The Painted King: Art, Activism, and Authenticity in Hawaii

2. Creating a “Pacific Hero”

MOST OF THE ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS aboutthesculpture’s commission reside in several well-guarded boxes in the Hawai‘i State Archives in Honolulu.1 I often research old correspondence to prepare my recommendations for conservation, but this was a rare treasure trove. The handwritten letters between the artist and the commissioning body are mixed in with photographs, newspaper articles, and other papers that have accumulated since the late nineteenth century. They are stored in an underground vault on the grounds of ‘Iolani Palace. This extravagant gilt structure was built between the time the sculpture was commissioned in 1878 and its final installation five years later, on May 8, 1883. Knowing this fact enhanced the feeling of history as I visited the facility and spoke with state archivist Jeff White about the political and social turmoil during the late days of the Hawaiian kingdom. At first I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, other than any documentation that remained from the commission. The staff archivists didn’t know what they would find, but they became interested in my quest to learn about the material and social history of the sculpture. Once they started searching , they produced box after box of material for me to sort through. I quickly discoveredthattheoriginalletterswereintact—andnearlyalllegible.Thetwo 2 Creating a “Pacific Hero” 16 17 Creating a “Pacific Hero” key players whose letters I read were the artist, Thomas Ridgeway Gould, and the primary mover within the Hawaiian legislature, Walter Murray Gibson. As I read through the boxes and sorted through microfiche archives, an almost unbelievable set of events came alive. I pieced together the steps of the process as well as hidden and not-so-hidden agendas that produced this unusual sculpture. The bias of newspaper articles also helped reveal how the heated politics of the day fed into its design. I learned of Gould’s neoclassical obsessions as a sculptor, Gibson’s personal ambitions to align himself with the struggling Hawaiian monarchy, and the interest of the reigning king, David Kalākaua, in associating himself with Kamehameha, the originator of the dynasty . The documents revealed a struggle across the Atlantic and Pacific to get the figure “right,” in terms established by their joint vision. This vision reflected the political, economic, and cultural forces of the day, and in turn shaped the way people related to the sculpture through its history, leading to the unusual present-day practices of veneration and maintenance. In one of his letters, the artist described the image as a “Pacific Hero”— a combination of words that signals a deliberate blending of Hawaiian and Western values. During its design and fabrication, Gould, Kalākaua, and the Hawaiian legislature’s commissioning body fused cross-cultural elements to achieve their goals. To understand these goals, I read about the power dynamics at play in Hawai‘i at the time of the sculpture’s commission. It was a time when the emerging power of sugar barons, the threats of U.S. annexation , and the waning influence of Hawaiian royalty all coalesced. King David Kalākaua (1836–1891) came to the throne in 1874 and reigned with a constitutional monarchy that replaced the absolute monarchy established by Kamehameha. Under Kalākaua, an elected legislature and a House of Nobles shared authority with the king. To strengthen his position vis-à-vis the U.S. government, as well as with the British and other colonial powers threatening the independence of the islands, Kalākaua negotiated tradedealswithsugarbaronssuchasClausSpreckelsofSanFrancisco.Among his overtures to the United States were the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875, which encouraged trade and large-scale investment by American entrepreneurs, and an 1887 amendment that allowed the United States to develop a naval base at Pearl Harbor. The demographic and social conditions in the islands changed dramatically as U.S. business interests strengthened in Hawai‘i. During the one hundred years following Captain Cook’s arrival in 1778, descendants of early Polynesiansettlersdwindledfromarobust800,000to47,508duetoinfectious 18 the painted king diseases brought by missionaries, sailors, and merchants.2 The 1848 Māhele enactment of landed property rights turned much of the land over from Native Hawaiians to missionary descendants and U.S. businessmen, which radically altered traditional Hawaiian relationships to the land.3 This facilitated the development of the sugar plantations. With the rapidly shrinking pool of Native labor and the increasing need for agricultural workers, haole (Caucasian ) businessmen imported large numbers of Asian immigrants, thereby dramatically altering the...