Nineteenth-century Art

In recent years, there has been increasing scholarly interest in the history of museums, academies and major exhibitions. There has been, however, little to no sustained interest in the histories of alternative exhibitions (single artwork, solo artist, artist-mounted, entrepreneurial, privately funded, ephemeral, etc.) with the notable exception of those publications that deal with situations involving major artists or those who would become so—for example J.L. David's exhibition of Intervention of the Sabine Women (1799) and The First Impressionist Exhibition of 1874—despite the fact that these sorts of exhibitions and critical scholarship about them have become commonplace (and no less important) in the contemporary art world. The present volume uses and contextualizes eleven case studies to advance some overarching themes and commonalities among alternative exhibitions in the long modern period from the late-eighteenth to the late-twentieth centuries and beyond. These include the issue of control in the interrelation and elision of the roles of artist and curator, and the relationship of such alternative exhibitions to the dominant modes, structures of display and cultural ideology.

This dissertation examines the corpus of ornamentally carved wooden doors of the Swahili coast, defined here as those produced or sited within the narrow strip of Indian Ocean littoral that stretches from Mogadishu, Somalia, to northern Mozambique, including the islands and archipelagos that proliferate those East African shores. Swahili doors have long been considered iconic artifacts and revered for more than a century by locals and visitors as visual manifestations of the region’s complex roots and histories. The zone where the edge of eastern Africa meets western Indian Ocean shores has been a fulcrum for cultural, artistic, and intangible social confluence for millennia. As a region it has also long remained on the edge, or even outside of, geographically and temporally divided art historical inquiries, and warrants greater scholarly focus. I focus on the late nineteenth century in Zanzibar in particular, when the diversely populated emporium flourished as a center of global trade and cultural confluence, and so did the popularity of owning a carved door. The massive and elaborately decorated extant examples in Zanzibar are primarily understood for their role as expressions of power, prestige, and wealth—their surfaces filled with diverse motifs and designs that reflect an original owner’s access to the vast streams of trade, production, and elite society that converged at his doorstep. In addition to elaborating upon their role as prestige objects, I argue that Swahili doors also function—perhaps even more significantly so—on a spiritual and intangible level as protective devices. I illuminate the way carved doors are, and have been for centuries, firmly situated within the wide-ranging material world of amulets, totems, and other apotropaic devices. The considerations and examples that follow reflect my initial investigations to support this argument, and primarily focus on the rich dimension of water-related spirits and protective belief systems elementally linked to the simultaneous life-sustaining bounty and ever present perils of the sea. Rather than studying the corpus under the long-held assignations of ethnicity-based style categories, I contend that it is more productive to examine the doors for their expression of a multivocal visual vocabulary that developed to reflect the late nineteenth-century Zanzibar ethos. In outlining that primary argument, this dissertation is also in many ways an argument for a new methodological approach for the study of arts of the Swahili culture, and a demonstration of the results in its application. This is an effort toward an alternative approach, a focus on visual analysis and artistic agency that allows us to work past, through, or around obfuscations of style categories and ethnocentric limitations in historical studies.
https://etda.libraries.psu.edu/catalog/17773jvp5685

This particular consideration of Piranesi’s influence is not an exhaustive geography of the haunted wanderings of the artist’s aesthetic ghost. Rather, what follows highlights three aspects of eclecticism in his work—presented in loose chronological order—that seem to have had the most bearing on the conceptualization of stylistic heterogeneity in the architecture of the nineteenth century. These three aspects are those which generate that ‘special essence’ of a Piranesi print, that certain impression of amalgamation derived from a sum total presented as the assembly of diverse fragments. The first of these aspects is Piranesi’s innovative coalescence of various influences, particularly in his early architectural fantasies, which were inspired simultaneously by new developments in scenographic perspective, the contemporaneous capriccio genre, and the older tradition of pictorially reconstructing ancient monuments. The second aspect is his combination of physical fragments, considered through the lens of his Vedute and Diverse Maniere. More specifically, it deals with architectural and sculptural ruins as a concept and as the actual product of assemblage: constructing for the former, collecting and making for the latter. The third is his portrayal of space, namely, the ambivalence between the spatial order of his maps and its dissolution in his Carceri, ending with a consideration of his progression toward abstraction, both geometric and perspectival.

