Metal Outdoor Sculpture

Today was my first day in a week-long seminar entitled "The Care of Metal Outdoor Sculpture," sponsored by the New York Conservation Foundation. Sculpture in metal (e.g. bronze, aluminum, stainless steel, etc.) isn't something I'm as well-versed in as compared to sculpture in stone (e.g. marble), not to mention the conservation of it, particularly when exposed to outdoor elements. So this seminar seems like it's going to be a great opportunity to learn more. It supports my duties in my new position as Curator of Art Properties at Columbia, as we have a public sculpture collection on campus (more than one campus actually), and all of it is in metal. Each morning during the seminar we're visiting public sculpture sites in NYC. This morning we started near Herald Square, moved through Bryant Park, and ended near the United Nations. Tomorrow morning we're in the Financial District. The afternoon or evening parts of the seminar consist of a series of talks from conservators and curators. So far it's going pretty well. The picture you see here is a shot I took with my iPhone of our instructor John Scott talking to us about the effects of environmental conditions on this 1911 memorial statue in bronze of William Cullen Bryant by Herbert Adams in the park behind New York Public Library. If I have time later in the week, I'll recap highlights from the seminar.

MWA XVI: Rubens's Wife

Following up on the last MWA in honor of Rembrandt, it seems only fitting to turn to his famous Baroque contemporary from Flanders, Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). This large painting, Rubens, His Wife Helena Fourment (1614-1673), and Their Son Frans (1633-1678), is approximately 6 1/2 ft. x 5 ft., and was painted in oil on wood ca. 1635. It is one of the highly prized paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The curators note that it is a portrait of the artist with his second wife and their first-born son strolling in an allegorical Garden of Love: "The picture is not a family portrait but an homage to Helena as wife and mother, one of whose most important attributes was providing her husband with a son. The gestures and glances of both male figures and symbols of fecundity such as the fountain and caryatid pay tribute to Helena, who has the innocence and serenity of a female saint." The painting was a gift in 1981 from the well-known art collectors Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, in honor of the famous art historian John Pope-Hennessey, who at the time was (I believe) retiring from the Met as a curator. Although this is scandalous to say, I've never been a big fan of Rubens's rather mellifluous work, but this picture is without a doubt an exquisite painting in its handling, color, and composition.

The main reason why I've chosen this work as July's MWA, however, is because of the painting's provenance, or the history of its ownership. The Met has been among those museums who, in putting their collections online, have attempted to make more publicly available the provenance of many of the works in their collection. If you click on the title above, it will take you to the webpage for the painting, and if you scroll down to click on the tab for "Provenance," you will discover that among the illustrious past owners of this picture were the Dukes of Marlborough, and that it hung for a time in Blenheim Palace. From 1884 through 1975, the painting was in Paris at the Hôtel du Duc de Nemours, the home of the Barons de Rothschild. Indeed, if you take a look to the right, this is an image of the painting as it hung in the dining room of this Paris mansion, just before it was sold by the Rothschild estate. This image was a discovery I made when I was working with the William Keighley Collection at the Met Museum (he had been given permission to photograph the Rothschild's home). You may recall I blogged about this when the last phase of the digitization of the Keighley Collection had been released by ARTstor in December 2012. This was a multi-year project that I had overseen while working at the Met, including curating Keighley's original slides to be digitized. Much the same way I recently wrote about exhibition installation views, images such as this offer us a fascinating perspective in how paintings such as this one by Rubens--which we now only envision hanging on a wall in a museum--originally were meant to be seen, hanging among decorative arts and other works paintings and sculptures collected by wealthy owners in the past. Visual provenance helps restore the past incarnations of works of art, and thus are vitally important tools in the history of these art objects. It makes one realize that art objects are not static; rather, they have rich histories that tell a new story for each passing generation.

Exhibition Installation Views

Art history today is more than just about connoisseurship. It involves social history, criticism and theory, gender studies, and so on. Museum studies in particular has grown rapidly as a discipline, and the blending of that area with visual art comes together beautifully in the history of temporary exhibitions. Recording these visually allows scholars to see how art objects were literally viewed and arranged in the past. Although this can be especially interesting in attempting to recreate exhibitions from the 19th century and earlier, "history" can be as recent as last year too. ARTstor recently released more than 8000 digital images from The Metropolitan Museum of Art showcasing views from special exhibitions dating from 1970 through 2008. This is a fantastic addition to ARTstor's collection (it complements in part a previous collection of digitized installation views by the Museum of Modern Art). Not everyone realizes this, but installations do matter when you visit a special exhibition. Next time you visit a museum to see a show, you should of course look at the works of art on display. But also pay attention to how the works in the room "speak" to one another, and how the themes of the rooms and their overall appearance (from wall color to how visitors engage with the objects) evolve room to room. In many cases, installation is an active part of the story of the exhibition. On one level it's the packaging, much the same way a shop window entices you to buy the merchandise in the store. But on another level installation design is about the scholarly dialogue, how art works relate to one another based on the curator's intent for the exhibition itself. Sometimes these installations are tremendous successes; other times they do nothing for the art and can in fact impact the show by making it a failure. Pairing specific art works near one another in exhibitions also gives the viewer the opportunity to see works that normally cannot be seen together, typically because they are owned by different museums or private collectors. Seeing them beside one another provides a fresh context about the works that in turn generate ideas and discussions about how artists or their audiences may have seen these objects in their own time. All this said, I admit I have a vested interest in the sharing of the announcement about this collaborative project between ARTstor and the Met. When I was working in the then-Image Library (now Digital Media Dept.) at the Met, this was one of the big digitization projects I worked on with my colleagues, so I'm rather proud to see this project's successful release. Of all the possibilities in the collection to share, I chose the installation view above because it triggers a fond memory for me. Back in 1998, I was thrilled to visit the Met to see the Edward Burne-Jones centenary-of-his-death exhibition of his late Pre-Raphaelite paintings, installed in the Tisch Galleries. If you look in the image above, you can see his large painting The Sirens, 1891-98 (Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota), paired beside a portrait of Lady Windsor, 1893-95 (Collection of Viscount Windsor), among a few other works. I can't remember all the specifics as to why these works were paired together, but they both are examples of his late Symbolist-style work. In addition to these special exhibition installation views, there also are hundreds of historical views of permanent galleries at the Met in this ARTstor collection, which we also worked on, so if you have an institutional subscription through your local library, be sure to check them out.

