THE KILLING OF A GOD

The naval explorer Captain James Cook was worshipped as a deity in the 18th century. Now his statues are being defaced in the lands he visited as his myth is re-examined.

- Anna Della Subin

IN A TYPE OF NEOCLASSICAL PAINTING one might call The Apotheosis of X, the dead hero is bundled up to heaven by a host of angels, usually in a windswept tumult of robes, wings and clouds. A crowd of grieving mortals watches from below as their hero becomes divine. It’s a celestial scramble: in Rubens’ sump-tuous Apotheosis of James I , heaven is chaos and James looks terrified at having arrived. In Barralet’s Apotheosis of Wash-ington , the dead president has his arms outstretched in a crucified pose, while Father Time and the angel of immortality bear him up to heaven. In a mid-1860s Apotheosis , a freshly assassinated Lincoln joins Washington in the sky, and clings to him in a tight hug. In Fragonard’s Apotheosis of Franklin , the new god reaches back to Earth with one hand while a stern angel, grasping his other hand, drags him upward.

In 1785, in a Covent Garden theatre, a spectacle premiered depicting Capt James Cook’s voyages in the South Pacific. During the final scene of Omai, or A Trip Around the World, at the words “Cook, ever honour’d, immortal shall live!” an enormous oil painting descended from the ceiling – Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg’s Apotheosis of Captain Cook , commissioned for the occasion. Cook is borne to heaven by the angels Britannia and Fame, but his gaze is directed back at the vertiginous earth , where ships and canoes face offin Hawaii’s Kealakekua Bay. His expression is queasy and his eyes seem to plead: “Don’t drop me!”