Cities of 2018

The past few years (e.g. here and here), I've been recording a list of all the cities outside NJ/NY that either I visited for work-related purposes, or that AA and I went to for a vacation. There is little doubt that the two most remarkable places we visited in 2018 were the furthest north and the furthest south I've ever been before: Iceland and Costa Rica. Both of these trips were remarkable for being very nature-oriented. 

Reykjavik is fine city, but it was our Golden Circle tour that brought us to Thingvellir National Park, where we saw the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates crashed against one another--a humbling experience--as well as the site where their Parliament met for over 1,000 years until they built an actual building in Reykjavik in 1930. The waterfalls and geysers were spectacular as well. Iceland is like being on another planet; it's completely desolate but remarkable for its unusual geological formations and hot springs. We missed the Northern Lights and the spa experience, so another visit is in order! Save money if you're thinking about going, though, because it's not cheap!

On the complete opposite spectrum, Costa Rica's southwestern Pacific coast was unlike anything I ever experienced, with spectacular views and wildlife that made me smile non-stop. Monkeys howl in the trees around you and greet you on your patio (and, yes, try to steal your food!), and there are giant iguanas, tropical birds, and actual crabs that walk right past you too. We went zip-lining while we were there, among other adventures--something I never thought I would do (picture at right, climbing stairs to the next zip!)--and I loved it. It was an incredible outdoorsy trip with a wonderfully relaxing hotel at the top of a mountain.

We also had wonderful opportunities to visit with family, and another great adventure happened in our own backyard when, in one day with AA's family, we toured NYC by boat (Circle Line), land (walking the streets), and air--a helicopter tour (photo at the top!). The helicopter tour was exhilarating...if also admittedly a tad frightening...but that's what these adventures are all about...pushing yourself just a little further to experience all that life has to offer. We always take stock and remember how fortunate we are to be able to travel, and we are forever grateful for these experiences of the world. Here are the Cities of 2018...

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Athens/Atlanta, Georgia

Fairfield, Connecticut

The Hague/Delft, The Netherlands

Kansas City, Missouri (leaving for here tonight!)

Leamington Spa, England

Liverpool, England

London, England (2 visits)

Manuel Antonio/Quepos, Costa Rica

Montreal, Canada

New Haven, Connecticut

Ogunquit, Maine

Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Quebec City, Canada

Reykjavik, Iceland

St. Petersburg/Palm Harbor/Tarpon Springs, Florida (3 visits)

Hotel Archaeology

Quebec City has one of the most picturesque historic centers that I have ever visited in North America. There is something incredibly charming about all the flagstone facades, the cobblestone streets, the dated historic buildings, the division of upper and lower cities each with their own interesting sights, and the inherently French provincial vibe that the old town exudes. AA, his cousin GDA, and I just returned from a brief visit there (after a couple of days in Montreal). The temperature was unseasonably, frigidly cold, and there was about a foot of snow on the ground with flurries continuing our entire visit. You can see below the picture of AA and me outside the Chateau Frontenac (now a Fairmount Hotel) and witness our winter-like experience! But the overall icy-cold experience helped open up the holiday season for me, so it was all worth it.

Even more intriguing was the hotel where we stayed this time: Auberge Saint-Antoine. This was an incredibly relaxing, luxurious hotel/spa experience; when you leave for the evening for dinner, you come back to your room and discover turn-down service, herbal tea, subdued lighting, and a CD with Diana Krall singing soft jazz. What fascinated me about the hotel most, however, was how they incorporated archaeological artifacts as part of the decor and history of the site. The hotel was originally a fort and merchant house in the 17th century, and over time the grounds and buildings changed. When the hotel underwent renovations about 15 years ago, they excavated hundreds of cultural artifacts, like fragments of ceramic dishes, glassware, knives and forks, leather shoes, cannonballs, pipes, ... the list goes on and on. All of the artifacts have been beautifully displayed in vitrines embedded in the walls (as you in the above image). Even the rooms are themed and named around a particular ceramic fragment. Most of the artifacts date from the late 18th/early 19th centuries, but it is fascinating to discover some objects dating back to the late 1600s.

