Nationalist Sculpture: AAH 2018 Call for Papers

My colleague Tomas Macsotay and I are co-chairing a panel session at the next Association for Art History (AAH) annual conference, to be held April 5-7, 2018, at the Courtauld Institute of Art and King's College London. The deadline for proposals is coming up in a few weeks. Our panel promises to be a combination of object and theory regarding issues of nationalism in sculpture of the long modern period (1750-1950), and we have decided on the image you see above as our "icon" for the session: J.G. Schadow's Quadriga on the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, 1789-91, made of copper (image: https://theshellmeister.wordpress.com). This sculpture has a long, fascinating history that runs from Prussian history through Napoleon and Hitler to the civil rights movement, and thus seems a fitting illustration for our panel. Here are the full details, so contact us to submit a proposal, and feel free to send it along to anyone who might be interested.

The National in Discourses of Sculpture in the Long Modern Period (c. 1750-1950)

Session Convenors:

Tomas Macsotay, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain (tomas.macsotay@upf.edu)

Roberto C. Ferrari, Columbia University, New York, US (rcf2123@columbia.edu)

Are specific histories of national ‘schools’ of sculpture premised by the codifying of national identities? What role has been reserved for modern European languages and their historical networks of cultural transfer in enabling or inhibiting this circulation of nationalism in sculpture criticism? From the veneration of Greek art by Winckelmann, to the Romantic idea of a Northern spirit in the work of Thorvaldsen; from the imperial narratives of display at the World’s Fairs, to constructions of allegory in French Third Republic art; from monuments to fallen heroes after World War I, to Greenberg’s and Read’s critical biases for national sculptors – varieties of imaginary geographies in the long modern period have congealed into a fitful history where sculpture is entrenched in projections of the national.

Discourses of exclusion and inclusion became part of how sculptors were trained, public spaces were ornamented, and audiences were taught to read sculpture. These discourses also played a role in the strengthening (and dissimulation) of increasingly border-crossing networks of industrial production, globalised art trade, and patterns of urban infrastructure and design.

This panel seeks papers that offer critical explorations of the national and its tentative ties to the cosmopolitan in sculptural discourse, or consider a transdisciplinary dialogue between sculpture and its texts (e.g. art school writings, criticism, memoirs and biographies, etc.). We particularly welcome papers addressing the role of translation and circulation in fledgling modern criticism, as well as papers engaging recent accounts of cultural transfer in the construction of national and modern artistic identifiers (e.g. Michel Espagne, Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel).

INSTRUCTIONS:

• Please email your paper proposals directly to the session convenors.
• You need to provide a title and abstract (250 words maximum) for a 25-minute paper (unless otherwise specified), your name and institutional affiliation (if any).
• Please make sure the title is concise and reflects the contents of the paper because the title is what appears online, in social media and in the printed programme.
• You should receive an acknowledgement of receipt of your submission within two weeks.
• Deadline for submissions: 6 November 2017

Art Details: 11-15

 
Image Credits: All images taken by bklynbiblio/Roberto C. Ferrari. Top to bottom:

1. Adriaen van Utrecht, Still Life, ca. 1644, oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
2. Johan Christian Dahl, Dresden Seen from Pieschen, March Haze, 1844, oil on canvas, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen.
3. Monument of Tizoc, Aztec/Mexica, 1480s, basalt, National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City.
4. James Thornhill after Raphael, Peter and John Healing a Lame Man, ca. 1730, oil on canvas, Columbia University, New York.
5. Luigi Lucioni, Portrait of Rose Hobart, 1934, oil on canvas, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia.

MWA: 31-40

I find it fascinating to go back through bklynbiblio at times and see some of what I had posted in the past. Back in March 2012, I wrote the first Monthly Work of Art post (Paul Cézanne's Tulips), and while I've been unable maintain this project every month as I had hoped (life sometimes gets in the way!), the response from people has motivated me to keep it going. It also often turns into a wonderful educational opportunity--for me! After all, as they say, what better way to learn something than to teach others about it!

Last time I posted a summary of MWAs 21-30, I wrote a preamble about the importance of the project as a form of beauty, how I believe art can be a panacea for the ills and tragedies we experience in life. I still feel that way, and I hope I never lose that. It's been a pleasure to share these works of art with readers, because each has touched me personally, whether it is from a personal encounter or a cultural phenomenon, a seasonal change or an intellectual endeavor. Even more rewarding is that they have impacted others as well.

The Good Shepherd sculpture, late 3rd century, from the Vatican still remains the most popular of the MWAs, currently with 792 views. Friedrich Overbeck's Italia and Germania, 1828, has taken over as second-most-popular with 415 views. The third & fourth are almost a tie: Florine Stettheimer, A Model (Nude Self-Portrait), ca.1915 (362 views) and Edouard Manet, Repose, ca.1870-71 (361 views). Here is a run-down of the works I selected for MWAs 31-40 with links to the posts and their number of views. As you can see from the image above, Houdon's Winter is the most popular of this group.

XXXI. Duccio, Madonna and Child, ca.1290-1300 (81 views)
XXXII. Jean-Antoine Houdon, Winter, 1787 (133 views)
XXXIII. John Everett Millais, Spring (Apple Blossoms), 1856-59 (84 views)
XXXIV. Charles-François Daubigny, The Sandpits near Valmondois, 1870 (98 views)
XXXV. Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of James Stuart (1612-1655), Duke of Richmond and Lennox, 1633-34 (104 views; image left)
XXXVI. Botticelli, Mystic Nativity, ca.1500 (26 views)
XXXVII. Frederick Childe Hassam, Late Afternoon, New York, Winter, 1900 (60 views)
XXXVIII. Thomas Gainsborough, The Blue Boy, 1770 (45 views)
XXXIX. Edward Steichen, Gloria Swanson, 1924 (77 views)
XL. J.M.W. Turner, The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, October 16, 1834, 1834-35 (83 views)

MWA XLV: Copley's Nativity

Merry Christmas! Yes, another year has passed, probably shocking all of our senses about how the days seem to be moving faster and faster... I decided on the image above as December's Monthly Work of Art, a rather unusual scene depicting the Nativity painted around 1776 by the Boston-born artist John Singleton Copley (1738-1815). This painting is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which holds the largest collection of Copley's works in the U.S. The picture measures approximately 24 x 30 in. and is oil on canvas. Copley likely painted this while he was in London, having traveled there in 1774 and spending 1775 in Paris, Rome, and Naples, where he would have been exposed to more Catholic-themed art than he would have seen in his homeland or in London at that time. The depiction reflects some influence of Italian and French Baroque art, with its use of shadows and lighting, but perhaps more so the influence of Benjamin West, another American who was on the rise to become one of London's leading History (i.e. narrative-scenes, not necessarily historical) painters of his day (West has appeared as an MWA too). The challenge Copley faced as an artist was that he, like all painters at this time, strove to become a History painter, which was considered at the time to be the top of the artistic hierarchy. Portraits, a format in which Copley had excelled in colonial America, was a way to make money. To be an Artist, one had to become a History painter. Although Copley had a few successes, by and large these pictures fail as compared to his portraits.

