Illustration by Kristian Maestri
My favorite painting currently on display at the Lyman Allyn museum is a manic cyclone of pastels, depicting a turbulent ocean from which numerous forms emerge: a spear jabbed into the side of a great whale, a ship’s mast snapped in two and a shark tearing off the majority of a man’s arm, leaving blood and bone exposed. Mere footsteps away from this work is a room filled with artifacts of New London’s whaling past: a flask of whale oil, a corset made from whale bone, a single whale vertebra that is four feet wide and three feet thick. These are the dual whale-themed exhibits currently at the Lyman Allyn.
Milloff’s Melville is a collection of art inspired by the whaling classic Moby Dick, and Greasy Luck is an informative exhibition about the fevered whaling culture of 18th- and 19th-century New England. These exhibits elevate one another: the historical informing the artistic, and the fictitious enriching the factual.
Whales are foreign creatures to many living in modern-day New England. However, you can find them swimming across murals and decorating various buildings all over New London. This is because New London is in fact known as “the whaling city.” “New London was built on whaling, which was the most profitable industry of the 18th- and 19th-century American economy. The museum itself is named for a New London whaler, captain Lyman Allyn,” explained Jane LeGrow, who curated Greasy Luck in collaboration with Mystic Seaport.
New London locals no longer hunt whales, but instead celebrate them as a major part of the city’s past, recognizing them as majestic creatures to protect from endangerment. This is the major difference between popular perception of whales now and the perceptions held during the whaling boom.
“Whales were considered evil back then,” said Margaret Cherubin, one of the docents at Lyman Allyn who recently walked a group of students through both exhibits. “They were the leviathan, they were the creatures that consumed Jonah, they were sea monsters.”
These grand, dark perceptions are perhaps what made whales and whaling such rich metaphorical fodder for Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick. The novel, which takes place in Massachusetts during the nationwide whaling boom that gave New London its nickname, is considered one of the greatest works of fiction ever and has inspired generations of critics and artists.
One such artist is Mark Milloff, a professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. Milloff’s Melville is a collection of his works which are centered on Melville’s classic. “Milloff translates Melville’s sometimes overwrought language into frenzied visual dramas; yet he often does so with pastel, a medium usually reserved for more intimate themes,” explained Dr. Barbara Zabel, curator of the exhibit.
The pastels soften Milloff’s violent depictions of whale hunting, creating an interesting discordance: savagery conveyed through beautiful, bright colors. His other media include oil paints, which he layers onto canvases to create highly textured surfaces. Zabel described his process: “Using a palette knife, the artist builds up and cuts through paint that is oily and thick like whale blubber. Underneath the sumptuous surface, darker paint seems to erupt from the depths, suggesting emotional undercurrents.”
Greasy Luck: The Whaling World of Charles W. Morgan is appropriately contained on the same floor as Milloff’s Melville. Morgan was a whaling merchant who lent his name to the world’s oldest surviving merchant ship, currently being restored for exhibition at Mystic Seaport. “Greasy luck” is a lyric from a whaling celebration song, and if a whale hunt was successful, there was certainly a lot to celebrate.
As the Greasy Luck exhibit abundantly conveys, a single whale could be repurposed into a shocking number of items, both functional and decorative. “Whale products were ubiquitous in everyday life—in cosmetics, perfumes, lamp oil and candles, and shaping fashion—literally—in women’s corsets,” explained LeGrow. Whalebone was used for umbrellas, fishing rods, horsewhips, dominoes, and dice, while whale skin was used to make raincoats, purses, wallets and boots. The most valuable commodity derived from whales, however, was indeed the oil, which was used to light lamps and grease the wheels and cogs of the Industrial Revolution.
The exhibit is filled with these artifacts, as well as with plenty of other information about whaling ships and New London’s whaling past. It complements Milloff’s art by grounding his fantastical images in tangible historical objects, which accurately portray the national fervor associated with whaling. “It was filthy, bloody, smelly, awful work,” explained Cherubin, “but at that point in time, hunting whales became elevated to almost a religious experience.”
These exhibits not only inform one another, but also the reading of Moby Dick. Professor Michelle Neely is teaching Melville’s masterpiece in her American literature course “Humans and Other Animals” and saw the Lyman Allyn exhibits as a perfect excuse for a class field trip.
“It’s important to me that students make connections between the literature that we read and the world outside of the text,” explained Neely. “I want my students to experience the novels and poetry we read as living things that were affected by the time and place in which they were written, and which have affected individuals and communities in turn.”
It was not only the historical insights offered by Greasy Luck that were of use to Neely’s class, but also the artistic offerings of Milloff’s Melville as well. “Moby Dick has been depicted in visual contexts ranging from a Classics Illustrated comic book to a Jackson Pollock painting (“Blue (Moby Dick)”), to Rockwell Kent’s illustrated edition of the novel. Mark Milloff’s paintings are thus in very good company, and offered my class an opportunity to talk about the perils and the rewards of trying to translate Melville’s whale into another medium–a conversation that ultimately deepens our engagement with the novel.”
Besides an artistic awareness of a great literary work and a historical awareness of the city we live in, these exhibits provided something else for Neely’s students, and for me as well: an excuse to finally go to the Lyman Allyn, something which I personally have been putting off for three years. Many students on campus have no idea what this great little museum has to offer, and Neely noted how the Lyman Allyn was a new experience for many in her class. “My students are juniors and seniors and nearly all reported that this was their first visit to the Lyman Allyn, and that they were glad to have finally connected with this significant cultural resource on campus.”