The personal service, the comfortable room, the delicious food and cocktails, and the archaeology-as-decor all make for a wonderful experience in one of the most picturesque cities I know. I look forward to another visit in the near future!

Cities and Projects of 2017

Anyone who has been following bklynbiblio for many years now of course will have noticed the general decrease in the number of posts coming from me. It's not intentional. Time (or lack thereof) has been a key factor, but I will admit that I've discovered a shift in my own attitude about life, which also has affected my blogging. That sounds a bit obnoxiously existential, but what I mean is that I find myself focusing more on living in the moment and enjoying experiences as they are happening, rather than attempting to record things afterward as a memory of an event or experience. I believe I've noted elsewhere, too, that as the world of social media has increased with various platforms, blogging is no longer my only online outlet. Facebook, Instagram, and work-related blog posts, all somehow now come together in conjunction with this blog to provide the snapshot of activities, thoughts, and events. (I still have a Twitter account, but I've largely dropped it; Pres. Tyrant has ruined it for me completely.)

I've also discovered, though, that as I'm getting older I'm having a more difficult time just remembering things the way I used to. I read a book and six months later sometimes I can't even remember the name of the protagonist. That never used to happen before, but I hear it is normal aging. (It better be!) In the spirit of commemorating good fortune over the past year, in that I have been able to see more of the world, this post is a revisit of my travels of 2017 (here is last year's post). I thought I would add this time a section of highlights of professional projects (some related to work) over the course of the year as well. I have a tendency to disregard my past professional activities, because I'm always looking toward the next one (and criticizing myself that I haven't done enough, despite what others say to me). So consider this post also an attempt on my part to slow down and recognize what I have actually done the past year, and why there have been fewer blog posts as a result. And to those of you who have been contacting me the past few months commenting how happy you are to see me blogging again, THANK YOU!

I do want to add that with all the travel either AA & I, or I alone, have done, some of the best memories have been celebrating events with family. For instance, this year AA's parents came out to celebrate Thanksgiving with us, and after that we went to Florida to celebrate Uncle Eddy's 89th birthday and then visit Epcot Center with my godchildren. Good times, indeed, were shared by all.

Here is the 2017 alphabetical list of visited cities outside of NYC...

Cambridge, England
Charlottesville, Virginia
Dieppe, France
Fairfield, Connecticut
Houston, Texas
Leicestershire/Northamptonshire, England
London, England (2 visits)
Mexico City, Mexico (well, technically, we haven't gone yet, but we will before the end of the year!)
Ogunquit, Maine
Paris/Versailles, France
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Portland, Maine
Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Rouen, France
Salem, Massachusetts
St. Petersburg/Palm Harbor/Tarpon Springs, Florida (3 visits)
Toronto, ON, Canada
Washington, D.C.

Professional Highlights of the Year (in no particular order):