Take, for instance, the picture you see here, which is arguably one of the finest portraits of a child in all of Western painting. It is Copley's portrait of his younger half-brother Henry Pelham, entitled A Boy with a Flying Squirrel (1765). Copley able to capture his brother's likeness beautifully, but he also excelled in depicting drapery and clothing with different textures, and he had an uncanny ability to represent reflections (as in the veneer of the table) remarkably well. This picture was exhibited in London in 1766 and was a great success, largely because of his virtuoso skill in representing so many different types of surfaces. This success inevitably convinced Copley of the importance of making his way to London (then the art capital of the Western world) to develop his skills, but this would not happen for another decade.

The Nativity, unfortunately, fails, then, when seen compared to Copley's portraits. There is nothing "wrong" with it in terms of execution, and the same things that Copley excelled in back in Boston--drapery, physical likeness, veneer--are somewhat evident here. But it lacks the gravitas of a religious painting and thus lacks in spiritual feeling. It is possible he was trying to make the figures more naturalistic and of his day, something 17th-century painters had done (e.g. putting Biblical figures in modern-day dress). But somehow it just doesn't work here. There is theatricality in the presentiment that borders on the melodramatic. The hand gestures and surprised looks seem like something out of a stage performance. The representation of Mary and the baby is perhaps the one area where one can feel a sense of sentimentality, but with her hand on her head and her overall look seeming more like a portrait of an 18th-century Londoner, it just seems all wrong. I posted this painting as the background of my page on Facebook for December, and although a few people "liked" it (some even "loved" it), the best part were some of the comments some of my "FB friends" made about it:
JT: "That is a weird painting."
MP: "Mary needs a nerve pill! Joseph invited all his friends over without telling her and she's already made the unfortunate decision to wear white in a manger.
CoCr: "Clearly she shops in Manger, Stable and Beyond."
DPG: "She looks like I did after giving birth, thinking OMG what have I done, I'm not ready to be a mother!"
CaCo: "Yeah she's looking like 'three hours sleep and Joseph brings all his mates round...'"

Art is supposed to create dialogue, so when it does it works. That doesn't always mean that the dialogue is positive. Sometimes even great painters make mediocre paintings. And on that note...Merry Christmas!

MWA XXXVIII: Gainsborough's Boy

The picture you see here is one of those images that has been reproduced so many times that you know it instantly, even if you aren't sure who it is or who painted it. This is Thomas Gainsborough's Blue Boy, painted in 1770, from the The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. I have never seen this picture in person, because I have never been to this institution--yet! But like anyone who has seen it I have always been fascinated by the boy's overtly confident, almost cocky, facial expression and pose, and the vibrancy and bravura of the blue garments that Gainsborough painted. I chose this work for February's Monthly Work of Art because I recently read Martin Postle's short book on Gainsborough. Rather than do my own interpretation of this painting, then, here are the words of specialists who know much more about this than I do.

This painting "was Gainsborough’s first attempt at full length Van Dyck dress--knee breeches and a slashed doublet with a lace collar--which is based on the work of Anthony van Dyck, the 17th-century Flemish painter who had revolutionized British art. ... Though clearly indebted to Van Dyck, Gainsborough’s painting technique was entirely his own. Whereas Van Dyck applied color in discrete patches composed of short consecutive strokes, Gainsborough presents a chaos of erratic color and brushstrokes. The shimmering blue satin is rendered in a spectrum of minutely calibrated tints--indigo, lapis, cobalt, slate, turquoise, charcoal, and cream--that have been applied in extremely complex layers of vigorous slashes and fine strokes. At the proper distance, the diverse pigments crystallize into an illusion of solidity." (online catalogue entry)

"The Blue Boy is Gainsborough's most famous picture, and his most enigmatic. Through its elevation to iconic status in the twentieth century this picture, more than any other, has served to promote the artist's image as a romantic painter of chocolate-box cavaliers. Nothing could be further from the truth. The painting is a parody. The boy in question was not the offspring of an aristocrat but the teenage son of a prosperous Soho ironmonger, and a person friend of the artist. His costume was a popular form of fancy dress which ... was otherwise restricted to the ephemeral realm of the masquerade, then a popular form of entertainment in the capital. ... X-rays have revealed that Gainsborough painted The Blue Boy upon a discarded, cut-down canvas, which further suggests that this was not a straight-forward portrait commission but an impromptu jeu d'esprit." -- Martin Postle, Thomas Gainsborough (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2002), 46.

Art Exhibitions of 2015

The end of each calendar year brings out all the art critics to write about the best art exhibitions they experienced that year. Because we live in the NYC area, with an incredibly rich cultural scene, we are fortunate that there is so much to see. Here, for instance, is the link to Holland Cotter and Roberta Smith's article on the best in the art world in 2015, which is quite comprehensive if thematic in its arrangement. Conscious of geography and its limitations to lists, I like that Hyperallergic does separate reviews for NYC and other parts of the world in their annual rankings, to create a more level playing field, it would seem. As for me, since I don't have the luxury, liberty, or time to see every exhibition in NYC, let alone in the world, I can only base my list on what I have been fortunate to see. This year I did see a lot, including a number of new museums and collections for the first time, listed at the end of this post. Below is my annual summary of what I felt were the best shows I saw this year (here is last year's post). And, for the record, I should note that I have not yet seen Picasso Sculpture at MOMA, partly because going to see an exhibition there is a total nightmare. Fortunately, it closes in about a month from now, so I still have time.