UPDATE 7/22/13: ARTstor has published its own blog post about art installation views, highlighting different collections from museums now available and providing their own take on why viewing art in context is important. You can read their blog post by clicking here.

Random Musings 14

Last Saturday I finally had a chance to get back to Brooklyn Museum for 2 exhibitions I've been wanting to see. John Singer Sargent Watercolors celebrates 2 major collections of watercolors by Sargent (1856-1925), owned by Brooklyn and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Joined together for this exhibition, there is a clear distinction between the more finished set of pictures purchased in 1912 by Boston and the 1909 purchase by Brooklyn, which are more sketch-like. Depending on your taste and interest in how an artist thinks, each of the works will appeal to viewers differently. The show is arranged thematically, with segments on Italy and sailing, for instance. Sargent was born in Italy to American parents and lived throughout Europe (I still have a difficult time thinking of him as an "American" artist), so he was well-traveled for his day and time. One of my favorite watercolors from the show was the work you see above, Corfu: Lights & Shadows, 1909, from the MFA, in which he represents a small building on the Greek island, but captures all the sensation of sunshine using different hues to show how the branches of the trees cast shadows onto the white building. It is truly a tour de force of a work, revealing how Sargent's handling of color and lighting can convey atmospheric conditions and the emotional satisfaction of the place he's showing the viewer.
In sharp contrast to Sargent's work, I also enjoyed the exhibition showcasing the work of contemporary Nigerian artist El Anatsui. Although he has had a long career, his more recent works using found objects from garbage dumps (tin can lids, bottle caps, twist-ties, etc.) have made him internationally famous. He recreates large-scale sculptural installations that are fascinating. They appear like tapestries of gold. They are the detritus of society reimagined as beauty, and thus say much about the interactions of different classes and ethnic groups in the cultural exchange of the objects as they were imported from Europe and rebranded as "African" products. This is an installation shot I took of some of his works hanging in the main rotunda of the building.

In my last Random Musing, I posted an update about the New York Public Library's Central Library Plan. bklynbiblio followers will recall that I've been among the many criticizing them for their plans to renovate the main historic building and research center, and turn it into the modern-day equivalent of a library-like Internet Starbucks cafe. Under pressure from critics, NYPL President Tony Marx has agreed to have an independent committee evaluate the plans, according to this article in The New York Times (thanks, PR, for the lead). We will see what this next chapter will bring.

Two years ago, I blogged about my new fiction discovery, British novelist Barbara Pym (1913-1980; thanks again to TC for the introduction!). Her short novel Excellent Women (1952) has become one of my favorite books. I can see her influence on other British women writers I enjoy reading, such as A.S. Byatt and Ruth Rendell. The charm of Excellent Women is that nothing really happens. The book focuses on Mildred Lathbury, who makes tea, helps decorate the local church, unexpectedly gets involved in the drama of her neighbors, and makes observations about everyone in her life in an ever-so-judgmental Christian way that will have you laughing aloud. Her later novels are reportedly darker, but I haven't gotten to those yet. Pym is also an inspiration to writers. Her first few novels sold modestly well, and then publishers refused to publish her because she was seen as old fashioned. It took years before she was published again, and that book wound up winning her the Booker Prize. The lesson learned is never to give up. June was the centenary of her birth, so you can read up more about her life and novels in these laudatory articles in The Telegraph and The New York Times. There's even The Barbara Pym Society website to peruse as well.

Archaeology published a tidbit of fascinating news: this 400-lb. stone sculpture of a nude female torso was excavated in Brooklyn in the DUMBO area (that's "Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass" for non-Brooklynites). There are traces of paint on it, and she's been dubbed Ginger because this area had spice warehouses in the 19th century, but no one knows much about who she is or why she was there.

And, finally, I had to wrap up this musing with something rather fun. Ever hear the joke about how to make an Italian stop talking? You tie his hands behind his back! Italians talk with their hands. I even do it, and half the time I don't even realize it. There is an article in the NYT exploring how these gestures may have a more important role in communicating and reach back to ancient Roman days. There's also a short, fun video that explores the topic some more, and this interactive feature of animated images that shows you just a small handful of the more than 250 gestures that are considered part of Italian communicating. Enjoy! (Insert hand gesture here.)

Avery Library

The Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library at Columbia University recently released the official announcement about my appointment as Curator of Art Properties. You can read the announcement by clicking here. After having completed 3 weeks of work, I can say for sure that I truly am thrilled by this new position. There's an unbelievable amount of work involved in this job, but I'm up for the challenge. In the last few weeks alone, I've been involved in potential donor opportunities, a sculpture conservation project, the photographic reproduction of an 1890s portrait painting, meeting a few administrators for the loan program, rethinking some policies and procedures, and looking into some exhibition ideas for areas of the collection. My staff members have been great to work with; I'm learning a lot from their years of experience. All in all, it's been an incredibly busy but rewarding 3 weeks.