• Co-taught with Prof. Robert Harrist an undergraduate, semester-long seminar at Columbia on "Public Outdoor Sculpture at Columbia and Barnard" (including watching a bronze pouring of sculpture at the Modern Art Foundry, which was utterly fascinating and almost transcendental; see the picture at left)
• Took a professional development course on "Basic Drawing Techniques for Art Professionals" at NYU
• Published an essay "Before Rome: John Gibson and the British School of Art" in the book The British School of Sculpture, c.1768-1837, eds. Burnage & Edwards (Routledge, 2017; this project took seven years to see to completion, if you can believe it)
• Published a review on the exhibition Alma-Tadema: At Home in Antiquity, at the Fries Museum, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, in Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide (which you can read here)
• Took two research trips to the U.K. and did work at the National Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts, Victoria & Albert Museum and National Arts Library, University of Cambridge, and in a private collection
• Gave a paper at the "New Scholarship in British Art History" conference at the North Carolina Museum of Art
• Gave two separate talks on the sculptors John Gibson and Auguste Rodin at the Florence Academy of Art in Jersey City
• Co-presented with Stephen Brown (The Jewish Museum) about artist Florine Stettheimer and her world for the EdelHaus Salon
• Organized & led a round-table discussion called "The Power of Political Protest Art" for the exhibition ...Or Curse the Darkness at the Atlantic Gallery
• Served on the selection committee & jury for the Graduate Student Symposium co-sponsored by the Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art and the Dahesh Museum of Art
• Participated in a study day on Pre-Raphaelite art and design at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Participated in a workshop on the care and preservation of paintings, sponsored by the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts
• Attended the College Art Association conference in NYC
• Attended a Q&A talk with Jed Perl and the Calder Foundation on the release of the first volume of Perl's biography on sculptor Alexander Calder
• Had outpatient surgery with a relatively lengthy, painful recovery (okay, so this wasn't a professional event, but it did take its toll on me this year), and
• Went to see on Broadway Get on Your Feet!, Sunset Boulevard with Glenn Close, and Hello, Dolly with Bette Midler (again, not professional, but definitely worth recording as important events)

Portal 7

Portal 7: Quebec City (24 May 2014)

(For other works in my Portals series, click here.)

A door just opened on a street--

    I, lost, was passing by--

An instant's width of warmth disclosed,

    And wealth, and company.

The door as sudden shut, and I,

     I, lost, was passing by,--

Lost doubly, but by contrast most,

     Enlightening misery.

-- Emily Dickinson, Life series, Poem CXI

Travels of 2014: From Maine to Munich

I enjoy traveling. Well...to be more accurate...I enjoy all the experiences I can gather when I visit a new city or country...but getting there isn't necessarily something enjoyable. Nevertheless, it is a necessity and worth enduring for the end result. I am about to do this yet again as I return to Munich on another work-related trip. Not all travel is a vacation, as the trip to Munich was work (although, as I will comment on below, I did have the opportunity for some site-seeing). And then there are the personal family-related trips, such as the 7 I made to Florida in 2014 that were all largely associated with my father's care. As bklynbiblio readers know, he passed away in July, and although I miss him terribly, I am fortunate that I was able to be with him for his passing. We had his services in August, and it was truly a celebration of his life. On my March visit, I was very glad that AA joined me to meet the family and my father, and a year ago on my January visit I also made a short jaunt to Jacksonville to see my dear friend SVH and meet my canine nephew Winnie, a rambunctious young greyhound. October saw me back again for the SECAC conference in Sarasota, and I took a day to see the family again, and I made another quick trip back for Christmas as well. As emotionally challenging as these visits were to endure while my father was getting worse and worse, it always has been a comfort to know I have family and friends there to help create balance and give me the opportunity to also enjoy some parts of those trips.

In May I made a 60-hour trip to Seattle for the AAMG conference, about which I blogged here. My memory of Seattle from 1997 was better than I experienced this time, but that was because my colleague DCM and I weren't in the downtown area but in the university district, which was removed from the things we would have wanted to see, like Pike Place Market. Over Memorial Day weekend, AA and I joined the FF-POs for a few days in Montreal and Quebec City, which I absolutely loved. I blogged about that trip here. I still have fond memories of Quebec City and look forward to visiting again in the near future.

