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Moving Images in American Art, 1780-1895

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Moving Images in American Art, 1780-1895 University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2018 Animating Flatness: Moving Images In American Art, 1780-1895 Juliet Sperling University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons Recommended Citation Sperling, Juliet, "Animating Flatness: Moving Images In American Art, 1780-1895" (2018). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2777. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2777 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2777 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Animating Flatness: Moving Images In American Art, 1780-1895 Abstract Moving pictures became an integral feature of American visual experience more than a century before the emergence of cinema. Scholars tend to locate the history of animated images within the domain of screen projection, concentrating on illusionistic optical toys and immersive panoramas. In contrast, this dissertation argues that nineteenth-century audiences’ interaction with moving image technologies primarily took the form of tactile encounters with a genre of intimately scaled, mass-circulated paper constructions that materialized in the United States by the late eighteenth century, especially layered anatomical illustrations, pull-tab prints, and manipulated books. These kinetic paper constructions beckoned viewers to their pliable surfaces, inciting beholders to lift flaps, open hinges, tug tabs, and glide slides into activated tableaux. Mass-circulated, intimately scaled, and used in settings ranging from schoolrooms to surgical theatres, tactile images invite new questions about how senses beyond sight operated in the pursuit of knowledge. Three thematic case studies show how diverse audiences physically engaged with paper as a means of learning, reasoning, and negotiating issues ranging from control of women’s bodies to the abstract value of financial credit, ultimately carrying those same corporeal habits to encounters with painting and sculpture (including works by Raphaelle Peale, Hiram Powers, and David Claypoole Johnston). Challenging entrenched narratives of passive spectatorship and binaries of pictorial surface and depth, tactile images become a lens through which to understand questions central to art history: sensory reception, embodied viewing, and the cross-pollination of media. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group History of Art First Advisor Michael Leja Keywords American art, Book history, Media studies, Moving images, Nineteenth century, Print culture Subject Categories History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2777 ANIMATING FLATNESS: MOVING IMAGES IN AMERICAN ART, 1780-1895 Juliet S. Sperling A DISSERTATION in HISTORY OF ART Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2018 Supervisor of Dissertation _________________ Michael Leja James and Nan Wagner Farquhar Professor of History of Art University of Pennsylvania Graduate Group Chairperson _________________ Michael Leja James and Nan Wagner Farquhar Professor of History of Art University of Pennsylvania Dissertation Committee Karen Redrobe, Elliot and Roslyn Jaffe Endowed Professor in Film Studies, University of Pennsylvania Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, Associate Professor of History of Art, University of Pennsylvania ANIMATING FLATNESS: MOVING IMAGES IN AMERICAN ART, 1780-1895 COPYRIGHT 2018 Juliet Shea Sperling This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us iii To Maddie and Dash iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have always believed that acknowledgements are the best part of any book— they make visible the communities that power what is often seen as isolating work. Now that it is my turn to acknowledge the many mentors, friends, and interlocutors that have made this dissertation possible, I am overwhelmed by the depth of my own community. I cannot thank you all enough for your enduring support, which came in so many forms. I owe my deepest gratitude to my advisor, Michael Leja. Without Michael’s unflagging guidance, patience, keen criticism, and good humor, this project would never have made it past an offhanded comment in his Fall 2013 mass visual culture seminar. Most of all, I’m grateful for his willingness to let me wander down unexpected research paths, even when they seemed to be dead ends or bottomless pits – and for reigning in my imaginative leaps only when truly necessary, always with an invigorating conversation about methodology. I feel truly lucky to have worked with such an inspiring mentor. Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw has similarly been a constant source of brilliant suggestions, professional advice, and laughter in moments when I needed it most. Gwendolyn’s advising presence is present throughout this project (in the way that artist biography is marshalled, in my love for the Peales, and of course, every time I write “germinal” instead of “seminal”), but it is most really most visible when I speak about this work publicly. Her ability to make historic material energizing to all manner of audiences is a constant inspiration for all my writing and teaching. Karen Redrobe has pushed me to think more deeply and imaginatively than I knew was possible, and always encouraged my ambitions, even when that meant adding yet another letter of recommendation or five v to the list. Thank you, Michael, Gwendolyn, and Karen, for modeling exceptional scholarship and incredibly generous mentorship. From the moment I arrived in Philadelphia seven years ago, I have benefited greatly from the supportive and collegial environment at Penn, especially in the History of Art department. Darlene Jackson’s cheerful presence made all the time spent in Jaffe a true pleasure. Seminars with Julie Davis and Larry Silver opened my eyes to the wonders of books and prints, and they both encouraged my project well beyond coursework. André Dombrowski, Sarah Guérin, Ann Kuttner, and Chris Poggi shaped my thinking both in and outside of the classroom. And of course, the friendship of my peers made these seven years fly by in a second. In particular, I want to thank my cohort—especially Iggy Cortez, Quintana Heathman, Brooks Rich, and Laura Tillery—for being the best co- travelers one could ask for. Whether we were embarking on a Jaffter Hours grading session or celebrating accomplishments over happy hour, you’ve been key to my time in Philly. Much of this dissertation was written in the good company of my Dissertation Buddies working group, and I’m grateful to Juliana Barton, Larisa Grollemond, Stephanie Hagan, Marina Isgro, Alex Kauffman, Kurtis Tanaka, Ted Van Loan, and Hillary Whitham for always pushing me to meet my star goals. Countless other friends provided project feedback, application advice, and general companionship: thanks to Lacey Baradel, Cody Castillo, Lee Ann Custer, Andrea del Conte, Lindsay Grant, Jeannie Kenmotsu, Ramey Mize, Libby Saylor, Miriam Stanton, Anna-Claire Stinebring, Jill Vaum, and Rachel Wise. Philadelphia offers an embarrassment of riches for any researcher, but particularly for the nineteenth-century Americanist. At the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Kathy Foster vi animated my thinking about everything from antebellum theatrical design to Winslow Homer’s watercolors. I’m grateful to Bob Cozzolino for introducing me to the riches of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts early on in my time here. Jim Green and Erika Piola at the Library Company of Philadelphia are responsible for showing me many of the most compelling objects included in this dissertation. If this project speaks to readers outside of art history, it thanks to my colleagues at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, especially Jessica Linker, Kristina Garvin, Danielle Skeehan, and Sonia Hazard. At Penn’s Kislak Center for Special Collections, John Pollack, Will Noel, Sarah Reidell, and Lynne Farrington made so much of this research possible. In Philadelphia and beyond, my research has been shaped and enabled by the generosity and knowledge of so many librarians, curators, archivists, and collectors. Beyond those I have already named, I am thankful to Jacqueline Coleburn, Barbara Fahs Charles and Bob Staples, F. Michael Angelo, Michael Sappol, Ellen Rubin, and Sally Rosenthal. I am humbled by the generous support that this project has received in the form of grants and fellowships. A Benjamin Franklin Fellowship, Dissertation Research Fellowship, and a McCoubrey-Campbell Travel Fellowship from the University of Pennsylvania provided essential funding. The Center for Advanced Studies in Visual Arts (CASVA) granted me an Ailsa Mellon Bruce Predoctoral Fellowship for Historians of American Art to Travel Abroad in 2013, and while my travels to Brazil were technically unrelated to my dissertation research, the opportunity to think about categories of “popular” and “vernacular” in a global context deeply informed this project. vii A Wyeth Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (2014-2015) provided invaluable time to research, write, and think as I embarked on my first year of dissertation research and writing;
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