The portrait I chose
is called "The Morse Family" (circa 1810). It depicts Jedidiah Morse
teaching his family using a globe and a textbook, and showcases Morse's talent
for geography. I would tell the tour guides to direct the viewer's attention to
the attentiveness of his family, and how they have come together to learn from
Morse. His wife has discarded her sewing utensils in favor of listening to
Morse's geography lesson, and his sons show a great deal of interest in what he
is saying. This portrait exemplifies the popular scientific movement of the
1800s, when the general public was beginning to show an interest in science.
During this time, the public was infatuated with natural history and flocked to
science exhibitions, like those put on by Barnum. This portrait portrays a
scientist bringing his work home to his family, and not limiting his studies to
scientific journals and laboratories.
I also thought the same thing when I saw this picture of the family. I would have thought that you would have the tour guide something about his achievements or something along that line, but you took a different approach and just talked about the photograph which was a different outlook that i liked. Also when I read your post and looked at the picture I immediately thought of the "noble scientist" because Jedidah Morse tried to better society by writing textbooks about geography. He did well by raising his son into a scientific background which lead on to his son creating Morse code. Your post did give me a different way of looking at this photo.
ReplyDeleteI just really liked how Morse didn't separate his work from his home life, and kind of taught his family about what he was studying at the time. I also like how his family seemed to be legitimately interested in what he had to say. I think the portrait is less about who Morse was in the science world, and more about who Morse was at home, which is something we don't see a lot of!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your description of the family disregarding whatever they were doing in order to listen to Morse's lesson on geography. I also thought this picture was interesting because it included the his family unlike the other portraits. It would be nice to have the portrait included in your post so we could see what you are describing but you did an excellent job of explaining the portrait. Also I would have liked to know a bit more about Morse himself. I think your last line about him bringing his work home perfectly sums up the entire premise of the the portrait.
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