Over the long 4th of July weekend, AA and I went to Chicago, one of the American cities long on my list of places to visit. I loved it! And I cannot stress to readers how difficult that is for this NYer to admit to! The one thing I did hate was the pizza. Fortunately everything else outweighed that. The city is clean. The architecture is magnificent. Lake Michigan is simply amazing. (We spent 4th of July on JK's boat on the Lake and watched the fireworks from there--just awesome!) Millennium Park is tons of fun; the image you see here shows Anish Kapour's interactive sculpture with the skyline behind it. And then there was the Art Institute of Chicago, where I finally was able to see the work you see at the top of this post: Georges Seurat's Sunday on La Grande Jatte, 1884-86. I think my photograph of viewers staring at the painting demonstrates well how observers inevitably become part of the melange of social classes intermingling in the park in true pointilist fashion, as Seurat likely intended. On our last day in Chicago AA and I climbed the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) and I confronted my fear of heights by climbing out onto the glass ledge. I can't say I am no longer afraid of heights...truthfully it terrified me even more...but it was important that I did it. (AA of course strolled out there like it was nothing. He is fearless. So annoying!) We also took a day trip to Milwaukee, which I wasn't so crazy about, although the Calatrava-designed wing on the art museum is spectacular, particularly overlooking Lake Michigan.

After my father's funeral, I needed to get away for a few days and have a truly relaxing trip with very little to do, so AA and I flew to Boston then drove to Maine. I had not been in Maine since about 1998 or so, and I had only visited Ogunquit at that time. We went there our first night and it was everything beautiful I remembered. Walking along the rock paths overlooking the Atlantic was just breathtaking. I love the fresh smell of sea air, the cool breeze blowing off the water, and the sound of nature's ferocity as waves crash against the rocks like the crack of a slap but with a magnificent electric sting. With each passing day we moved up the coast further and visited Portland, Cape Elizabeth with its famous lighthouse (seen here), Camden (so adorable...best clam chowder ever!), Belfast, and Lincolnville...an adorable little spot with nothing to do...exactly what I needed. I hated having to leave, because we only made it 1/3 of the way up the coast, but I do look forward to visiting again. I really loved that relaxing summer weekend in Maine.

As for Munich, I was fortunate amidst all my days of work to have some free time to hit so many of the museums. The Lenbachhaus, where the exhibition was held, is close to the Glyptothek and the Alte and Neue Pinakotheks, so I was able to see all the masterworks of ancient, Renaissance, and modern art that I was eager to see. One of the photos you see here is a zoomed-in shot of the glockenspiel, the mechanical life-sized music performers that play a few times a day in the main square, Marienplatz. Munich surprised me frequently. The old streets wind like concentric circles in a way that as soon as you assume you are walking east, suddenly you are walking southwest. I got lost so many times it was ridiculous. However, it gave me more of an opportunity to see much of the city as a result. I was also surprised at how German and Italian it was. There is Germanic architecture, but there is a surprising amount of Italianate architecture as well, and indeed I found myself able to communicate using Italian more than English with various people. The Oktoberfest was starting while I was there, so I had a chance to visit the grounds. It is basically a giant beer festival, but family friendly (and gay friendly--another surprise!). lederhosen and "beer wench" Bavarian costumes were everywhere. The pastries and pretzels were divine...(why don't we use pretzels as bread? it's ingenious!)...I devoured about 3 of these plum tarts that you see in the picture below. I definitely enjoyed Munich much more than my trip to Frankfurt last year. Rumor has it there is about a foot of snow on the ground in Munich at present, and potentially more coming this weekend....it better not ruin more chances to see the city over the weekend before work starts!

What's on the travel agenda for 2015? I have a work trip to Fort Worth coming up. I may do a pop-over to London to see a few exhibitions I'm very interested in. But the big trip I'm very much looking forward to is Italia in April. I have not been since 2009, so I am going first to visit family, and then AA is flying over with the DPG-JBs and we are going to visit Rome, Florence, and Milan. I'm even scheduled to give a talk at the Keats-Shelley House in Rome while I'm there. More details coming soon....

Hooray Canada!