I also feel rather privileged to be back in a library community, and one of the most prestigious art and architecture libraries in the world at that. Avery Library has world-class general and special collections, including the recent acquisition of the Frank Lloyd Wright archive. Avery Library was established in 1890 when architect Henry Ogden Avery (1852-1890) died unexpectedly and his parents established his book collection as the foundation of what became Avery Library. In 1912 the library was the first to be established in its own Renaissance palazzo-style building on the campus of Columbia in a building designed by McKim, Mead, and White. You can read more about the history of Avery Library by clicking here.

Portal 1

Ever since I began bklynbiblio in August 2008, I've used it primarily for the discussion of ideas and reviews associated with the arts and humanities. I've also brought in my own work, such as my scholarly presentations and writings on the 19th-century artists John Gibson and Simeon Solomon. However, it always was my intention to also use the blog as a portal for the dissemination of my own creative work, especially my photography. For the record, I make no claim to being a professional photographer, and in fact I would only ever claim to be an amateur. To be blunt, I'm not that good, and I know very little about how to take professional photos. Digital photography, not to mention software tools like Photoshop and Instagram, has made all of us photographers in one way or another, for better or for worse. So in some ways for me it's less about the ability to take photos and more the conscious thematic arrangement or composition of them that is important. Over the years, I have worked on an art project that I call Portals, and I've decided to start sharing images from the series on this blog. The work you see here has now been dubbed the first in the series, Portal 1: Firenze (8 July 2005). As I post these from time to time, each will be accompanied by texts, and to begin the series I thought I would write a statement about the project and the images. I hope you enjoy it, and please do feel free to comment on the blog. (Note that I hold copyright on these images. You are free to download them for your personal use, but please ask my permission before using an image for print or electronic publications, including on another website. You should always cite the source and photographer for your images, when known.) And now, my statement...

What is a portal? It's a doorway, a gateway, a passageway. It's the in-between space between here and there, between today and tomorrow, between life and death. It is no space and all space at the same time. Sometimes it is open, sometimes it is closed. A portal's very existence is an invitation to look through it and to pass through it, and in doing so a new world awaits you on the other side. It may be better than what you left, or it may be worse. That is the risk and thrill of a portal. We pass through portals every day of our lives and never think about them. Other portals, however, make us stop and think, perhaps because we see something exquisite on the other side and we cannot fathom how we to obtain it, or because we know something dark is there and it terrifies us and we can barely convince ourselves to turn the doorknob. To pass through a portal is to evolve. Portals may be doors, but they may be windows, gates, or simply created spaces in which to pass to another place. My photography series Portals will show you various types of passageways I have photographed through the years. I leave the aesthetic judgment of each image up to you. Each will be accompanied by excerpts from poetry, literature, essays, and/or spiritual texts, each of which will share how portals have impacted and continue to affect our lives. It is my hope from this series that you will appreciate my images as examples of the beautiful and the sublime. But ultimately I hope that the series may teach you to pause every once and a while when you come up on a portal, to think for a moment about where it is you are in life and where you are going, to relish the very life you are living and the experience you are about to begin, simply by peering through an open window or stepping through a doorway to another space beyond.

MWA XV: Rembrandt's Trip

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, one of the greatest art museums in the world, reopened its doors this year after a major building renovation. But for those who can't visit the museum, the organization has launched Rijksstudio, a website where you can download over 125,000 high-resolution images of works from the collection for personal or professional use. And it's all free. We're talking about masterpieces of Dutch art by Rembrandt, Vincent van Gogh, Frans Hals, Jacob van Ruisdael, Johannes Vermeer, and so on. The New York Times lauded them for this feat, and certainly it is monumental, in particular because of the number of images that were launched upfront. Although they are the first major European museum to do this on a grand scale, others in the U.S. have done this, as I've reported on this blog about the National Gallery of Art and the Yale Center for British Art. Other museums, like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, offer high-resolution JPGs for PowerPoint presentations for free and offer free publication of images for academic purposes through ARTstor's Images for Academic Publishing initiative. But the Rijksmuseum's release of high-detailed images reinforces the ever-rising interest on the part of museums to ensure that if you are going to use an image of an object from their collection, then you should use the highest-quality image available, as color-corrected and authorized by the museum itself.

In recognition of this accomplishment, our Monthly Work of Art for June (seen here) is Portrait of a Young Woman, probably Maria Trip by Rembrandt van Rijn. This oil on panel painting is signed by the artist and dated 1639. I know this is sacrilegious to admit, but I've never been a huge fan of Rembrandt's work. I know this is typically because his brushstroke in his paintings is usually looser, which is often what people most admire about his work. Certainly he is a master of dramatic chiaroscuro. But there are works by Rembrandt that I do admire, frequently his portraits, and this one is an excellent example. I'm amazed by his handling of details, such as the intricacy of the lace and pearls, and the fine strands of her hair that crown the charmingly beautiful face of this woman. She practically glows in a spotlight that highlights not only her beauty but also her socio-economic status. Here is what the Rijksmuseum's curators have to say about this picture: "Maria Trip, daughter of one of Amsterdam's wealthiest merchants, was twenty when Rembrandt painted her portrait. The artist placed Maria against a stone arch and devoted particular attention to the reflected light, the fashionable dress and jewellery. The costly garments are trimmed with strips of gold lace and Maria is wearing a profusion of pearls."

