Gabriel P. Weisberg

The Indignant Eye. The Artist as Social Critic in Prints and Drawings from the Fifteenth Century to Picasso by Ralph E. Shikes (review)

accepted definition’ when dictionaries of social science offer operationally perfectly adequate definitions. Why make matters more complicated than they really are ? Edward Lucie-Smith, Michael Tree and Stanley Reed contribute fairly standard pieces respectively on current social trends in contemporary art, industrial design, the film-maker and the audience. The burden of their argument is the reciprocal relationship between creators, audience or clients and the wider society in recent historical perspective. The only non-British contributor, Gyorgy Kepes, puts forward a rather interesting proposal for the formation of a closely knit work community of promising young artists and designers, each committed to some specific role to overcome the artist’s lack of orientation in the contemporary world. Dennis Gabor, a scientist well-known for his work on predicting innovations, worries about what people will do with their increasing leisure and arrives, via the population explosion, urban aesthetics, controlled economic growth and the dead hand of advancing technology, at the conclusion that we must pin our hopes in the revival of hobbies, craftsmanship for its own sake and amateur artistic expression. Edward Adamson’s essay on art for mental health is at an even more specifically therapeutic level. Perhaps the broadest view is presented by H. R. Kedward who, after briefly surveying the heterogeneity of modern art and its creators, concludes that ‘there is a need for sensitive caution in the intellectual approach to modern art. But such caution should not sap imagination and it does not invalidate search for meaning. What is unlikely to emerge is a coherent picture of twentieth-century man, for there is no such coherence in his art.’ Two things may be said about this collection. First, it is a great shame that only a single practising artist is to be found expressing his point of view amongst all these teachers, critics and administrators. Must we assume that artists are either so tonguetied or so incoherent that they cannot be admitted into the decent company of such pundits as can advance a well-turned case, though they may never have laid brush to canvas or bow to string ? Secondly, it seems, to say the least, surprising that the crisis of modern art, which by now has a history going back at least half a century or more, appears here for all the world as if it had just broken out the other day. Do we really need to be told that ‘modern art has never existed in isolation from the rest of society’ or ‘that the modern artist does not always seem very happily adjusted to the society in which he lives, to the point where his actions begin to fit certain standard patterns of psychological maladjustment’ ? Could not we take that as read and, if we have to elaborate any further on the theme, come out with something a little more incisively sophisticated ? Maybe that strange animal, art, is deadly sick, in which case it might be humane to put it out of its misery. Maybe it is the only healthy element in society, full of impulses and rearing to go, in which

The decorative twenties

Part 1 The decorative arts in France: the sources of Art Deco Art Deco designers decorative painting the new modernism glass book production and posters textiles, wallpapers and carpets fashion. Part 2 The decorative arts in England and America: interior decoration associations, societies and exhibitions furniture decorative painting ceramics and glass posters, textiles and wallpapers.

Overcoming all Obstacles: The Women of the Académie Julian

This work examines late 19th century Pariss most famous training ground for the leading women artists of the period. The Academie Julian was founded in Paris in 1868, initially to prepare students for entry to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the 19th centurys preeminent art school. Because women could not study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts until 1897, Julian itself became an international equivalent for many of the late 19th and early 20th centurys most important women artists. This publication accompanies an exhibition organized by the Dahesh Museum in New York. The core of the book draws on the large collection of the Academie Julian Del Debbio, the Academie Julians successor institution in Paris. Not only does this work introduce the reader to many works of art by women artists - both known and less known - but the essays offer a cultural and historical context in which to appreciate the artwork. Gabriel Weisbergs essay concentrates on the competitive training methods enforced by Rodolphe Julian and the teachers at the Academy. Jane Becker explores the competitive environment of the Academie Julian as it affected the Russian painter Marie Bashkirtseff and the Swiss painter Louise-Catherine Breslau. Essays by Catherine Fehrer, the leading scholar of the Academie Julian, and Tamar Garb, an art historian who focuses on the training of women artists, give us an increased understanding of the place of the Academie Julian in the sphere of art education in Paris in the second half of the 19th century.

In Deep Shit: The Coded Images of Traviès in the July Monarchy

From the opening days of the July Monarchy, the regime of Louis-Philippe was found to be deeply offensive both to the lower classes and to those who were outraged by his assumption of royal power without legitimacy or concern for the rights of others.1 Several idealistic print-makers expressed their outrage in a very specific way: they concentrated on readily accessible emblems that contained coded references to the corrupt and often petty nature of the king and government appointees. They depicted Louis-Philippe as a poire (pear)—a slang expression for a simpleton—often amusingly placed atop public monuments or in crucial public squares as a sign that his presence was both felt and self-perpetuating.2 Despite the layered meanings associated with the poire as a representation of Louis-Philippe, artists in the circle of Philipon, the primary advocate of scathing caricature, were determined to create other icons that not only contained populist overtones but were also connected with the most mundane of dail...