It's taken me a week to write my latest travelogue, but better late than never. Over Memorial Day weekend, AA and I took a road trip to Montreal and Quebec City with the FF-POs. bklynbiblio readers may recall my 2010 trip to Montreal for the BQH conference (Oh Canada!), about which I was initially excited, but afterward somewhat disappointed (Ugh Canada!). Hence the title of this post: yes, this trip was fantastic. My disappointment with Montreal last time was in large part because of the weather and the conference, but I did have a few highlights, like the Museum of Fine Arts. We did go back there, and it was even better than I remembered, because there was more time to explore the entire museum in all 3 buildings. The decorative arts and design collection is especially impressive. The picture you see above is of AA and I posing with Jim Dine's Six-Foot Hearts outside the museum, in their urban public outdoor sculpture park. We spent our time exploring more of the city, and spent some time at the Botanical Gardens, which we rather nice. We had amazing weather, so we couldn't complain about that at all.

Our two nights in Quebec City, however, really made this trip as great as it was. This charming city is everything I imagined French Canada would be: quaint village-like shops and cafes, a lot more spoken French, and a relaxing place to simply wander and take in the sites. Even better, we had fantastic meals. We stayed in a delightful hotel called Port-Royal, located in the lower part of Old Quebec, and we just meandered through the lower and upper parts of the city. The pictures you see here help narrate some of the highlights for me. The upper part of the city is crowned by the Chateau Frontenac, and had beautiful sweeping views down to the St. Lawrence River. In our wanderings, we found ourselves by the Parliament building, which had a gorgeous French fountain that originally was at the 1862 International Exposition. The bronze sculptures throughout the city, including installed on the Parliament building, are in impeccable condition, a testament to their interest in taking care of their art. The quaint streets are lined with stone buildings, and at night the street had a beautiful misty feel to them, that made me think of John Atkinson Grimshaw paintings, albeit with electric lights, not gas lights, but still atmospheric. Finally, I have to say, I had one of the most amazing meals of my entire life at Cafe Bistro du Cap. The dinner was table d'hote (prix-fixe), starting with a mousse pate, then a main course of beef bourguignon with thyme mashed potatoes, carrots, and asparagus, with panna cotta & berries for dessert. The restaurant was quiet and intimate, with only about eight tables, one server, and the owner who was the chef. Truly, the meal was superb. I definitely look forward to returning to Quebec City in the near future!

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.

Ugh Canada!

"You’ll love Montreal!" I heard it from at least half a dozen people in the weeks before I left for my trip. I only wish it had been true. From my last post before I was on my way, I had mentioned that I had not done any research into what would be happening while I was there. It turned out that I needn’t have worried. I was so busy with the British Queer History Conference that I barely had any energy to do anything else. (I’ll write more about the conference in another post.) Certainly the weather had something to do it, since it rained most of the time, although on the day I arrived it was actually quite pleasant.

That first afternoon I made my way to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to see the permanent collection. That, admittedly, was worth it. Their 19th-century collection has a few interesting works, including James Tissot’s October, 1877, appropriately Aesthetic Movement as a vertical portrait of a flirtatious young woman in black surrounded by a profusion of orange and yellow autumn leaves (image courtesy of Artcyclopedia.com). In the same room was John William Waterhouse’s Saint Cecilia, 1895, which I had seen before at the Royal Academy retrospective exhibition of the artist’s work, but it’s always a refreshing surprise to see such a lovely work again. (Oddly enough, neither of these works appear on the museum’s website. Could there be an embarrassment about Victorian painting?) The museum also has one room dedicated to the arts of Napoleon, which was interesting. Some of the works were from the private collection of Ben Weider, a “Nap”-ophile who amassed not just art but also personal artifacts like his hat, boots, and a lock of his hair. The Thorvaldsen Apotheosis of Napoleon memorial bust may seem a bit over the top, but it is a brilliant Neoclassical example of how Napoleon was immortalized after his death. There was also a special exhibition of works by the German Weimar painter Otto Dix, which had been in New York not too long ago. Sadly, I have missed both versions of the show, because I had no time to see it here either.