In 1893 Aubrey Beardsley was commissioned to illustrate the 1894 English edition of Oscar Wilde's notorious play Salome, which Wilde had originally written in French during his stay in Paris in 1891. Both text and illustrations have provoked a great deal of public controversy and while this article does not present a comprehensive account of public reception of the Salome, it will focus on critical debates generated by the responses of state censor, publisher, critics and scholars.

In 1876 George Wallis of the South Kensington Museum attended a sale preview at Christie’s. He particularly noticed a magnificent vase made by the Dihl and Guérhard manufactory, with a frieze depicting the Rape of the Sabine Women. Wallis described the vase as ‘a capital piece of Angouleme porcelain…quite a museum piece…such as is rarely seen for sale’.1 The vase is now on display in the ‘Europe 1600-1815’ galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum (as the South Kensington Museum became known) but for over a century it was in storage, hidden from view and from scholarship. The restoration is welcome. Aesthetically, the vase is a tour de force, a history painting on porcelain, emblematic of the turbulent times in which it was made.  Its provenance charts two paradigm shifts in nineteenth-century British collecting: the formation of major collections of French decorative art after the Revolution and, from the 1850s, the movement of many of those objects to form new national art collections.  British dealers played a pivotal role in this transition from private to public ownership, instrumental not simply in facilitating the exchange of art but in the dissemination of knowledge of fine porcelain.

Publishing house Larcier uses an emblematic figure as a company brand. Since the end of the 19th century, a goddess with helmet and sword adorns its legal publications. Often, the logo is seen as the virtue Justitia, although it also refers to the antique goddess Athena or Minerva. This article argues that this mix-up is neither coincidental nor recent, though must be seen as a numen mixtum, a deliberate iconographic synthesis of two divinities. Combining legal periodicals and legal iconography, the authors show how Brussels’ fin-de-siècle legal professionals, led by Edmond Picard, were convinced that both art and law contributed to the Belgian nation and that the boundaries between artists and jurists were rather thin. Within this legal-artistic climate, art and law, two of Minerva’s key domains, both had to be vulgarized in one and the same effort.
This version, put online two years after publication of the original essay, includes an addendum with three supplementary visual sources that demonstrate the specific authorship of Charles Van der Stappen of the 1891 Larcier logo, as well as the fact that the sculptor reused his existing 1886 Minerva figure and transformed her into Themis in 1894.
[article in Dutch]

This article transcribes two previously unpublished letters regarding Antonio Canova’s trips to Possagno in 1819 and 1820 to oversee the building of the Tempio. Written by Giovanni Battista Manera to Giuseppe Monico and held in the Biblioteca Seminario Patriarcale, Venice, the letters describe an incident in which Canova, displeased with the hairstyles of the young women from Possagno, selected the loveliest woman to act as a model for the others and proceeded to braid her hair “based on the style of his own statues.” This remarkable incident reflects the bodily engagement that is a fundamental part of Neoclassicism’s historiography. More importantly, it reiterates Canova’s participation in the performative culture of Neoclassicism and the intense physical engagement he had with the art of sculpture.

Autour de 1800, une partie de la critique prend pour cible un groupe de jeunes gens issus de l'atelier de David dont Maurice Quay et Hilaire Périé. Définis non pas par leur production artistique mais bien par leur comportement en rébellion face au maître et leur discours esthétique, les Méditateurs (terme rapporté par Charles Nodier qui fit partie de leur groupe) incarnent la peur de voir l'école française pervertie. Les critiques deviennent donc de réels censeurs et défenseurs de la tradition académique face à des artistes qu'ils jugent inaptes à apporter un réel renouveau à l'art français.