Commencement and Career News

 

Yesterday, May 23, was my graduation from the CUNY Graduate Center. During the ceremony, I had conferred upon me my hood as a holder of the Ph.D. degree and I received my diploma. The ceremony was held at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. I was so happy to have my cousins the DG-JBs there, along with my good friends AA and JM. I know Momma was beaming with pride from above, and Papà was there in spirit, as were a number of my close friends and family. It's a rather startling moment to march across that stage, hear your name called out, and receive the official notification of your degree. I admit I started getting choked up, but I kept it together, determined to hear my name called out and enjoy with pride my moment. I began the Ph.D. program in Art History in August 2005, and along the way took numerous art history classes, did foreign reading language classes in German and French, took a ridiculous number of exams along the way, then finally had the opportunity begin work on my dissertation, which you will recall happened just last month. And now it's official. I'm Roberto C. Ferrari, Ph.D. Afterwards, a group of 10 of us went out for a lovely dinner (with cocktails!) at Robert's in the Museum of Art and Design building on Columbus Circle.

What makes this moment even more amazing, however, is that I also have a new job. I had been getting very concerned for over 8 months that things were getting more and more difficult, and I started to panic wondering how I even would be able to pay my rent. I had applied for numerous jobs but nothing seemed to be working out. Finally, my networking, experience, and determination paid off (thanks in part to the ongoing support of a number of close friends too). In the spirit of graduation being a true "commencement" (a beginning, not an ending!), starting June 10, I am the new Curator of Art Properties at Columbia University, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library. I am essentially in charge of the university's art collection, which ranges from ancient decorative arts and Chinese sculpture to photographs and public sculpture on campus. The job is a faculty-librarian position and has a strong educational component, but I also will be involved with conservation and digitization projects and working to publicize the collection as much as possible. I am absolutely thrilled to have been given this opportunity. Stay tuned on the blog though, as I'm sure there will be numerous Columbia-related art postings in the future!

For now, however, enjoy this short video showing my graduation ceremony with me receiving my hood and official congratulations (thanks, DG, for taking this video!). If for some reason you can't see the video, click here to see it on YouTube.

Pre-Raphaelitism in Oxford

Even though giving a conference paper requires a lot of work in terms of research, writing, image & PowerPoint preparation, etc., sometimes the very fact that your paper has been accepted makes the work all worth it. Case in point: I'm going to be giving a paper at Oxford University in September. Now who wouldn't want to participate in that opportunity? Not only am I flattered to even have this experience, it will actually be my first visit to Oxford itself, so I'm definitely looking forward to this. The conference is called Pre-Raphaelitism: Past, Present and Future, and it's going to be held at the Ashmolean Museum and St. John's College at Oxford. The speakers will be presenting "new and innovative approaches" to this once-again popular Victorian art and literature movement. The organizers have released the preliminary program to the speakers, and there are some wonderful speakers planned. Even better, Dr. Carolyn Conroy, my colleague, friend, and co-coordinator of the Simeon Solomon Research Archive, will be speaking along with me about our Anglo-Jewish homosexual artist. Her paper is on Solomon's works deposited at the Ashmolean Museum. I will be speaking about the painting you see here, The Mother of Moses (image: Delaware Art Museum), focusing on the mixed-race model Fanny Eaton who posed for Solomon. (She also posed for his sister Rebecca in a painting I blogged about in a previous post.) Here is the abstract of my paper. Enjoy!

"Pre-Raphaelite Exotica: Fanny Eaton and Simeon Solomon's Mother of Moses"

by Roberto C. Ferrari, Ph.D.

At the 1860 Royal Academy exhibition, nineteen-year-old Simeon Solomon displayed his first major oil painting, The Mother of Moses.  Although praised by some critics for the use of color and the portrayal of maternal sentiment, Solomon’s painting was harshly judged for its depiction of the female Biblical figures Jochebed and Miriam.  They were described as too Egyptian, too African, too dark-skinned, or even too Jewish.  This criticism can be read as Victorian racism and misogyny, but it also suggests an inability to label or identity with the exoticism of the women themselves.  This is not surprising when one discovers that the model for both figures was the mixed-race Fanny Eaton, who was born in Jamaica to a former slave.  Eaton’s origins and features enabled her to model for a number of Pre-Raphaelite exotic subjects by Solomon and his sister Rebecca, as well as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, Albert Moore, and Joanna Boyce Wells.

Scholars know well the stories of many Pre-Raphaelite models, from Annie Miller to Jane Morris, but little is known about Eaton.  This paper will rectify this by presenting new biographical information, and then contextualizing Eaton’s place in this community by drawing on a range of scholarship, from writings on race by Douglas Lorimer and Jan Marsh, to theories on exoticism by Peter Mason.  Although Eaton came be seen in different exotic roles in Pre-Raphaelite paintings, from an ancient Roman to an Indian ayah, her first appearance in Solomon’s Mother of Moses was most significant, both for the model and the painter.  As the daughter of a former slave, Eaton could empathize with the plight of the Hebrews enslaved in Egypt; and as a Jewish artist whose father was among the first generation of post-emancipation Jews in London, Solomon drew attention to his heritage by depicting Jochebed holding Moses, the emancipator of the Hebrews.  The exoticism of Eaton in Solomon’s Mother of Moses thus transforms this narrative painting into a political statement about slavery and freedom.