I still am surprised that no one I have encountered, read, or spoken to, ever saw what I consider to have been one of the best shows of 2015. Entitled Body and Soul: Munich Rococo from Asam to Günther, this exhibition (installation view above) brought together over 160 sculptures in polychrome wood, terracotta, silver, and stucco, as well as drawings and paintings and prints by a number of largely unknown sculptors based in Bavaria during the 1700s (hence the eponymous Asam brothers, Cosmas Damian and Egid Quirin Asam, working early in the century, to Ignaz Günther at the end). This exhibition was installed at the Kunsthalle in Munich, a space for rotating special exhibitions. The installations of many of these works was simply stunning. The exhibition was ecclesiastic in its focus (Bavaria, unlike the rest of Germany, historically remained Catholic), so one saw mostly angels and saints in the show. Normally installed in churches, cathedrals, and chapels, these works typically are part of elaborate, intricate architectural settings and interior spaces. Removing them and putting them on exhibition in this way, however, gave the viewer the opportunity to appreciate them as individualized works of art, with an emphasis on the sculptural quality of these figures, i.e. their materiality and craftsmanship, and occasionally their hyperrealistic theatricality. At the same time, removing them from their usually-ornate environments, the viewer appreciated how their contorted, exaggerated forms make them seem proto-surreal and modern. The image you see above was just one of the many rooms in which the stunning display of larger-than-life figures impressed viewers. It is unfortunate that this exhibition did not get more attention internationally. Despite the national focus, I suspect it is because it was largely religious in nature, and religion does not usually do so well with audiences today.

Two other sculpture shows that are high on my list derive from the ancient and contemporary art worlds. In Florence I saw at the Palazzo Strozzi the exhibition Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World, which showcased intricate and often naturalistic works of art crafted from the period between Alexander the Great's death in 323 BCE and the foundation of the Roman Empire in 31 BCE (image left: Victorious Athlete, 300-100 BCE, bronze and copper, Getty). Drawn from collections worldwide, many of the objects were presented with interesting didactic panels that provided a broad context from how the bronze figures were made to their socio-economic and political uses. The exhibition was co-organized with The J. Paul Getty Center, and is currently still on show at present at the National Gallery in Washington, DC until March.

In contrast to this ancient survey, the exhibition of works by Doris Salcedo at the Guggenheim here in NYC was absolutely worth visiting. I was first introduced to Salcedo a few years ago when she did the infamous "crack" Shibboleth in the floor of the Tate Modern Turbine Hall, which had some interest but seemed to rely too much on the conceptual for my taste. This year, however, the exhibition of a selection of her work clearly revealed her focus on her heritage growing up in Colombia during turbulent years in its history. Her works address violence, racism, and misogyny, but they also fool the mind with their use of unusual materials and the juxtaposition of hard and soft media that confuses the mind. The installation view seen here shows a series of historical wooden pieces of furniture that have had concrete poured into them. Making them useless as furniture, they take on a new function as archaeological monoliths that question ideas about the domestic sphere. An installation piece that changes with each space, these incredibly heavy objects challenge one's ideas about what constitutes space itself, then, and in the spirit of sculpture-as-objects the viewer is forced to engage with them in a way that blocks your entry and exit. Their monumentality and gravitas were provocative and almost tangible. The two criticisms I had about this exhibition, however, was that it was spread out through the galleries at the Guggenheim in a way that I found disconcerting and fractured. Secondly, it was absurd of the designers not to make the wall texts and panels bilingual. In this day and age in America, curators and designers have a responsibility to create Spanish texts in addition to English texts whenever they exhibit a Latino/a artist. (Brooklyn Museum successfully did this with their Francisco Oller exhibition, but alas I was not as thrilled about that show overall.)

Shirin Neshat: Facing History was on exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC, when AA and I visited there in June. Like with Salcedo, I had seen a few of Neshat's photographs and one film in the past, and was intrigued by her work, but this retrospective was amazing. I would go so far as to say it is #2 on my list of the best exhibitions I saw this year. Born in Iran in 1957, Neshat left in 1975, and her art work since then has addressed the turbulent politics of Islam and Iran's relationship with the West. She has staged historical recreations of important political events, uses multiple cameras to personify the divided worlds of men and women, and hand-manipulates exquisite black-and-white and color photographs with Persian texts, all in to draw attention to the crises we face in our ongoing political battles between Iran and the West to this day. Neshat is one of those artists whose work continues to have more relevance with each passing year as jihadists in the Near East continue to strike fear in the hearts of everyone--Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, everyone--in the world. The image you see here is a manipulated photograph from her 1993 series I Am Its Secret (Women of Allah) [Photo: Plauto © Shirin Neshat].

On my list, I would next say that #3 is Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist. On display at the new Whitney Museum of American Art, this show was an absolute delight. African-American of mixed-race heritage, Motley (1891-1981) was trained academically, but was influenced by modernist trends after World War I. His portraits of blacks, whites, and mixed-race people emphasize the wide array of complexions and social standings that exist in our world. He celebrated the advancements and opportunities that jazz gave to blacks in America and Paris, and clearly loved music and dance. The painting you see here, Tongues (Holy Rollers), 1929, is an exploration of the spirituality endemic in some black communities, but you also can see in the movement of their bodies that this is a dance, a paean to life-as-spirituality, and how jazz is influencing even how one can think about religion. This exhibition taught me about an American artist whose work I had little exposure to before now, and showed me beautiful paintings that made me go through the exhibition more than once to absorb all the colors, forms, compositions, and sensations. It made me appreciate yet again how incredibly fascinating the 1920s were in American art, a statement I have been making ever since I saw the incredible show Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties at Brooklyn Museum in 2011. To wrap up this section, I should add that the Whitney Museum also deservedly gets kudos for the new Renzo Piano building in the Meatpacking District. They have done an amazing job of integrating public and private space, outdoor and indoor space, in one building, and in so doing have unexpectedly also created a charming new community in a neighborhood that culturally was on the rise but now has taken off.

To wrap up this post here are a few other honorable mentions from exhibitions I saw this year:

• I was delighted I had the opportunity to see Flaming June by Frederic, Lord Leighton, at The Frick (image right). This painting is one of those great pictures from posters and postcards that first inspired people to look anew at Victorian painting (even I had a poster of it!). Seeing this picture in person reminded me that Leighton is painterly and has a lush brushstroke, even though images make him seem to be a slick, linear classicist. Viewers love this painting for its sensual depiction of the young woman in her diaphanous draperies, and it does not disappoint in person. I also liked how the Frick installed the picture by two of their ladies by J. A. M. Whistler, cleverly demonstrating how the two were part of the Aesthetic Movement, which emphasized beauty in art without subject or moral meaning, but painted so differently.
• At the Metropolitan Museum of Art this year, one of their big successes has been Kongo: Power and Majesty, which I saw not too long ago. It is indeed an excellent installation and does a good job of not only showcasing beautiful examples of African art in numerous media, but also engaging well with issues such as slavery and post-colonialism with the Portuguese trade of this area from the 1600s to the 1900s. 
• Another great Met Museum exhibition was Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends, not because it was a wonderful installation, but because everyone just loves gazing at and revelling in John Singer Sargent's bravura of a brushstroke. 
• In contrast, Navigating the West: George Caleb Bingham and the River was not necessarily a beautiful exhibition, but it was very interesting learning more about this 19th-century painter based in Missouri drawn from scientific analysis of his paintings and looking more closely at his contemporary sources. 

