DOCSLIB.ORG

Jag Final Draft

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Jag Final Draft Copyright by Jason Alan Goldstein 2017 The Dissertation Committee for Jason Alan Goldstein Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Translating Art into Words: The Work of Claude Monet in the Writings of Gustave Geffroy and Octave Mirbeau Committee: Richard Shiff, Supervisor Michael Charlesworth Kurt Heinzelman Linda Dalrymple Henderson Alexandra Wettlaufer Translating Art into Words: The Work of Claude Monet in the Writings of Gustave Geffroy and Octave Mirbeau by Jason Alan Goldstein Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2017 Dedication To my parents Acknowledgements In these rather uncertain times, I consider myself particularly fortunate to devote my life to the study and teaching of art and literature. Careful looking and close reading slow down our frenetic pace and encourage creative thought. I have found few things more rewarding than spending an unbroken hour in front of one of Claude Monet’s magnificent canvases. Experiencing Monet through the eyes and words of two of his staunchest critical supporters Gustave Geffroy and Octave Mirbeau has enriched my understanding of his paintings in ways I never could have imagined. I would have lacked the means to complete a project of this nature without the following magnanimous individuals and institutions. The libraries and the remarkable people who keep them running at the University of Texas at Austin deserve a great deal of credit for my ability to research and write this dissertation. I benefited tremendously from the expertise and assistance of Wendy Nesmith and the entire Interlibrary Services department. I remain thoroughly impressed with their capacity to secure even the rarest books and assorted texts. I always will be indebted to Dan Orozco, Senior Library Specialist and Branch Supervisor at the Architecture and Planning Library. It would have been virtually impossible to compose the vast majority of this study in the glorious reading room of Battle Hall without his generosity. A number of fellowships and foundations offered essential financial support for this dissertation. I especially thank the Center for the Study of Modernism at the University of Texas at Austin for awarding me research travel funds throughout my v studies at the University of Texas at Austin. The following fellowships and scholarships provided crucial funding of my research as well, and I thank the generous individuals who established them: the Dr. Ralph and Marie B. Hanna Centennial Endowed Scholarship in Art; the Mary Miller Bartholow Endowed Presidential Fellowship; the Marshall F. Wells Scholarship and Fellowship Endowment in the College of Fine Arts; the Donna and Jack S. Josey Endowed Presidential Scholarship in Art History; the Summer Research Traveling Scholarship, Department of Art and Art History; and the Lucas Foundation Scholarship. I am forever grateful for the love and encouragement of my family. My parents Gail and Kenneth Goldstein never wavered in their support and faith in me. I dedicate this dissertation to them for everything they have done. I wish to thank my sister Joan and brother-in-law Douglas Aron not only for their compassion and sound advice but also for giving me the most precious nephew and niece. Andrew and Morgan are a constant source of joy in my life. I thank all of my wonderfully patient, inspirational, and humorous colleagues and mentors. Professor Kirsten (Kit) Belgum in the Department of Germanic Studies at UT has been an unbelievably patient and understanding teaching supervisor during the final stages of my dissertation. I thank her immensely for helping me prepare for my defense and for inventing a meaningful title for my study. Curator Nancy Burns of the Worcester Art Museum is one of the most thoughtful and generous colleagues I have encountered in the field of art history. Her friendship has meant so much to me during some of the more challenging periods in my life. Dr. Benedict Leca of the Redwood Library and Athenaeum has been a supportive and enthusiastic reader of my work since my very first art history class as an undergraduate at Brown University. Without his encouragement, I might not have pursued art history. His lucid translation of Mirbeau’s 1891 article in vi L’art dans les deux mondes helped me enormously in my consideration of this text. I never could adequately express my thanks to Professor Marcia Brennan of Rice University. After the untimely passing of Professor Kermit S. Champa, my undergraduate mentor at Brown University, Marcia assumed his role and provided me the direction and guidance I needed to return to the study of art history. Z. Bart Thornton of Collegiate School in Richmond, Virginia taught me the art of close reading and analytical writing, and he remains my academic role model and most trusted mentor. He has nurtured my passion for literature and teaching even when I