This opening may make you think that I actually did enjoy the city. OK, so the museum was fine. But then that was it. The rest of my experience with the city wasn’t all that thrilling. The architecture is disappointing. I think I had in my mind something akin to Quebec City, but this wasn’t the case. There is Beaux-Arts style architecture for sure, but it has been swallowed and blocked by gulag-like modernist monstrosities that make you think they wanted to be Paris then New York and never made it in either direction. In contrast, Vancouver’s modernist architecture is quite beautiful (note: been there twice; love it!). I managed to get down to Old Montreal on Sunday morning, but even that disappointed me. There is construction everywhere, and the few “old”-style buildings are bizarrely juxtaposed near Chinatown, so you look in one direction and see a classical dome and turn around and see pagodas. Only when I took a taxi back from a lovely visit to see a fantastic private collection of Neoclassical books and a wonderful brunch (merci, LG!) did I finally see the Latin Quarter, and that area was delightful with its shops, restaurants, bars, etc., all of which reminded me New Orleans.

So I’m being overly harsh. I did have a wonderful dinner with JJK and CR at a Belgian restaurant one night. I also did see some go-go boys at Campus [nsfw!]...certainly always a fun experience doing that, especially considering Canadian bars allow their boys to dance sans sous-vêtements. I am glad the hotel had an indoor swimming pool, because I took advantage of that as well. One of the more interesting features of a city like Montreal is the complete comfort with which everyone interacts bilingually (French/English). If nothing else, seeing everything written in both languages helped improve my French a bit. So, who knows, maybe I’ll give Montreal another go in the future...but it will have to be in nicer weather. Perhaps with some sunshine and flowers in bloom, it may turn out to be a more pleasant city to visit.

[I wrote the above blog post while I was at JFK airport waiting for my plane to take off...3 hours late. I am posting it from Leeds, England, where I am now. More anon!]

Oh Canada!

It seems like ages ago when I was blogging that I would be giving a paper at the British Queer History conference at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and that I would be going to England for my dissertation fellowship at the Henry Moore Institute. Believe it or not, the time has arrived: I leave in the morning. I'm usually fully prepared to visit museums or do specific things when I go to a new city, but this time around I haven't had time to do any research on Montreal. The picture you see here is the facade of their Musée des Beaux-Arts (Museum of Fine Arts; image: Bruce Aleksander & Dennis Milam on Flickr), but I haven't even looked at the museum website yet to know what's on at the moment. I've never been to Montreal before. I've been to Vancouver twice, and loved it, but this French city should be a wonderful experience, assuming the weather holds up. But what is there to do in Montreal? If anyone out there has been and wants to make recommendations, please let me know! In the meantime I need to brush up on my "s'il vous plait" and "merci." Time also to practice my favorite safety-net phrase: "Je suis desole, mais je ne parl pas francais." A little bit of humility in Paris helped me tremendously in Paris. I wonder if Montreal will be the same?

BQH Conference

A few weeks ago, while I was in Florida, the executive committee in my graduate program met and, I'm pleased to say, approved my dissertation proposal: "Refashioning the Gods: John Gibson, the Roman School of Sculpture, and the Modern Classical Body." As you may remember from a previous post on this blog, Gibson was a British sculptor who moved to Rome in 1817 and established a studio there, becoming one of the most important sculptors of his day. My dissertation will address how Gibson was both a classicist and a modernist, how his appreciation of ancient Greco-Roman art merged with his understanding of modern taste, and thus made him the successful sculptor that he was in his day.

In addition to my upcoming residential fellowship at the Henry Moore Institute, and a travel award from my school, I was informed this week that I also have received another award: the Spero-Goldreich Dissertation Fellowship. The money from this award is going to pay my travel expenses to do research in London at the Royal Academy this fall. I am extremely grateful to the private sponsors of this award.