I will close this post by noting that I was fortunate to visit a few museums for the first time this year. These were, in no particular order: the Nelson-Atkins in Kansas City; the Barnes Foundation and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia; the Galleria Nazionale dell'Arte Moderna in Rome (amazing unknown 19th-century art); the Guildhall Art Gallery in London (Victorian pictures galore!); and Dia:Beacon in upstate New York (whole new appreciation for Sol LeWitt's wall murals). I also had a great research trip to Boston and visited for the first time the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the reconstituted Harvard Art Museums, and revisited for the first time in almost twenty years the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Amazing art, collections, installations, and exhibitions in these places...2015 was quite a great year.

MWA XXXII: Houdon's Winter

The great blizzard we were expecting turned out to be a bust in NYC. We got about 8 inches of snow in Central Park and a foot at LaGuardia Airport. Nevertheless, it is reportedly still windy and cold, with snow blowing everywhere. And anyone who endures this kind of winter weather knows that one of the great challenges is trying to stay warm outdoors. That challenge is, perhaps, one of the reasons why I've always admired the sculpture you see here, which I've selected as January's Monthly Work of Art. The statue is just under life size and was made by the French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828), an artist known to this day for his ability to capture personality and psychology in his portrait busts and statues. This sculpture, Winter, was cast in bronze in 1787 and intended as an allegory, and likely may have been intended to be grouped with other figures representing the other seasons.

Whenever I see this work in the Petrie Court at the Met Museum, I'm always struck by how successfully the sculptor personified the feeling of shivering, to the point that it makes the viewer shiver with her. One could argue that the most obvious reason why is because she is essentially nude but for the shawl draped around her head and shoulders. But the real reason she shivers is because of how she holds her body. You sense a shiver not from her nudity but from her body language. The shawl is clutched around her, her arms wrap tightly together, and her legs are pressed tightly, so as to create a feeling of warmth in the cold. With a title such as Winter, one imagines she has been removed from a narrative scene where perhaps she is poverty-stricken and shivering in the cold. In a greater display of art, it is possible Houdon intended her to be dressed, but he may have reconsidered his plan when he saw the study of the nude form itself and recognized how important the body language spoke the sensation he sought to capture. The position of her leg in contrapposto also suggests motion, and I've often wondered if perhaps she has just touched her big toe into a pool of water and that is what is making her shiver. From that perspective, the title of Winter is misleading, for this is not an outdoor scene but a naturalistic scene of a woman bathing, a tradition in art that one associates more with Japanese Ukiyo-e and Impressionist paintings and prints by Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt. Regardless, the girl's naturalism in her body language is what makes this sculpture so fascinating. There is a frisson of sensuality in her nudity as well, for she covers herself modestly like a Venus Pudica, and hides her innocent face with the cloak. In doing so, she is stripped of her identity and she comes to represent any innocent young woman alone in the world. Indeed, the more one ponders her state of being, one cannot help but wonder if she also represents the victim of a sexual attack, something which has robbed her of her innocence and left her shivering in the coldness of society. It is this multi-layered combination of innocence and sensuality, external coldness and bodily warmth, that makes this sculpture such a fascinating work to behold. Details of the sculpture enhance aspects of its naturalism further, how the texture of the cloth differs from her glossy fingernails and supple flesh pressing into her arm. But it is the overall sensation of her body shivering that makes this a magnificent work of art.

The Met Museum recently has launched a new online media component called Viewpoints: Body Language, in which a group of figurative sculptures are given due acknowledgment through the use of video and audio clips, highlighting their power as representations of the human form. It is worth going to the page for Winter (click here) and listening to the curator, educator, and outside scholars respond to the sculpture in short videos and audio clips. There are links on the left to numerous other works in the collection. This is a fine example of how social media can enhance the learning experience of sculpture and educate people about an art form frequently misunderstood and often underappreciated.

Review: Modernity of Ancient Sculpture

This book review that I wrote last year, transcribed below, was scheduled to be published in the final 2013 issue of Art Libraries Journal (vol. 38, no. 4), but for some reason I still haven't seen a copy of the journal issue (print copy lost in the mail? electronic not released yet?). In any case, word has it that it was actually published in that issue, so I thought I would share what I submitted here as well.

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The Modernity of Ancient Sculpture: Greek Sculpture and Modern Art from Winckelmann to Picasso by Elizabeth Prettejohn (London; New York: I. B. Tauris, 2012).

Reviewed by Roberto C. Ferrari, Columbia University

The long-standing ‘march-to-modernism’ approach seen in art history textbooks has begun to break down due to new approaches and interpretations that appreciate the art of the past for its own value and contribution to its own time period. Postmodernist discourse began to disrupt this ideology decades ago, but there has been a persistent block among modernists that in order to be ‘modern’ one had to overthrow the dominant art form of the past: classicism. That is, to be avant-garde one had to be anti-academic/anti-classical. In art museums, only very recently have exhibitions begun to challenge this notion. Chaos and Classicism: Art in France, Italy,and Germany, 1918-1936 at the Guggenheim (2010-11), and Modern Antiquity: Picasso, de Chirico,Léger, and Picabia in the Presence of the Antique at the Getty (2011-12), are just two examples of such shows that offered refreshing views of twentieth-century art as embracing classicism as part of modernism. Elizabeth Prettejohn’s latest book The Modernity of Ancient Sculpture: Greek Sculpture and Modern Art from Winckelmann to Picasso thus is timely in its publication. She cites these catalogs in her text, but she expands upon them in other ways, ultimately proposing that modernism and classicism are inextricably linked.

Focusing on the period 1750-1950, Prettejohn argues that the histories of antiquity and modernism not only were written parallel to one another during this period of time, but they also share methodologies and artistry. The basis for her study is ancient Greek sculpture, specifically its changing perception and appreciation over time: Roman copies (misidentified by Johann Joachim Winckelmann as Greek works); the Elgin Marbles; the Venus de’ Milo; Praxiteles’ Dionysus with the Infant Bacchus; and Archaic-style works pre-dating all of these. She discusses the discovery of these works and their reception by critics and artists. Readers expecting a iconographic analysis of the Apollo Belvedere and Aphrodite of Knidos repurposed in modern art, however, may be disappointed in this book. Unlike the aforementioned exhibition catalogs, Prettejohn’s primary interest is reception theory, not iconology. She does bring in examples of ways artists visually repurposed ancient sculptural imagery in their art, but her underlying interest is exploring why artists were aware of these classical works at a specific time and how their consideration of these works defined modern taste in art. Prettejohn argues that reception theory is critical to understanding the intersection between ancient and modern art, and in fact encourages the reader to see ancient sculptures themselves as modern because they first appeared (i.e. were excavated) during the formation of modernity.

