THE EFFECTS OF KRAKATAU'S ERUPTION OF 1883 ON ART AROUND THE WORLD

The eruption of Krakatau in 1883 is the first well-documented volcanic event whose effects could be felt around the world. Krakatau of the past was located between Sumatra and Java. Today, it is the name given to the grouping of islands leftover from Krakatau's last eruption in 1883. Two of the most important documents written immediately after its eruption are Krakatau by R.D.M. Verbeek (1886) and The Eruption of Krakatoa and Subsequent Phenomena by the Krakatoa Committee of the Royal Society of London (1888). The later has been chosen for this research because it has vast tables of individual reports on Krakatau's effects around the world which may help create a better understanding in the change of subsequent artwork of the time. Overall, the research focus is to compare artwork before, during, and after Krakatau's eruption. After comparing the works, one could make a correlation between environmental changes and changes in art. For this comparison, several considerations and limitations have been imposed. Pieces of art studied in this research were created between 1873 and 1893; they are from places that gave reports to the Krakatoa Committee like Belfast, Nashville, and the local areas that fell within Krakatau's ash fall. Dependent on this comparison is a certain knowledge of art history and artists' personal biographies. With this knowledge, each piece of artwork has been scrutinized in areas of subject, context, provenance, style, material, and patronage, in order to limit any influences not attributed to the eruption. Hopefully, this comparison will help others when investigating the uncertain dates of Holocene volcanism, allowing them to analyze art from the time and region to gather more data about the event.