DC in May

This past weekend, AA and I took a quick trip to Washington, D.C. (Thanks, amigo, for doing all that driving!). The main reason we went was to see the exhibition Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Art and Design, 1848-1900 at the National Gallery (more on that in another post). I last was in DC back in December 2010 when RL and I went to the same museum to see the Pre-Raphaelite photography exhibition, as well as the Hide/Seek gay identity show at the National Portrait Gallery. On this trip, I wanted to see more of what I haven't seen in DC before, which is exactly what we got to do. We were concerned that it was going to rain all day Saturday, but we got lucky: the rain held off for most of the day, and the sun was shining brightly. After the exhibition we strolled along the National Mall, pigged out on ice cream, then queued up for the National Archive. Many of the exhibition areas there are targeted to children these days, but it was worth taking a few moments amid the crowds to peak at the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, although I later jokingly commented on Facebook that I was more excited to have seen the Magna Carta on display.

Although we stayed at the Washington Hilton, we headed to the nearby Bar Dupont at the Dupont Circle Hotel for a late lunch and had wine with shrimp beignets and mussels mariniere. For dinner we went to Casa Oaxaca for a fantastic meal: pollo with mole negro for AA, pollo with mole poblano for me (that's the picture you see here; here's more information about delicious chili-chocolate mole sauce). There were also margaritas, guacamole and chips, and yummy churros with ice cream for dessert. Brunch the next morning included mimosas, coffee, basket of pastries, and omelets at Le Diplomate. All the neighborhoods we visited were adorable, with Victorian row houses and mini-mansions. It made me realize again that DC truly is a charming city and does have a great deal to offer someone--being politically active is probably a necessity though.


On Sunday we visited some of the monuments, and would you believe it was the first time I ever saw the Jefferson Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial? The large-scale inscription from the Gettysburg Address on the wall at the Lincoln Memorial made me stop and read it again, and I was struck by one line in particular: "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." American history spends so much time emphasizing this short speech, but even at the time Lincoln himself recognized that it was not his words but the actions of the dead soldiers on the field that truly mattered. It really is a powerful speech. We also visited the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial as well, which I liked a great deal, with its organic approach, sculpture, stone, and water features integrated into the park that surrounds it. The picture you see here is of me between the over-life-sized bronze statues of Roosevelt and his beloved Scottish terrier, Fala.

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial was quite interesting from an artistic perspective. I took this picture showing how the larger-than-life statue of the civil rights leader is hewn from the "Stone of Hope," a reference to his famous I Have a Dream speech. The way King projects from the stone conjures the image of the non-finito, the unfinished (think Michelangelo), an appropriate visual statement about how his assassination cut him down before he could fulfill his life's work. The statue is surrounded by quotations from his many speeches, and I found this one from Georgia, 1967, to be poignant: "If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective." (I wonder if any Congressmen have read and thought about this?) We also took in the National World War II Memorial, a picture of which you see at the top of this blog post. I really loved this memorial, with the outstretched colonnades reminding me of Bernini's architectural features surrounding Vatican Plaza. The fountain was lovely as well. Situated between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, the memorial to those who died in World War II is a beautiful area for contemplation and respite amid all the other memorials on the Mall. (You can read more about the DC parks on the National Park Services website.) Soon afterwards we started our long drive north, amazed at how much we had done in 24 hours, and feeling truly satisfied with our little jaunt to the nation's capital.

CAA 2014 in Chicago

The College Art Association will hold its 102nd annual meeting next February 12-15, 2014, in Chicago. As much as I want to take a trip out there, I do NOT want to go in February, so I'll be skipping next year's conference. (You'll recall this year's conference was here in NYC, and last year's was in Los Angeles.) The deadline for proposals for papers for the 2014 conference is coming up on May 13th. In reviewing some of the panels, I've identified a few that look promising, at least from my particular art historical angle:
** "Antimodernism(s) in French Art and Culture, 1860-1914" (reconsidering the 'other' to the mainstream development of art history's march to modernism)
** "The Maternal Body Exposed: Fecundity, Birth Control, and Countering Infertility in Contemporary Art" (reverse feminism emphasizing the pregnant body?)
** "Re-Examining Fashion in Western Art, 1775-1975" (spinning off from the recent Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity exhibition)
** "The Image of Nineteenth-Century Money" (a session DE is rather excited about, as a new collector of American currency from the 1800s)
** "Studio Shots: Representations of Women as Artists" (mostly in photographs, what do the images say about 'woman' as working artist?)
** "The Art of Display: Context and Meaning, 1700-1850" (effect of installations on art, chaired by my colleague Christina Ferando, a specialist on Antonio Canova)
** "Ethereal Performance: The Lasting Legacy of Temporary Public Sculpture" (short-term exhibitions & installations of sculpture in 19th and 20th centuries)
** "Queer Gothic: Difference and Sexuality in British Art and Architecture" (someone will do a paper on Walpole and Strawberry Hill, I'm sure; sponsored by the Historians of British Art)
** And the prize for best-named panel session... "Drachma-tic Art: The Economics of Ancient Greek Visual Culture"

PUNK: The Costume Institute Gala

Once again, readers, it's time to praise the highs and boo the lows in fashion at the annual Costume Institute Gala, which was held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art last night to celebrate the opening of PUNK: Chaos to Couture, the latest annual exhibition from the Costume Institute. (Clearly, this is another attempt to capitalize on the tremendous success of the Alexander McQueen exhibition, and bring in the 20something--and 50something!?--generation.) Rumor has it tickets to the gala were $25,000 each, and for that guests got dinner and entertainment by Debbie Harry and Kanye West. (I was all ready to go but, seriously, can you see me in safety pins and pink hair?) You'll recall I've been commenting on this annual event for the past three years now (here, here, and here), and why miss out on this one? You can read all the details about the actual gala and the nearly 800 in attendance by reading this article in The New York Times. The one thing that troubles me is that in previewing the slideshows of the red carpet event (such as this one from New York magazine), I don't know who half the people are anymore! Have I gotten that old already that I have no idea who anyone under 25 is? Nah...I'm just too damn busy and important to care.