As a specialist in nineteenth-century art, particularly of Britain (having published books and essays on Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic Movement artists and critics), Prettejohn in this text seems most comfortable when writing about figures such as Frederic Leighton and Walter Pater, discussing how they saw and interpreted antiquity. For example, her comparative discussion of Rodin’s Age of Bronze, 1877-80, Adolf von Hildebrand’s Standing Youth, 1881-84, and Leighton’s Sluggard, 1886, is fascinating. She argues that they are modern reinterpretations of then-discovered works by Praxiteles, Polykleitos, and Lysippos. She shows that the physical characteristics of each modern work, from contrapposto to muscular attenuation, mirror the different styles from ancient art that classicists have described as evolutionary in their naturalistic development over two centuries. Then, in an interesting twist, she notes how these modern works were all made in a short period of time, leaving the reader to speculate whether the ancient works themselves should be seen as evolutionary. After all, little evidence survives to correctly attribute works to these ancient sculptors or to the dates assumed for their creation.

Arranged into an introduction and three lengthy essays, the book resembles in format the author’s earlier Beauty and Art, which surveyed art and aesthetics of the same period in time. In the introduction of Modernity, Prettejohn proposes her argument about the linking of antiquity and modernism to one another and their simultaneous interactive developments. Rightfully so, she begins her discussion with Winckelmann, demonstrating how his reception of ancient sculpture through texts and surviving examples inspired ekphrasis-like writing, teaching others how to appreciate ancient and modern art, and establishing the idea of an art historical canon. Her first chapter discusses the Elgin Marbles as the nineteenth-century’s first awareness of actual Greek marble statues, and discusses their critical reception by scholars such as G.W.F. Hegel. The chapter continues with the discovery of the Venus de’ Milo (image: left) about this time, which gives Prettejohn the opportunity to explore ways this statue has been analyzed and received by classicists, artists, and scholars over time. Chapter two focuses on the Romantic idea of the individual artist as it related to antiquity. With the discovery of more ancient statues during the 1800s, the historical placement of specific ancient sculptors and their works were secured. But here Prettejohn exposes the weaknesses in these attributions, often with biased nationalistic tendencies, and instead emphasizes the importance of the afterlife of these works rather than their inherent ancient histories. ‘Modernism’, the subject of chapter three, will appeal to scholars of twentieth-century art for its emphasis on ancient sculptures from the Archaic period and the parallel interest in primitivism seen in the work of Picasso, Modigliani, and others. Prettejohn focuses on the importance of carving over modeling as a modern ideology, but traces its connections with the rising interest in the stiff, geometric figures from ancient Greece that were carved directly from blocks of marble by unidentified artists’ hands. Prettejohn ends the chapter and book with an examination of works by Picasso that do not specifically draw on any one particular ancient statue but, in a democratized, modernist appreciation of antiquity, shows how Picasso ignored the classical canon but used multiple aspects of antiquity for inspiration.

Prettejohn’s book is part of the ‘New Directions in Classics’ series based at the Institute of Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition at the University of Bristol, where the author previously worked. The intent of this series is to move beyond traditional views of Greco-Roman culture and offer new methodological approaches and interpretations about antiquity. One might assume, then, that the intended reader for this text would be classical scholars. Indeed, much of Prettejohn’s text relates to archaeological discoveries and the scholarship that helped establish a framework for the study of classical sculpture itself. But the student and scholar of modern art will find the text useful as well, for Prettejohn frames ideas about nineteenth- and twentieth-century modern art as it was influenced by these discoveries from antiquity.

This text is appropriate for academic and museum libraries with researchers interested in expanding beyond traditional approaches to ancient and modern art, and is perhaps most useful for postgraduates, professors, and museum curators. It is not overpriced for an art book (£57.50 hardcover, £18.99 paperback), although all 51 illustrations are reproduced in black-and-white. This is not uncommon for sculpture books. Because Prettejohn’s focus is on methodology and not the aesthetic appreciation of these objects, black-and-white images do make sense, especially that they help keep the price of the book lower. Ultimately, the future success of this book rests in how it is received by scholars, mirroring Prettejohn’s own emphasis on reception theory for ancient sculptures. In reading it I found myself inspired by ways in which her ideas could be incorporated into art history seminars and used as the basis for small art exhibitions. Her numerous ideas about rethinking and merging antiquity and modernism certainly invite responses, and frequently the text reads like a dialogue with half the conversation waiting to be spoken. It will be fascinating to see how in fact her text may influence ideas about how aspects of antiquity and modernism are retaught or rethought. Indeed, if scholars are open to rethinking the development of the history of art itself, then this book will have accomplished its mission.

Art Exhibitions of 2013

What better way to end the year then by catching an art exhibition! JM and I fought the crowds at MoMA this afternoon so we could catch Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938, about the pivotal years in the Belgian Surrealist's career. The work you see here is entitled The False Mirror, 1928 (image: MoMA) and gives a quick sense of how Magritte's images and titles are plays on one another (the eye is a reflection of the soul? what one sees? of anything?). Alas, his images have become so ubiquitous in reproductive form that upon seeing an outpouring of his paintings such as in this exhibition they become almost tedious and disappointing. Frankly, the curators could have done a better job engaging the viewer with the works (i.e. shouldn't we be addressing the misogyny and violence toward women in his paintings?). We also popped in to see Isa Genzken Retrospective, which turned out to be another prime example of the art style I classify as "Self-Indulgent Crap." Some of her large-scale minimalist sculptures in concrete and wood were interesting, but the rest of it was just mind-numbingly awful. I can't believe this is the same artist who produced the boldly delicate Rose II as part of the New Museum's Facade Sculpture program.

