What did paradise look like in the eighteenth century — and how much of it was real?
In 1772, Hodges joined Captain James Cook's second voyage, travelling through the Pacific and creating some of the earliest European images of places such as Tahiti and Easter Island. But his paintings were more than straightforward records — shaped by European traditions of Eden, Arcadia and the ideal landscape.
Time Period:
18th century
Leslie Primo is an independent art historian author and broadcaster, graduating from Birkbeck, University College, London with an MA in Renaissance studies. He lectured at the National Gallery, London for 18 years, has appeared on the BBC speaking in Renaissance: The Blood and the Beauty, and on the Life of Michelangelo, and presented Turner: Light and Landscape. He was a contributor to the Oxford Companion Guide to Black British History, an art history consultant for the Getty publication, Balthazar: A Black African King in Medieval and Renaissance Art and was published by the Royal Academy Magazine for the Entangled Pasts exhibition, 2023-2024. Leslie’s book, ‘The Foreign Invention of British Art’ is published by Thames & Hudson in 2025.