"Artistry and Industry: The Portraiture of George Peter Alexander Healy, 1830-1865." What do antebellum portraiture and industrialization have in common? In a word: Healy. George Peter Alexander Healy (1813-1894), a little-studied portraitist, painted the faces of hundreds of industrialists. Industry functioned in Healy's career as a source of patronage as well as inspiration, sparking the artist to redefine a genre and rethink marketability. The sheer duration and volume of his production (1830-1865), the high intensity of his itinerancy (crossing the U.S. annually from north to south and across the Atlantic), and the speculative nature of his production and exhibition practices make Healy a prime candidate for exploring how industrialization changed the practice of portraiture during the mid-nineteenth century. Existing historical scholarship has examined how industrialization changed people's lives socially, politically and economically, but it has not addressed its impact on art. Healy's career reveals the marriage of various old and new practices in the art system of antebellum America, showing how art benefitted from industrialization in creative ways. In three chapters, this study will look at Healy's production of painted portraits, his commercialization of prints after these portraits, and his use of new materials to understand how he engaged with industrial culture. Healy was an opportunist who quickly learned how to navigate the world of industry unfolding in front of him, applying industrial approaches to creation and marketability and seeking the favor of wealthy patrons. Healy pursued replication practices, attached himself to key industrialists, participated in world exhibitions, and engaged with speculative marketing practices. My dissertation helps reconsider the continued importance and modernity of portraiture, highlighting its groundedness in the historical development of industrialization.

“Exhibitions and Catalogues: The Art of Shibata Zeshin: Featuring the Edson Collection" (Tenrankai katarogu hyō: Edo no iki Meiji no waza Shibata Zeshin no urushi x e), Studies of Comparative Literature (Hikaku Bungaku Kenkyū), No.95, Tokyo: Society of Comparative Literature, University of Tokyo (Tōdai Hikaku Bungaku-kai), June 2011.

「展覧会カタログ評 「江戸の粋・明治の技 柴田是真の漆×絵」展」、『比較文學研究』、東大比較文學會発行、96号、2011年6月、151-156頁。

Monografia sobre l'escultor modernista Josep Maria Barnadas i Mestres (1867-1939), especialitzat en escultura religiosa i aplicada a l'arquitectura / First monographic study about one of the most important religious and architectural sculptors of the later XIXth and early XXth centuries in Catalunya / New original documents about his life and works were found recently and it will be published soon at the Butlletí de la Reial Academia Catalana de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi (2022).

Best known by her stage name, La Goulue (the Glutton), Louise Weber was one of the biggest stars of fin de siècle Paris, renowned as a cancan dancer at the Moulin Rouge. The subject of numerous paintings and photographs, she became an iconic figure of modern art. Her life, however, has consistently been misrepresented and reduced to a footnote in the stories of men such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Where most accounts dismiss her rise and fall as brief and rapid, the truth is that her career as a performer spanned five decades, during which La Goulue constantly reinvented herself-as a dancer, animal tamer, sideshow performer, and muse of photographers, painters, sculptors, and filmmakers.

With Beyond the Moulin Rouge, the first substantive English-language study of La Goulue's career and posthumous influence, Will Visconti corrects persistent myths. Despite a tumultuous personal life, La Goulue overcame loss, abusive relationships, and poverty to become the very embodiment of nineteenth-century Paris, feted by royalty and followed as closely as any politician or monarch.

Visconti draws on previously overlooked materials, including medical records, media reports across Europe and the United States, and surviving pages from Louise Weber's diary, to trace the life and impact of a woman whose cultural significance has been ignored in favor of the men around her, and who spent her life upending assumptions about gender, morality, and domesticity in France during the fin de siècle and early twentieth century.

Jonas Holman (1805–1873) was an itinerant portrait painter, who also worked as a Freewill Baptist pastor, a writer, an illustrator, and a doctor. He lived in southern Maine, Philadelphia, Boston, New York City, and North Stonington, Connecticut. This essay finds seeming contradictions in Holman’s artistic life, particularly in his relationship with his patrons, and in his painting style. From a review of Holman’s work emerges a more nuanced understanding of how an American itinerant portrait painter worked during the mid-nineteenth century. This essay elaborates on the motivations behind Holman’s multiple occupations by examining in depth his work as a painter and his role as a pastor. Drawing from original research, including my investigations in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia and my location of thirty-four signed or attributed works, the essay comments on Holman’s relationship with his patrons, whose occupations ranged from sea captain, to a farmer, to tin peddler, to wagon maker, to printer and at least three sitters who were members of his Freewill Baptist congregation. His patrons thus came from disparate occupations and were not necessarily followers of the same religious practices as Holman. Further, his diverse clientele led Holman to paint in both “folk” and “realistic” styles. This finding is striking because the prevailing academic literature would suggest that painting styles are determined by regions (i.e. rural or urban environments) or artistic ability. Instead, Holman reveals that painting style can be a function of patrons’ needs and preferences, particularly for itinerant artists.