Readers of bklynbiblio know that I visit a number of art exhibitions, but only some stand out for me as the best of the year, and a smaller number ever make it onto this blog. (I attempted to start a "best of" in 2010 but couldn't keep up with it; hopefully we will in the future.) In writing about my top favorite exhibitions, you probably won't be surprised to see that most largely reflect art of the past. But living in NYC I have become more and more attuned to "modern/contemporary art," so I'm always happy when I discover some new artist or great exhibition that can excite me about art post-WWI or post-1980. All that said, it should come as no surprise that my favorite exhibition of the year was clearly Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Art and Design, 1848-1900, which I saw at the National Gallery of Art, but which had opened in London the previous year at the Tate. Although I was readily familiar with most of the works in the show, it was great to see so many of them from different museums and private collections brought together again for an exhibition that documented the accomplishments of these talented artists who sought to be modern through inspiration from the past. The image you see here is the book jacket for the exhibition catalogue. (See more of my thoughts on the show here.) My second favorite exhibition this year--and I hesitate to call it that, as it is more of an installation and performance--was Janet Cardiff: The Forty Part Motet. Held at the Cloisters, this sound-based piece captured the spirit of its medieval origins not only with the musical composition but with the architectural space, a medieval chapel. They were made for one another. Listening to all of the recorded voices individually as they surrounded you made you feel as if the entire recorded motet was a living, singing sculpture, albeit one that existed in space and time and not in person. You had to close your eyes to experience it best, and it came close to a transcendental art experience.

My third favorite exhibition of the year was Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity at the Met. The idea that the Impressionists and their contemporaries were inspired by current trends in fashion and the rise of bourgeois industry were first explored in art history nearly 20 years ago. But the bringing together of important French paintings from the 1860s and 1870s and juxtaposing them with fashion from the day--including some of the same gowns or accessories depicted in the paintings--made for a fabulous exhibition. The mannequins wearing the clothes helped make the paintings come to life. In addition to seeing great paintings by Manet, Monet, and Morisot, lesser-known brilliant artists like Tissot were given their due acknowledgment as well. This was definitely an exhibition worth seeing. (Image: installation view of Gallery 3: The White Dress, Met Museum).

Among my other favorite exhibitions of the year were Gordon Parks: The Making of an Argument and Edward Burtynsky: Water, excellent photography shows curated by my friend & colleague Russell Lord in New Orleans. The Parks show played with a journalistic story and opened your mind to understanding so much more about how photographs are manipulated and reframed to tell a story. In contrast, the Burtynsky large-scale photographs of water-themed images were simply mind-blowing and beautiful. (Read more of my thoughts on these shows here.) At Brooklyn Museum, the exhibitions on to El Anatsui's monumental sculptural detritus installations and Sargent's jewel-like watercolors turned out to be a counterpoint in beauty (see more of my thoughts here). And Edwardian Opulence at the Yale Center for British Art was an extravagant, jam-packed plethora of art and cultural artifacts from the post-Queen Victoria period (see more of my thoughts here). Honorable mentions for this year also go out to: David d'Angers: Making the Modern Monument at the Frick, a small but informative exploration into the life and career of this 19th-century French sculptor; Beauty and Revolution: Neoclassicism, 1770-1820 at the Staedel Museum, Frankfurt, a show of important classical paintings and sculptures, Canova and Thorvaldsen taking center stage (part of my Zurich/Frankfurt tour this year); NYC 1993 at the New Museum, on art of a century ago; and monographic shows on the ever-queer Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt at MoMA P.S.1 and Eleanor Antin at the Wallach Gallery at Columbia. 

As always, there were great shows I missed, which I shall regret, including The Boxer: An Ancient Masterpiece at the Met and the Rain Room at MoMA. But fortunately there is still time to see a few shows that have opened and are ongoing for a few weeks or months more, especially The Armory Show at 100: Modern Art and Revolution at the New-York Historical Society. Hm...I may even go to see that on New Year's Day!

CAA 2013 Recap

The annual College Art Association conference is still taking place this week. However, I'm thoroughly engrossed in finishing up my dissertation, so I just went today and heard a number of papers, some quite interesting. (Click here for the recap from Los Angeles last year.) The painting you see here is a portrait of the Countess of Charolais (1695-1758) dressed as a Franciscan friar, painted by the Rococo artist Charles-Joseph Natoire (image: Wikimedia Commons). This was the subject of a paper given by Melissa Percival (Univ Exeter) that I thought made some fascinating points. The Countess was notorious in 18th-century France for her romantic liaisons, but refused to marry, so she was seen as a rebel bucking tradition. This is just one of a number of portraits that depict her wearing a friar's monk, called in French "en Cordelier," referring to the knotted cord associated with the friars. What makes this portrait different from others showing her dressed as a friar is that this one plays out a balance of masculine and feminine traits, as if suggesting her more sexually aggressive sensibilities and anti-traditional attitudes. The knot itself is suggestive of the bonds of sexual union, and the way she holds it suggests a phallic symbol, reinforced by the phallic spoon in the cup of cocoa. These are all Percival's thoughts on the portrait. What made her talk more interesting was that she suggested it would be too easy to assume transgender roles were at play here. Dressing up in costumes was normal for 18th-century French aristocrats, and priest/nun costumes were quite popular. Percival suggests then that we shouldn't leap to conclusions about cross-gender appropriation just because she's dressed as a friar in these numerous paintings; rather, it is this particular painting that is unique of them all, in that it has symbols that say more about her sexual interests, and as such was likely meant for private consumption than public display. In looking up more about the Countess, I couldn't help but chuckle to find out that she was buried in a convent for Carmelite nuns.

Percival's paper was part of an open panel session on French Art, 1715-1789. Judy Sund (Queens/Graduate Center--one of my favorite ex-professors) gave a great paper entitled "The Chinese Elephant: Unpacking an Improbable Pachyderm," in which she explored the image of the white elephant seen in Chinoiserie designs from the late 17th- and early 18th-century. She argued that there was a greater absorption of Siamese/Thai culture than previously understood or thought, in the general misconstruing of what "China" actually meant at that time. Ultimately she argued for the broader sensibility of exoticism as a world of fantastic recreations rather than reality. My colleague David Pullins (Harvard), whom I met in 2011 at the Artist's Studio in Britain workshop (see my blog posts here, here, here, and here), gave a well-researched paper on the 18th-century French printmaker Gabriel Huquier (1695-1772). I didn't hear the other papers on the panel, but it was chaired by Colin Bailey (Frick Collection), whose own paper on Fragonard's Progress of Love series at the Frick I wrote about in the 2011 CAA recap.