Before I leave for England, however, I'll be making a stop in Montreal first, where I will be delivering a paper at the British Queer History Conference at McGill University. I am on a panel session on 19th-century British art with my friends and colleagues Carolyn Conroy (on Simeon Solomon) and Jongwoo Jeremy Kim (on Henry Scott Tuke). Christopher Reed from Penn State is our moderator. It should be an interesting conference, with talks by Jeffrey Weeks, Matt Cook, and others. You can see the whole program here.

You may be wondering how all this relates to the picture above. That is a photograph I took in April 2006 of Chatsworth, truly one of the most magnificent estates in England, still owned by the Duke of Devonshire and his family. The 6th Duke was one of Gibson's first patrons, and my upcoming conference paper will be about how these two bachelors negotiated the aspects of queer art patronage in the early 19th century. Here is the abstract for my paper.

The Sculptor and the Duke: John Gibson, the Duke of Devonshire, and Queer Art Patronage

During the winter of 1819, the Duke of Devonshire visited the Roman studio of the British sculptor John Gibson. At the time, Gibson was working on a seven-foot model of a sculptural group of two nudes entitled Mars Restrained by Cupid. The Duke immediately commissioned the work in marble. In the sculpture, the idealized warrior god and the ephebic god of love gaze into one another’s eyes as Cupid gently restrains Mars from brandishing his sword. Alluding to the pederastic tradition of ancient Greece, as well as the sensual aesthetics of the Biblical David as sculpted by Donatello and Michelangelo, Mars Restrained by Cupid is an example of early nineteenth-century queer art from the perspective of subject, artist, and patron.

Born in Wales and raised in Liverpool, the artist John Gibson (1790-1866) eventually made his way to Rome where he studied sculpture under Antonio Canova. Thereafter, he established a lifelong career in Rome as a British expatriate sculptor. Gibson came to count among his patrons Queen Victoria herself, but his legacy to art was the reintroduction of polychromy into sculpture with works such as the Tinted Venus, which premiered at the International Exhibition of 1862. Espousing the teachings of J.J. Winckelmann and the art of ancient Greece, Gibson produced interpretations of ephebic gods in marble, such as The Sleeping Shepherd Boy (1818) and Narcissus (1829). His patron, William Spencer Cavendish, the sixth Duke of Devonshire (1790-1858), inherited his title upon the death of his father in 1811 and began renovations at Chatsworth, including the construction of a sculpture gallery. Once the Napoleonic Wars had ended, he went on his first Grand Tour to Rome, and it was during this trip that he commissioned the statue by Gibson. He subsequently commissioned or purchased work from other sculptors in Rome, almost all of which were of mythological nude males, including Endymion by Canova and Ganymede with the Eagle of Jove by Adamo Tadolini. His arrangement of these works at the entrance to his sculpture gallery inevitably created a queer space through which one had to pass in order to see other works in the collection.

In this paper, I will consider the juxtaposition of Gibson’s sculptural oeuvre with Devonshire’s choice of art objects for this gallery, a queer space in which Mars Restrained by Cupid played an important role. Certainly it is true that representations of the nude male epitomized idealized beauty in Neoclassical art, and not all such figures are inherently queer in nature. However, art historians such as Thomas Crow have noted that there were homosocial artistic circles, such as the atelier of Jacques-Louis David, and that he and some of his students did paint subjects that pointed to the ancient Greek pederastic tradition. This spirit of homosexualism, according to Whitney Davis, demonstrates that in the early nineteenth century representations of same sex passion existed before the conscious manifestation of a homosexual identity occurred later in the century. Citing published and archival biographical and commercial information, as well as theories on the collecting and display of art, I will consider the sculptor Gibson and his patron the Duke of Devonshire as a case study for the existence of queer art patronage in Britain and Rome in the early nineteenth-century.

