Torchbearer: Winter 1996

Elaborate Hokes

The hand-printed lithograph depicts the campus with an ironic twist of time.

Viewers may be a bit disoriented when they see the lithograph, "Hokes Bicentennial View." It looks strangely old, yet oddly current.

The style emulates lithographs of the late 19th century that showed aerial views of cities. But the buildings and streets are today's.

The original, hand-printed piece by Robert Cothran of the theatre department and Beauvais Lyons of the art department commemorates the University's first 200 years. The UTK Bicentennial Committee commissioned the professors to produce the lithograph.

The text printed at the bottom of the lithograph purports that the work is published by the UT Tricentennial Committee in the year 2094. According to the narrative, the image "reproduces" a lithograph made in 1894 by Cassius Demetrius Hokes (yes, hoax) depicting the campus as it would appear in 1994. And in the lower right corner is the contraption that Hokes claims to have used to create the image -- a "chronomorphoscope," which allowed him to see into the future.

Copies of the elaborate Hokes have been placed in museum collections and others will be used to commemorate special occasions during the University's third century.