their childhood, in smoke and dirt, in the same manner as the Gipseys: these would, long ago, have been divested of their swarthy complexions, if they had discontinued their filthy mode of living. (H. Grellmann, Dissertation 13)
To me how wildly pleasing is that sceneWhich doth present in evening’s dusky hourA group of gypsies centered on the greenIn some warm nook where Boreas has no power,Where sudden starts the quivering blaze behindShort shrubby bushes nibbled by the sheepThat mostly on these shortsward pastures keep,Now lost, now seen, now bending with the wind:And now the swarthy sybil kneels reclined,With proggling stick she still renews the blaze,Forcing bright sparks to twinkle from the flaze.When this I view, the all-attentive mindWill oft exclaim (so strong the scene pervades)“Grant me this life, thou spirit of the shades!” (Clare 1-14)"Gypsies" (1807)Yet are they here?—the same unbroken knotOf human Beings, in the self-same spot!Men, Women, Children, yea the frameOf the whole Spectacle the same!Only their fire seems bolder, yielding light:Now deep red, the colouring of night;That on their Gypsy-faces falls,Their bed of straw and blanket-walls.--Twelve hours, twelve bounteous hours, are gone while IHave been a Traveler under open sky,Much witnessing of change and chear,Yet as I left I find them here!The weary Sun betook himself to rest.--Then issued Vesper from the fulgent West,Outshining like a visible GodThe glorious path in which he trod.And now, ascending, after one dark hour,And one night’s diminution of her power,Behold the mighty Moon! this wayShe looks as if at them—but theyRegard not her:--oh better wrong and strifeBetter vain deeds or evil than such life!The silent Heavens have goings on;The stars have tasks—but these have none.(Wordsworth 1-28)
Subject
There is a consistent tension in Romantic descriptions of gipsies between celebrating the freedom of nomadism and bemoaning the squalid conditions of homelessness. This print visualizes this tension by giving us images of both dignity and depravity and by simultaneously suggesting the idyllic and the condemnable conditions of a wandering existence.Theme
Beggar. Ethnicity. Gypsy. Mobility. Nomadism. Racial classification. Encampment.Significance
The Romantic tension between an emphasis on the idyllic freedom of gypsies and the simultaneous homelessness accompanying such freedom is reflected in the antithetical tones of Wordsworth’s and Clare’s poetic descriptions (quoted above). The above print visualizes this tension by giving us images of both dignity and depravity. The young boy on the far right with elevated heel, raised leg, and prominent staff seems to mediate between the movement of the Apollo Belvedere and Giambologna’s statue of Mercury, while the figure directly to his left exhibits the gentle contrapposto, curved left arm, and bowed head of the Farnese Hermes. These figures, and to a lesser extent the female figure at the threshold of the hut, retain an elegance and stature denied those figures crouching within the rustic hovel. While the nudity of the young fisherman is made innocent by the subtle quotation of a classical ideal, the undignified squat of the print’s central figure is used to underscore the poverty and shame of homelessness. Exposed to view in such an inelegant position, the artist seems incapable of articulating the genitals of the crouching man, though they are clearly delineated on the fisherman figure. This image seems to celebrate the mobility and self-sufficiency of the gypsy while simultaneously suggesting that in their temporary stasis they become increasingly savage and unclean.Function
Ethnographic images such as these strove to classify gypsies as an identifiable racial group, and to differentiate between particular types of gypsies (such as the rugged, Amazonian gypsy woman and the decrepit and elderly gypsy hag). Such images were included in both encyclopedic volumes of novel persons, which attempted to archive eccentric types, and more focused, scholarly treatises on the supposed cultural and biological differences of England’s domestic other.Bibliography
Clare, Jonathan. "The Gipsies' Evening Blaze." “I am”: The Selected Poetry of John Clare. Ed. Jonathan Bate. New York: Farrar, 2003. 25. Print.Long Title
"Gypsy Enclave" 1807Featured in Exhibit:
Image Date:
1807