Or, The Whale by Jos Sances: Ark of the Anthropocene

This essay offers the first critical consideration of Jos Sances's 14-by 51-foot scratchboard mural, Or, The Whale (2019-20), a work of panoramic cultural-historical reference and eco-political urgency inspired by Moby-Dick. I set the mural in the context of the series of Moby-Dick illustrations that Sances executed in 2016-2018, showing how they record his formative engagement with Rockwell Kent and document his search for a visual language capable of matching the imagistic density and encyclopedic range of Melville's novel. If Rockwell Kent mediates Sances's portrait-scale encounters with Moby-Dick, C. L. R. James's Mariners, Renegades, & Castaways provides the keynote for Sances's biopolitical sequel to Melville's epic in mural form, a pictorial history of American capitalism inscribed on the body of a life-size sperm whale. Or, The Whale is a summa of Anthropocene visual art, its sweeping narrative of virtuosic hand-drawn scenes presenting densely layered con-stellations of images that perform the work of cultural memory, unearthing the damage done to exploited peoples and natural resources.

Automated summary

This essay provides a critical analysis of Jos Sances's mural Or, The Whale, which serves as a panoramic cultural-historical reference and carries eco-political urgency inspired by Moby-Dick. The essay explores the context of Sances's Moby-Dick illustrations and highlights the visual language used to capture the detail and depth of Melville's novel. The mural, titled Or, The Whale, is a visual masterpiece that exposes the exploitation of both people and natural resources.