My friend and fellow GCer Jennifer Favorite gave a paper entitled "Creative Time in the Age of Bush: The Public Art Institution as Agent of Political Response" in a panel session on Art and "The War on Terror": Ten Years On. The room was packed with people at this panel session, so I really had a difficult time hearing her paper, which I regret, although I don't think I know any of the artists whose works she showed (maybe too contemporary for me!). The other panel session I went to was For and Against Homoeroticism: Artists, Authors, and the Love that Dare Not Speak Its Name, which was co-chaired by my friend Jongwoo Jeremy Kim (Univ Louisville) and colleague Christopher Reed (Penn State)--whom you may recall I worked with back in 2010 in Montreal at the British Queer History conference. My colleague and friend Richard Kaye (Hunter/GC) gave a paper on 20th-century interpretations of St. Sebastian imagery, and I really liked what he covered with regard to Frida Kahlo and the idea of how women artists appropriate this male homoerotic icon. Andrew Stephenson (Univ East London) spoke about "beach" culture and gay poses in the paintings of Christopher Wood (in Cornwall) and David Hockney (in southern California). The paper by Michael Yonan (Univ Missouri-Columbia), entitled "Outing Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, or Ernst Kris's Creative Homophobia" was an interesting presentation about a mid-20th-century psychoanalytic art paper about the late 18th-century sculptor's physiognomic busts and how they supposedly represented the sculptor's suppressed homosexuality. Messerschmidt really was an amazing sculptor, as you can tell from the bust you see here (fondly titled Afflicted with Constipation; image: Neue Galerie). The 2010-11 exhibition on him was superb! Yonan's paper was less about Messerschmidt, however, and more about Kris, with Yonan arguing that the art historian, from Vienna, had to prove himself to the Freudians working in post-WWII American academia, so he purposely modeled his scholarship on Sigmund Freud's essay on Leonardo da Vinci, in which Freud psychoanalyzed Leonardo as a latent homosexual. I wish Yonan had gone a little further with all of this, including exploring how it differed from Kris's other writings, but perhaps all will be revealed in a future publication. That's all the papers I heard today, but I also did some socializing and networking, which is really what these conferences are all about.

MWA XI: West's Wolfe

Better late than never with our Monthly Work of Art! Since I started teaching another semester of 19th-century European art this past Monday, I thought I'd share Benjamin West's The Death of General Wolfe, 1770, approx. 5 x 7 ft., in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada. Although historians of American art likes to claim West for themselves, I'm among those who think of him as a British artist. He was born in the British colony of Pennsylvania in 1738, eventually traveled to Rome for some artistic training, but made his career in London, where he died in 1820. He was elected the 2nd President of the Royal Academy of Arts after Sir Joshua Reynolds died. I always start this lecture class off with a discussion of history painting, i.e. large-scale narrative subjects showing heroic acts and events that taught viewers a moral lesson (or as Robert Rosenblum dubbed it, an exemplum virtutis). History painting was considered the highest achievement in the hierarchy of painting styles from the Renaissance through at least the mid- to late 1800s. West's painting depicts the end of the Seven Years' War between England and France, which was fought on Canadian soil. General Wolfe was mortally wounded in 1759, and on his death bed he was brought word that they had beat the French. Wolfe was proclaimed a national hero in Britain, and numerous artists depicted him in art apotheosizing him as an allegorical figure from the past. West broke with tradition and chose to represent the scene with Wolfe and his soldiers wearing contemporary military clothing, which was unheard of at the time. Reynolds and others blasted West for this radical move, but when the painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1771 it was a sensational success with the people. Prints were made of it, and it secured West's reputation.

Although he broke new ground by depicting a contemporary war scene with a journalistic eye for detail, in fact the entire scene was made up. None of the portraits of the famous soldiers who surround West in the painting were there when he died, nor was a Native American present either. More importantly, though, West still conveyed the ideology of the exemplum virtutis by turning the death of Wolfe into a "Lamentation of the Dead Christ" scene, a recurring image in hundreds of Renaissance and Baroque paintings that viewers would have recognized immediately. (If you count the soldiers, you will discover there are 12 "Apostles" surrounding the Dying Christ-like Wolfe.) West also exoticized the scene by drawing on his American background in depicting a Native American in the foreground of the painting. But even this was an imaginary moment, for West modeled this figure on the famous Belvedere Torso, seen here, an ancient Hellenistic sculptural fragment that was famous among artists and frequently copied by them when they visited the Vatican Museums. By drawing on these visual tropes from art history, West was able to craft an important history painting using traditional methods, yet he simultaneously revitalized the art of history painting itself by offering viewers a modern twist on an old classic style.

Review: The Development of the Art Market in England

In the most recent issue of the UK-based Art Libraries Journal (vol. 38, no. 1, 2013), you will find my review of the book The Development of the Art Market in England: Money as Muse, 1730-1900 by Thomas M. Bayer and John R. Page (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011). Because of limitations with the number of words, however, I had to edit down my review. This is normal practice, so there certainly were no concerns about that. Below is the full version as I initially wrote it, going into a little more depth about the individual chapters and other areas. I've added images as well as they relate to various components of the book. The first image below is William Hogarth's 3rd print from the series A Rake's Progress, 1735; the second below is William Powell Frith's The Derby Day, 1856-58, one of the most commercially successful paintings of the 19th century (both from Tate Britain). The image you see here, James Durden's A Country Auction, has nothing to do with the book, but I thought it provided a nice visual summary about the book.

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Art history today is arguably more pluralistic and wide-ranging in its methodologies than ever before. Therefore, it is surprising that in the introduction to Thomas M. Bayer and John R. Page’s book The Development of the Art Market in England they perceive a ‘persistent prejudice that commoditization is inherently damaging to the aesthetic merit and quality of art products’.(1) For traditional connoisseurs who focus on an art object’s uniqueness and the artist’s inherent genius, this may be true. But few in the field of art history and criticism today would challenge Bayer and Page’s hypothesis, that art is a commodity, and key to its economic value is the role of the art dealer as the middleman between artist as producer and collector as consumer. Indeed, Bayer and Page’s text is an important, if occasionally faulty, contribution to art history. Their work is especially valuable to those who study British art, as it helps advance serious scholarship in a discipline often considered sub-standard to the study of French and Italian art.

Bayer and Page focus on England from about 1700 to 1900 because it was during this time that Britain experienced an increasing economic growth due to the industrial revolution and worldwide colonization. Moreover, because Britain was free from civil wars and outside incursions at this time—events that decimated large parts of the European continent—the country was able to maintain a level of economic stability and thus generate a steady market for the sale of art. The authors contend that the old idea that art follows wealth is no longer valid, that in fact these two principles worked reciprocally, supporting and nurturing one another, with the art dealer the fulcrum in this exchange. They focus almost exclusively on paintings, and their primary research comes from the extant records of dealers such as Agnew’s and Arthur Tooth. To this they extracted quantitative data from the scholarship of Algernon Graves and George Redford, as well as Christie’s auction catalogs, to create a statistical and econometric analysis of how and what types of paintings sold in England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.(2)

This book then is about production, commodity, and consumption, and thus favors business, finance, and economics over art history. It is part of Pickering & Chatto’s ‘Financial History’ series. This is not to say that the art history student cannot glean something from it, for indeed the authors have much to offer those who wish to learn more about how the London-based art world evolved in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. When it comes to Bayer and Page’s actual research, however, with their numerous tables and charts, the art historian accustomed to images and interpretations of works of art will be disappointed. Yet, in reading closely a text which argues that art dealers and the commoditization of paintings directed taste and stylistic developments in England, the art historian will find him/herself with a refreshing take on how the art world developed over this time period.