Louis Legrand's Battle over Prostitution: The Uneasy Censoring of Le Courrier Francais

When Louis Legrand (1863-1951), a major contributor to Le Courrier Franais, published his drawing Prostitution (fig. 1) as a lithograph in the supplement pages of the artistic magazine in June 1888, he was charged by the Paris Cour dAppel with creating an obscene image that endangered public morals. Both he and Le Courrier Franais were brought to trial on obscenity charges.1 The charges were never made specific by the government, but remained within the realm of general accusations of moral turpitude. His lithograph, when examined in detail, presents an icon that created an uneasy response in viewers. Hence, it is significant to examine the visual evidence to see what caused such intense reactions.

Artistic America, Tiffany glass, and art nouveau

This book is a collection of published writings of Samuel Bing, a Parisian art dealer whose Salon de lArt Nouveau not only gave the name but was pivotal to the movement that generated an international style. The essays include Artistic America (La Culture Artistique en Amerique, translated for the first time by Benita Eisler), an article on Louis C. Tiffanys Coloured Glass Work, and two articles on LArt Nouveau. A devoted japoniste, Bing sought to bring about a renaissance in interior design and the decorative arts. He championed young craftsmen and artist-decorators and encouraged them to break away from prescribed formulas. Bings patronage, his articles on Art Nouveau, and the displays of furniture, tapestry, and glass (he was the sole distributor of Tiffany glass in Europe) gave impetus to and provided direction for the cultural tendencies of his time. Robert Koch, an authority on Tiffany glass and Louis C. Tiffanys biographer, has compiled over one hundred superb illustrations, including some previously unpublished pictures of the 1900 Tiffany exhibit in Paris.Artistic America, the major portion of this book, was originally published as a report to the French government of a trip Samuel Bing made to America in the early 1890s. His fresh and forthright observations on American paint- ing, sculpture, architecture, and industrial arts make this a singular piece.The translation preserves Bings florid Belle Epoque style-the pomposities and eccentricities of a European art merchant who disdains American eclecticism and bad taste, yet who is most enthusiastic about interiors and the industrial arts in which he discerns American genius everywhere--in the boldness of conception and use of the most up-to-date machinery to produce practical household objects of silver, glass, wrought iron, and ceramics The collective spirit of the New World workshops strikes him as a reflection of American democracy.

De oorsprong van Art Nouveau - Het Bing imperium

The opening of Sigmund Bings gallery LArt Nouveau had been an eagerly expected event in the Paris art world throughout the latter half of 1895, since Bing first announced that he would be soon exhibiting artistic furniture. The doors finally opened on 26 December 1895 as visitors poured in at 22 Rue de Provence to admire Bings collection.Beginning with Bings special feeling for Asian art, the author discusses his many other eclectic interests in art. Over 300 colour illustrations show the objects that were traded in his gallery: Tiffany glass, paintings and sculptures by Henri Toulouse Lautrec, Rodin, Claudel and Vuillard, as well furniture, ceramics and jewellery by Van de Velde, Colonna, De Feure and Gaillard.The book is based on extensive archive research, tracing destinations of the art objects that Bing traded to collectors and museums or sponsored personally. The authors show how one man, an art dealer, became an international trendsetter who influenced the canon in Europe and the US. The result is a renewed appreciation of Sigmund Bings role as the principal founder of the new style that carries the name of his gallery: Art Nouveau.

The End of the Canon?@@@Beyond Impressionism: The Naturalist Impulse@@@The End of the Salon: Art and the State in the Early Third Republic

Introduction 1. Pictures to see and pictures to sell 2. Moral order in the fine arts: 1870-1878 3. Turbulance in the salon system, 1878-1882 4. Aesthetic painting 5. Consolidation and collapse 6. The republic of the arts 7. The third republic arts administration Notes Bibliography.

Louis Legrand's Battle overProstitution: The Uneasy Censoring ofLe Courrier Français

When Louis Legrand (1863–1951), a major contributor to Le Courrier Francais, published his drawing Prostitution (fig. 1) as a lithograph in the supplement pages of the artistic magazine in June 1888, he was charged by the Paris Cour dAppel with creating an obscene image that endangered public morals. Both he and Le Courrier Francais were brought to trial on obscenity charges.1 The charges were never made specific by the government, but remained within the realm of general accusations of moral turpitude. His lithograph, when examined in detail, presents an icon that created an uneasy response in viewers. Hence, it is significant to examine the visual evidence to see what caused such intense reactions.

The Art Museum and the High School: The Advanced Placement Approach to the History of Art

Advanced Placement courses and examinations in the history of art are now entering their fifth year of operation.1 During this time, throughout this countrys high schools, courses have been introduced to provide both college-level training in the basic concepts of this field and a degree of visual familiarity to students who have had only the slightest acquaintance with masterpieces of art. From its inception, the Advanced Placement program selected the most able art historians, all recognized authorities, to develop exams and ways of bringing art history to groups unfamiliar with the possibilities within this field.2 In order to achieve a degree of “enlightenment,” the AP advisors singled out two groups with whom they had to work in order to effectively achieve their goal of improving the quality of high school education in art history: motivated students, and the high school teachers who were frequently assigned to direct studies in this area.