![]() Measured and precise, with the author’s head neatly encased within an apparatus of his own devising, the drawing presents a mechanistic depiction of both inventor and the process of invention that appears very different from the dynamic picture of a brooding genius executed by West. These permitted ambient light into the vessel interior and allowed its captain to visually chart a course without emerging from the hatch. The drawing depicts the conical glass sections inserted into the conning tower of the submarine. This 1806 painting offers a romantic picture of the forty-one year old engineer that unmistakably links the explosive activity of his torpedoes (seen here in the background) with what one of Fulton’s eulogizers would later call “the fire of his own genius.” 2 The second image offers an instance of Fulton’s own self-fashioning-a self-portrait found amid the technical drawings detailing his submarine design (fig. C.Īmong this record are two portraits of the inventor, the first produced by his friend and occasional mentor Benjamin West (1738–1820) (fig. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington, D. After Robert Fulton (artist unknown), Torpedo War and Submarine Explosions, plate IV, 1810. However, the extraordinary lengths to which he went to see the project put into practice left behind a substantial documentary record, brimming with insights into the relationship between art and invention in the early nineteenth-century. Fulton failed again and again to find a market for his work, searching first in France, then in England, and finally in the United States. Arguing that the threat of undetectable attack could finally end maritime warfare, he promoted the system as a means to secure “the liberty of the seas” and “the happiness of the earth.” 1 In spite of such optimism, the project was ultimately unsuccessful. 1)-what he called “torpedoes”-and even delivering these torpedoes directly to enemy boats via a submersible vessel and/or harpoon (fig. With the Napoleonic Wars playing out in the background, Fulton imagined seeding harbor beds on both sides of the Atlantic with hundreds of submerged mines (fig. C.īetween 17, artist and engineer Robert Fulton (1765–1815), better known for his career as a steamboat entrepreneur, was almost wholly preoccupied with the planning and promotion of a system for submarine and torpedo warfare. After Robert Fulton (artist unknown), Torpedo War and Submarine Explosions, plate II, 1810.
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