"An Observation on "Hanami Benten-zu" by Kawanabe Kyōsai: Another Commemorative Painting for Tatsu"[J], Kyōsai, Vol.120, Warabi: Kawanabe Kyōsai Memorial Museum, September 2016, 29-34.

「河鍋暁斎筆《見立七福神之内 花見弁天図》に関する一考察 ― もうひとつの田鶴追善図という可能性について」『暁斎』120号、河鍋暁斎記念美術館、2016年9月、29-34頁。

Although considered one of the most influential Indian photographers in the global history of nineteenth-century photography, Lala Deen Dayal’s portraiture practice is surprisingly underexamined, receiving only cursory acknowledgment and little sustained attention.

Knjiga donosi pregled povijesti te sakralne baštine osječkog donjega grada od kraja 17. stoljeća do druge polovine 20. stoljeća. Posebna je pozornost posvećena povijesti Donjega grada u 18. stoljeću kada je on bio samostalna gradska općina. Specifične političke okolnosti utjecale su snažno na podizanje brojnih sakralnih građevina: župne crkve Imena Marijina, pravoslavne parohijske crkve Uspenja Presvete Bogorodice, kapela svetog Roka i Gospe Snježne. U drugoj polovini 19. stoljeća u Donjemu su gradu također podignute brojne nove sakralne građevine: katoličke kapele Uzvišenja svetog Križa i Gospe Snježne, te pravoslavna svetog Nikole, kao i kasnohistoricistička sinagoga.

Introduction to the definitive compilation of  19th-century American painter, George Caleb Bingham's (1811-1879) private and public letters dating from 1835 to 1879, edited by Lynn W. Gentzler and  published by The State Historical Society of Missouri and The Friends of Arrow Rock Inc. in 2011. The introduction comprises an overview of Bingham's life, providing the social, political, and cultural context for the annotated letters that follow.

Art historians have almost invariably focused on the seeming ideological contradictions in Antoine-Jean Gros’s Battle of Eylau, pointing consistently to the “shocking” display of wounded and dead Russian soldiers in the foreground of the picture.  All evidence suggests, however, that the canvas functioned quite effectively as propaganda for its historical audience at the Paris Salon of 1808.  The resolution of this interpretative paradox is the central task of this article.  Through an analysis of salon criticism and the application of recent theoretical approaches to the representation of war, it seeks to demonstrate how the painting’s focus on national identity in fact produced a compelling and ideologically coherent portrait of Napoleonic war.

De sociaalpsychologische invloed van Japanse kunst op de beeldvorming over Japan in het Belgische japonistische netwerk tijdens het fin de siècle - The Social-psychological Influence of Japanese Art on the Formation of Japan’s Image among the Belgian Japonisants during the Fin de Siècle

"Bridging the Early-modern and Modern Periods: Kyōsai gadan and the idea of kokon in the time of transition", Bunka jōhō no kessetsuten toshite no zuzō ronbunshū (International Research Center for Japanese Studies ed., Kyoto: Kōyō shobō, March 2021), pp. 85-97.

「近世と近代の接続点 ―『暁斎画談』と「古今」の世界観」『文化・情報の結節点としての図像論文集』（国際日本文化研究センター編、晃洋書房、2021年3月）85～97頁。

The growth of nationalism from the nineteenth century created a demand for visual representations of the national territory and riverscapes like Claude Monet’s impressions of the Seine, Isaak Levitan’s Volga views, or Thomas Cole’s Hudson scenery, became iconic not least because they embodied nationalist ideas about place and culture. The riverscape could not only symbolize the nation’s physical character, but through aspects such as style, the figures portrayed, and the nature of the implied spectator, it could represent the nation’s cultural identity.
Powerful religious and political groups at different times, in diverse cultures have appropriated river mythologies. This book suggests that modern riverscapes similarly incorporated dominant, frequently religious conceptions of the nation. Drawing on the symbolic potential of rivers to represent life and time, the riverscape provided a metaphor for the mythic stream of national history flowing unimpeded out of the past and into the future. Simultaneously, it fixed and framed the river in a recognizable national imagery. Focusing on five examples, the Hudson, the Thames, the Seine, the Volga and the Shannon, this book shows how riverscapes transformed the abstract idea of the nation into a potent visual and cultural image.