So...I can't even believe I'm saying this, but Beyoncé gets the top prize for her gown as the highlight of the evening (above). It has a 1990s-Baroque-Versace look with its gold-trimmed train, but it's actually Givenchy, designed by Riccardo Tisci, and it does look rather stunning on her busty, post-baby (yet remarkably svelte) figure. Tisci was one of the co-coordinators of the gala, and many of his fashions were a hit on the red carpet. Madonna--who reportedly bitches every year about how much she hates the party and will never return, only to return each year--was rather punky-and-perky in another Tisci ensemble for Givenchy (left). Anne Hathaway was shockingly blonde and punk in see-through, black Valentino. Maggie Gyllenhaal was a stunning lady in red, although her dress should have had more shoulder coverage. Uma Thurman's form-fitting Zac Posen mermaid dress would have been fabulous in any other color but puke green. And that's the good fashion! Get ready for the disasters, because there were some biggies...

Poor Kristen Stewart was all blood-red wearing her grandmother's lace table-runner. I like Kirsten Dunst, but her outfit reminded me of a Swiffer duster and made me want to clean. Poor Jennifer Lopez (sorry, AA!)...she basically skinned a leopard and squeezed it over those killer hips of hers. Emma Watson fell victim to Lord Voldemort with all the slashes in her dress. Sarah Jessica Parker looked like a peacock in her Treacy hat. And Elle Fanning apparently fell into a 1970s tie-dye vat. Without a doubt, however, the absolute worst dresser of the night was Kim Kardashian, who tried to proudly show off her baby-bump but instead wound up looking like a giant balloon wearing Laura Ashley floral wallpaper (surprisingly, another Tisci for Givenchy outfit). Among the men, Marc Jacobs continued to reveal his insanity by wearing Pierrot polka-dot pajamas. I'm still not sure how I feel about Tyson Beckford's pink camouflage blazer. Fortunately some men know you can never go wrong in a good black tux, and Gerard Butler, Alexander Skarsgard, and Andy Cohen all looked rather delectable. To wrap things up I'll end with this charmingly cute shot of gay actor Zachary Quinto (right), who did well among the men by showing off a combination of high class style with some punk in an ensemble by Vivienne Westwood.

(Image credits: Beyonce and Madonna: Timothy A. Clary; Quinto: Dimitrious Kambouris; all from New York magazine)

UPDATE 5/14/13: In following other fashion reviewers and television reports, the number of people who hated Beyoncé's attire has been surprisingly high. I have to admit, after seeing more pictures of her look, with those ridiculous hip boots, the gown was over-the-top and not nearly as glamorous as it seemed at first. Obviously if one sees these celebrities in their finest on the actual red carpet it probably has a different impact than seeing some of these photos. Katie Holmes was lauded by most as one of the most glamorous of the evening, and while I agree that her Calvin Klein white gown was almost Cinderella-like in its diaphonous waves of fabric, she looked just a little too angelic to me.

MWA XIV: Furse's Diana

Few people know much about Charles Wellington Furse. I certainly never heard of him until very recently. British-born, he died in his mid-30s, soon after painting the work you see here, Diana of the Uplands, 1903-04. The model for the picture was his wife Katherine, and according to the Tate's website she recorded that her step-mother-in-law helped create the wind effect, and the greyhounds were hired specifically for the picture (one black dog and one white dog, although Furse combined their coloring). The title refers to classical imagery of the ancient Roman goddess Diana, who was depicted in art as a huntress accompanied by dogs. This genteel woman is meant to be a modern-day Diana, one who may lead the dogs to a hunt in the Highlands, but who would never carry a bow-and-arrow or a rifle to actually hunt, as that is the work of men. This is a modern-day portrait of opulence and refinery, a Gilded Age homage to womanhood among the British upper middle classes. The color palette and brushstroke, as well as the portrait style, clearly shows the influence of Furse's contemporary, the American society portraitist John Singer Sargent. But there also is a feeling of Grand Manner portraiture that reaches back to the eighteenth-century style of Thomas Gainsborough. The loose brushstroke captures the wind-swept feel of the hills around the woman, and her taught arm reaches out to show her struggle to restrain the dogs, eager to hunt. Indeed, the dogs looking outside the frame for prey creates a perpendicular sense of vision that contrasts with "Diana" gazing at the viewer, bringing you the viewer into the hunt scene as well. It is a fascinating, introspective-yet-staged portrait that suggests a particular moment in time.