Niagara Falls

For those who don’t travel regularly, you may not know this, but crossing international borders isn’t as easy as it used to be. Even the Canadian border patrol was surprisingly annoying. You must have a passport now to enter Canada, and when you do they ask you so many questions: where you’re staying, what you do for a living, whether you brought cigarettes into the country, whether you ever drove a pick-up truck, how often you ate asparagus...things like that. Once we were in, we decided we weren’t moving the car again, so SVH and I never saw Niagara Falls from the NY side. We certainly didn’t miss it, however, because the view from the Canadian side is spectacular. We checked into the Radisson, and were we ever shocked to discover our "room with a view" really had a view! The picture you see above was what we saw from the window of our room: Horseshoe Falls in all its glory, with mist shooting into the heavens. It was like having our own neverending movie of the falls playing in our room at all times.

We stayed in what I would consider to be the more chic side of Niagara Falls, Ontario. There is every chain restaurant imaginable in the area, but the hotels are all newer with some dynamic post-modern architectural features. If you’ve ever heard that the Canadian side is kitschy, that’s the area further north called Clifton Hill. There you will find cheaper hotels, arcades, movie plexes, Ripley's Believe It or Not, etc. In other words, it’s geared toward families and children. Needless to say, we immediately left that area and returned to our end of the strip. The park overlooking the falls is well manicured and adorned with flower beds and hanging baskets. At one point I couldn’t help but feel like the entire area was a pavilion at Walt Disney World, “Niagaraland” or something, it’s so pristine, and the falls so miraculous they look almost artificial. (What does that say when a natural wonder looks like it's artificial instead of the other way around?) As for the waterfalls themselves, well they are absolutely breathtaking. I can truly say that they are one of the greatest sites in the natural world that I have ever seen.

One of my favorite moments was when I woke up early and ran outside to watch the sunrise over the falls. The sun was just peeking over the horizon but barely breaking through the mist and clouds. I took pictures (one of which you see below) as it slowly rose and glowed through the ether. I looked out at the river and watched the ferocity of the water rush toward the falls. It makes a rushing noise, a sound that can only be described as the terrifying pushing roar heading toward its destiny. With an energetic burst the water poured over its cliff, and foam and mist spewed upward reaching high into the sky. Through all of this the sun continued to poke its way, creating tongues of pink and purple reaching out to lick the soft blue sky. The gold-red light made an aureole, illuminating the mist like a vortex carved through steam. It was like something J.M.W. Turner would have painted. Somewhere in the midst of all this, I had seen out of the corner of my eye a woman sit on a rock nearby, but I was so intent on watching nature I didn’t pay her much attention. My eyes were tearing, from the rays of the sun, but also from the beauty of the moment. I was struck by the grandeur of the scene, the commingling of sun, sky, water, earth, and ether. It was then that it struck me, that if ever one were to doubt the existence of God, this was all the proof they would need to believe. I heard a sigh of joy beside me, and as I turned my head I realized the woman was a nun in a white dress and black habit. I couldn't help but chuckle to myself. I almost said something to her, but she was so intent on the scene that I returned my gaze as well. Finally, the sun burst through the mist, but we remained quiet. Our amazed silence said it all.

Lakes and Falls

The picture you see here is the 1857 painting Niagara by the American artist Frederic Edwin Church, a work owned by the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Church made an international career for himself in the 19th century by painting large-scale scenes of the American landscape. He was part of the so-called Hudson River school. His pictures capture the wild essence of nature in all its pristine and sublime beauty. This painting of Niagara Falls is no exception. You can hear the roar of the water, feel the chill dank atmosphere of the dark sky, but then wonder at the sunlight that shines through and illuminates the foam of the rushing water. I wonder if my experience will be as captivating. SVH and I are on our way to Canandaigua Lake, part of the Finger Lakes in upstate New York, for the DG-RL wedding, and then she and I are going on our own "honeymoon" to Niagara Falls. I'm really looking forward to relaxing and embracing nature--and good friends--for a few days.