The first chapter is a discussion of the art market in seventeenth-century Netherlands and serves as the model for the commoditization of art. By 1700 this market shifted to London, then the largest and richest city in Europe. The early art market dealt exclusively with Old Masters, and it was only later in the century that an increase in the sale of contemporary native English artists overtook that of Old Masters, a paradigm shift that would swing back and forth for art dealers over the course of the two centuries. The next three chapters focus on the different ways native art established itself in England: instructional and theoretical manuals on painting published in London by authors such as Jonathan Richardson, William Hogarth, and Joshua Reynolds; the first art schools and commercial galleries such as Vauxhall Gardens, ultimately culminating in the establishment of the Royal Academy in 1768; and the role of art criticism and auction houses in establishing ideas about taste.

Chapter five is one of the more interesting. From their original research, the authors determined that during the eighteenth century art dealers used auctions exclusively to sell paintings, but this practice changed drastically from the 1830s on, when art dealers became the largest consumers of paintings at auction, in order to resell the pictures at inflated costs. The primary reason for this shift was the power of the reproductive print. The success of the print market in England began with Hogarth and helped nurture support for contemporary native English painters. Through the sale of prints after paintings, the public had the opportunity to own a piece of the painting, while the actual picture could be owned by one person or reinvested in the art market. Chapters six, seven, nine, and ten focus on the Victorian art market’s taste for native English painters. Whereas art dealers in the eighteenth century were less stable in their businesses, during the Victorian period many (Agnew’s, Colnaghi, Gambart, Tooth, etc.) rose to power as stakeholders in the production and sale of art. These art dealers asserted their power when they purchased from artists not only their pictures but their copyright, enabling the dealers to ensure future success through reproductive prints and traveling exhibitions. The last of these chapters discusses how the art market began to fail at the end of the Victorian period with the introduction of new international styles (e.g. Impressionism), the failure of touring pictures due to new cinematic experiences, and the development of cheap photographic reproductions which obviated the once successful market for high-quality prints.

The strength of the authors’ work is most evident when they provide specific case studies. For instance, chapter eight focuses on the auction house Christie’s and its sale practices over the centuries. Other close studies include discussion of dealers (e.g. Arthur Tooth & Sons, pp. 113-17), commercial enterprises (e.g. Grosvenor Gallery, pp. 191-201), and successful painters (e.g. William Powell Frith, pp. 154-58).(3) Their work on the Victorian period itself is substantial and thus more useful than that of the eighteenth century. This is partly because more archival material survives from that period, but also because the book is taken from Bayer’s 2001 doctoral dissertation on the Victorian art market.(4) Bayer is an interdisciplinary art historian with related studies in history and economics, and Page is a certified public accountant and professor of accounting at Tulane. As specialists in the world of financial history, they certainly seem qualified to write on this topic.

Unfortunately, a surprising number of grammatical and spelling errors appear frequently in the text, suggesting poor proofreading at times, and over-editing with the appearance of double words and incorrect phrasing.  These errors continue onto the website (http://artmarket.tulane.edu) designed to complement the text with images that are not in the book.  The painter John Singleton Copley, for instance, appears frequently on the website as Copely.  The quality of the images on the website, arranged by chapter, are low resolution files and often poor in quality, so they serve little use.  For a book priced at £60 ($99), the authors could have arranged for black-and-white images in the text of just a few of the most frequently discussed paintings.  More appropriately, they should have published prints after these paintings, since that is such a critical part of their thesis.

The website includes a promising link at the bottom that reads ‘Is the Art Market Like the Stock Market?’  It opens to a series of hyperlinks that relate to PowerPoint slides, but not a single link works, making the entire site worthless.  The closest one comes to thoughts on their analogy to the stock market is when the authors, in the book, propose that ‘painters are firms which produce products …, dealers are specialists and brokers, critics are analysts and the auction house is the stock exchange’.(5) Although thought provoking, missing from this analogy is the collector as consumer/investor.  Bayer and Page have authored a text that offers a close analysis of the painting market, and spend ample time discussing the art dealer, artist, and auction house, but in ignoring the collector, they have omitted a vital part of this stock market analogy.  For those interested in the collector, particularly during the Victorian period, Dianne Sachko Macleod’s superb work Art and the Victorian Middle Class offers an interesting parallel by focusing on how certain industrialists operated as private collectors.(6)

Despite these criticisms, Bayer and Page’s text contributes to the literature in art history and financial history, and also could be consulted by researchers working on an array of related subjects, from British socio-economic history to marketing strategies over time. Although the publisher’s website suggests the text is intended for the general reader, it is for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and academics. The scholarly apparatus seems ample and well-documented, with thirty-four pages of endnotes, a bibliography of archival, primary, and secondary sources, and a full index. The book itself has a sturdy hard cover and sewn binding that holds up well to regular use, and seems to be an appropriate purchase for college and university libraries, particularly with school programs in international studies, art history, and business/finance/marketing. Bayer and Page have not have written a perfect book on the history of the art market in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England, and scholars inevitably will have more questions than answers based on their research. However, they have opened the door to an understudied area, upon which future scholars will be able contribute and thus expand, as it were, a new market on the commoditization of art.

NOTES
1. Bayer and Page, 7.
2. Algernon Graves, Art Sales from Early in the Eighteenth Century to Early in the Twentieth Century, 3 vols (London, 1918-21); George Redford, Art Sales: A History of Sales of Pictures & Other Works of Art (London, 1888).
3. The section on Tooth was previously published as a longer essay by the authors, ‘Arthur Tooth: A London Art Dealer in the Spotlight, 1870-71’, Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 9, no. 1 (Spring 2010), http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/index.php/spring10/arthur-tooth.
4. Thomas M. Bayer, ‘Money as Muse: The Origin and Development of the Art Market in Victorian England, a Process of Commodification’, Diss. Tulane University, 2001.
5. Bayer and Page, 143.
6. Dianne Sachko Macleod, Art and the Victorian Middle Class: Money and the Making of Cultural Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).