I never would have chosen this picture as this month's MWA had I not gone this past Friday to see the exhibition Edwardian Opulence: British Art at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century at the Yale Center for British Art. The exhibition is ambitious, arranged on two floors, and incorporates paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, decorative arts, fashion, and audio/video works. It ties in well with the popularity of Downton Abbey, but that is a coincidence, as this exhibition was planned long before the show ever aired. In the US, however, how many actually know what "Edwardian" means? It is exclusively British in that it refers to the short reign of King Edward VII (Queen Victoria's heir) from 1901-10, although it stretches Edwardian back to the mid-1890s and up to World War I. Much as the term "Victorian" is fraught with problems because it lasted 64 years, "Edwardian" equally is problematic because, for such a brief period of time, the world and cultural world expanded in ways too difficult to define by a single style. Indeed, one problem with the exhibition itself is attempting to define what Edwardian even means. I left feeling more confused because all the thematic arrangements and numerous works of art demonstrate the diverse approaches artists took with different ideas and the lack of centralization that is "Edwardian." But then again that was perhaps the curators' point, to problematize that idea and move beyond it. I also was surprised that, despite the text-based acknowledgment of the British Empire reaching its height during the Edwardian period, there is very little international art or cultural objects to demonstrate the global impact of British imperialism and its subjects. Nor is there a sense of the working classes or anyone other than the highest echelons of society (hence the "opulence" part of the exhibition). What does make the exhibition exciting and refreshing, however, is the introduction of new ideas, artists, and works that were popular a century ago in the London art world, such as Furse and the portrait above. The pictures by Sargent shine (as always, he was a brilliant artist). Photography is brought in beautifully with rare autochromes (earliest glass-based color photographs) and the thematic arrangement of society photos showing off the first motor cars like equestrian portraits of the past. All in all, the exhibition is interesting in showcasing heretofore little-known works and artists, and putting together a large number of themes that show how many ways the Edwardians celebrated their cultural life. If this exhibition accomplishes anything, hopefully it will be the opening up to future scholarship further examination of the areas and ideas not seen in the exhibition, so as to better demonstrate how fascinating this world just before the outbreak of World War I actually was. Indeed, the charm of Downton Abbey isn't so much what's happening upstairs, but what's happening downstairs and outside the walls of the estate too.

Doctoral Dissertation Deposited

Last Friday, I had final meetings, got about a zillion signatures, went up and down floors over and over carrying more papers for signatures, and paid a few required bills, but after a few hours of all this work my dissertation was officially deposited with the CUNY Graduate Center. In other words, it's all done! And I couldn't be happier. I don't expect too many people to actually read my 301-page dissertation. However, I thought I would at least put on my blog the abstract for it, which is a 2-page summary of what I've completed. I now present this to you for your reading pleasure. The picture you see here is Gibson's Hunter and His Dog, made for the Earl of Yarborough in 1847, now in the collection of the Usher Gallery in Lincoln, England. (For more of my posts on Gibson, click here.)

Beyond Polychromy: John Gibson, the Roman School of Sculpture, and the Modern Classical Body

by

Roberto C. Ferrari, Ph.D.

This dissertation is a study of the life and career of the British sculptor John Gibson (1790-1866), whose Roman studio near the Piazza del Popolo was a frequently visited site for Grand Tourists during the nineteenth century.  I argue that, for Gibson, classicism was modern, and thus he developed new methods for creating and disseminating the modern classical body in nineteenth-century sculpture.  Gibson is considered by scholars to be the first nineteenth-century British artist to reintroduce polychromy in marble sculpture, as exemplified by his best-known work, the so-called Tinted Venus, 1851-53, which was displayed in London at the International Exhibition of 1862.  Because this tinted statue challenged sculpture’s purity of form, the subsequently negative historiography of this work has obfuscated Gibson’s numerous other accomplishments in the history of nineteenth-century art.  In this dissertation I discuss many of his other free-standing marble statues of modern classical subjects, such as Cupid Disguised as a Shepherd Boy, ca. 1830, a popular work commissioned in marble nine times for different patrons, and The Hunter and His Dog, 1840-41, a statue considered by his contemporaries to be his masterpiece for its balance of idealism with a close study of nature.  I also examine a selection of his portrait busts and monumental statues, bas-reliefs, drawings, and work in other media, such as porcelain statuettes and engravings, for a broader perspective of his exploration of the modern classical body.  Rather than ignore his polychrome sculptures, however, I offer new readings of them to show how they intersected with these other important aspects of his career.

Although I focus on one artist and use published and unpublished archival sources to discuss Gibson and his work, my methodology is pluralistic.  I engage biography with nineteenth-century exhibition history and critical art reviews, and I link patronage and art production to gender studies and queer theory.  I also engage with sculpture in its international context, as Gibson himself would have been exposed to it in the cosmopolitan art center that was Rome.  Thus, the work of Antonio Canova and Bertel Thorvaldsen, the two leading sculptors in the Roman school, are components of this dissertation, as are the works of native British sculptors such as John Flaxman and Joseph Nollekens to demonstrate what Gibson learned from his early teachers and how he evolved to craft his own version of the modern classic in Rome.  I contextualize his work with that of his contemporaries in Rome, such as the British sculptor Richard James Wyatt, the Dutch sculptor Mathieu Kessels, and the Italian sculptor Adamo Tadolini, for a better assessment of Gibson’s sculptural practices.  I also discuss his patronage by aristocrats like Queen Victoria and Czar Alexander II, politicians such as Sir Robert Peel, and bourgeois industrialists such as the Liverpool manufacturer Richard Vaughan Yates, as well as the global dissemination of his work during his lifetime, which was exhibited internationally throughout Europe, Russia, Australia, North America, and India.

In the introductory chapter, I establish my argument, that through a reexamination of Gibson’s life and career beyond his experiments with polychrome sculpture, one can better assess his importance to the history of sculpture itself by reconsidering how he redefined the modern classical body.  The second chapter is a biographical overview that demonstrates how Gibson’s roots in the British school of art influenced his ideas about classicism as a form of modernity.  Chapter three considers Gibson’s studio practice, from the close examination of his account books to his influence on his most famous pupil, the American sculptor Harriet Hosmer.  Chapter four focuses on the homoerotic male body in Gibson’s oeuvre.  An advocate of the writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann,  Gibson created heroic and ephebic male nudes, such as Mars Restrained by Cupid, 1819-25, a work that suggests issues as diverse as homosocialism and queer subjectivity.  Chapter five discusses Gibson’s interest in reproductive media and how, in shifting his role from a hands-on sculptor to a designer, he explored reproductive technologies in cameo production, ceramics, and printmaking to disseminate images of the modern classical body to the rising bourgeoisie.  The final chapter explores Gibson’s legacy, including his influence on New Sculptors such as Hamo Thornycroft.  Ultimately, this dissertation argues that through a reexamination of the life and work of Gibson, one can begin to move past the pejorative sensibilities of Neoclassicism itself as merely historicist and reconsider classicism as a form of modern art in the nineteenth century.

MWA XIII: Manet's Repose

Impressionism and exhibitions about Impressionist artists or themes are always a hit with audiences. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art right now, there is a sure-fire hit of an exhibition entitled Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity, a show which was organized by the Musée d'Orsay and the Art Institute of Chicago. Mannequins wearing gowns and accessories from the 1860s through the 1880s are paired with major paintings by Monet, Renoir, Bazille, Degas, and the like. Academically speaking, there's nothing new in the idea behind this exhibition, that the Impressionists borrowed many of their subjects from fashion magazines and were conscious of modern trends in fashion (the word 'modern' itself comes from 'mode,' meaning fashion-of-the-day). However, this is the first major exhibition that has paired actual clothing with specific paintings, and the three-dimensionality of the gowns and accessories do help bring the paintings to life in a whole new way. It is important to add as well that non-Impressionist painters such as Tissot are present throughout the exhibition, so the show focuses on the Impressionists but certainly isn't just about them, and these painters equally shine as a result. Also, some of the pictures on loan are major hits from Paris and Chicago, and they're simply fantastic to see hanging in the Met's galleries in this new arrangement.

This is a preamble to the picture you see above, our latest Monthly Work of Art. The painting is Edouard Manet's Repose, ca. 1870-71, and I think it is among Manet's best portrait studies. The picture is on display in the exhibition in the section entitled "The White Dress," which captures the resurgence of the informal, white summer dress, popular in the late 1860s. (Indeed, it calls to mind Regency-style high-waisted, classical gowns from the first two decades of the 1800s--think of every Jane Austen-themed movie you've ever seen). The sitter in this work is the painter Berthe Morisot, who married Manet's brother. Morisot herself was a talented Impressionist, and much of her style of painting was influenced by Manet. As for Manet, he is without a doubt one of my favorite painters. His work in the 1860s revolutionized painting as painting, from his sweeping brushstrokes and dark outlines (influenced by Japanese prints), to the flatness of subjects and unusual color palettes that reduced volume and focused on form. In this work, he shows Morisot as a contemplative woman, informally posed, unaware that someone is staring at her. She is subjected to the (male) gaze, but is more interested in her own thoughts, ultimately empowering her more than it might at first seem.

The painting is in the collection of the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design. Their curators write the following about the picture and its history: "Viewers at the 1873 Paris Salon found Morisot's casual pose to be in defiance of good taste and were uneasy with the elements of Manet's radical style: broad, tactile paint-handling, pictorial compression, and the dominant contrast of light and dark tones. Manet called this painting a 'study,' not a portrait, defining his concern for the visual existence of the figure over the revelation of personality. Owned first by prominent French collectors, it was purchased by George W. Vanderbilt in 1898, becoming one of the first paintings by Manet to enter an American collection."

Zurich and Frankfurt

With everything going on regarding my dissertation the past couple of months, I haven't had a chance until now to blog about my recent trip to Zurich, Switzerland and Frankfurt am Main, Germany. These may seem like surprising cities to have gone and visited, and I admit they weren't necessarily on the top of my list, but sometimes Fate has fun things in store for you. Airline miles? Free place to stay? Let's go! In fact, I set up this trip as a goal and reward for finishing the defense draft of the dissertation. I had it delivered to all my readers by Sun 2/24, I taught the next day, then hopped on a flight out of Newark Airport to Zurich. My friend AR lives there now courtesy of a job relocation, and my friend AA was already in Europe on business and planned to see AR in Zurich as well, so our convergence in Switzerland was beautifully timed, and we had a great trip together.

If I were to say anything in particular about Zurich or Switzerland itself, it would be how damned expensive it is. Seriously. A slice of chocolate cake and 2 espressos for $22? A 12" pizza and side salad with 2 cokes for $53? AR had warned us it was pricey, even in Swiss Francs, but we were stunned. Zurich itself was a lovely city, even if it was cold and wintry. I enjoyed walking along the river and lake, and stopping in little cafes for nibbles and treats. I did my obligatory art tour and visited the Kunsthaus, where I was impressed by some of the works on display by Fuseli, Holder, and Giacometti. We took a road trip to the Rhine Falls (Rheinfall); admittedly, not Niagara, but still impressive. We then traveled to St. Gallen and visited the Benedictine Abbey and Library. There was snow on the ground and it made the village very picturesque, indeed. I couldn't help but start singing "The hills are alive, with the Sound of Music!", and twirling in the snow...humiliating AA/AR in the process, of course. Naturally, we also stopped at an Ikea on the way home. AR lives in Seefeld, a delightful suburb in walking distance of downtown Zurich.

On the last day, AA and I took the train north to Frankfurt, where we did more site-seeing. We went to the Städel Museum to see the exhibition "Beauty and Revolution: Neoclassicism 1770-1820," which was right up my alley and related to my dissertation. We walked a lot through Frankfurt as well, including seeing the historic district. Frankfurt isn't much of a tourist city, definitely more a financial capital, but it was worth visiting as well (first visit to Germany!). We hopped on our flights back home the next morning. It was a fast trip, but it was a great few days out of town, and a wonderful time was spent just relaxing with close friends. Here are a couple of pictures from the trip, but you can see more from my Picasa album by clicking here.