seemed destined to pursue a radically different path. I extend my heartfelt appreciation to Madame Jane Murdock of The Kinkaid School in Houston, Texas. Madame first inspired a love of French literature many years ago, and she helped me substantially in making sense of some of the opaquer passages of prose and poetry in the research phase of this project. Finally, I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee for their extraordinary assistance and support in all aspects of my dissertation and graduate education: I give special thanks to Professor Michael Charlesworth for encouraging my interest in the relationship between the visual arts and literature. Numerous discussions of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European poetry, fiction, and art criticism during his office hours were among the most memorable, informative, and provocative of my years at the University of Texas. I thank Professor Kurt Heinzelman for broadening my understanding of French and British literature and for providing extremely helpful commentary in the earliest and final stages of this project. I owe an overwhelming debt of gratitude to Professor Linda Henderson. Dr. Henderson helped me tremendously in narrowing the scope of this project and in all phases of its organization and completion. Her kindness and generosity know no limit, and her sterling example as a teacher has influenced me considerably. As I will detail in the introduction of this study, the vii scholarship of Professor Alexandra Wettlaufer has shaped my approach to and consideration of Monet and his critics. I am beyond grateful for the hours she devoted to discussing literature and art criticism with me. And I close with my deepest thanks to my advisor Richard Shiff for his infinite supply of patience and wisdom. His ideas constantly challenge me and have guided much of my thinking about art and art history. It has been the single greatest privilege of my life to serve as his research assistant and to study under his direction. He is the consummate scholar. Austin, Texas December 2017 viii Translating Art into Words: The Work of Claude Monet in the Writings of Gustave Geffroy and Octave Mirbeau Jason Alan Goldstein, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2017 Supervisor: Richard Shiff This study identifies and assesses evocative modes of description along with visually or pictorially inspired adaptations of language in the critical and literary writings of Claude Monet’s staunchest allies – Gustave Geffroy (1855-1926) and Octave Mirbeau (1848-1917). Not only did these two authors publish more on Monet than any other critics of their generation, they also maintained an intimate perspective on the artist’s development from the middle of the 1880s to the very end of their lives. As much as Monet’s artistic fortune benefited from their favorable and informed publicity, Mirbeau and Geffroy’s aesthetic, literary, and critical practices mature and diversify based upon their experience of his paintings. An integration of literary tropes will show how the creative and critical projects of these two authors were informed by and intersected with some of Monet’s pictorial methods and aesthetic. At its core, this study considers how these two authors grapple with the issue of relating the discursiveness of verbal language to the presumed near-instantaneity in the appreciation of visual images. It operates as a comparative phenomenological study with Monet’s art serving as its focal point. Mirbeau and Geffroy’s interpretation of Monet’s paintings provides the primary avenue for exploring similarities and differences in the two author’s approaches to translating works of art and other sensory phenomena into words. What descriptive and rhetorical strategies ix do they develop to close a divide between seeing and saying, between thought and language? How does writing about Monet’s paintings intensify their struggles with the limitations of their expressive means? How do their ways of overcoming perceived inadequacies of prose compare with Monet’s solutions to pictorial challenges? Through close readings of a limited selection of their texts, I aim to demonstrate how both critical and creative writing can give ‘meaning’ to ‘pictures.’ In the process of converting their experience of Monet’s art into prose, both critics effectively remake the painter and his canvases in their own image. We will uncover how Geffroy and Mirbeau’s artwriting stimulates and appeals to a reader’s imagination, along
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 16 Exhibition on Screen
    Exhibition on Screen - The Impressionists – And the Man Who Made Them 2015, Run Time 97 minutes An eagerly anticipated exhibition travelling from the Musee d'Orsay Paris to the National Gallery London and on to the Philadelphia Museum of Art is the focus of the most comprehensive film ever made about the Impressionists. The exhibition brings together Impressionist art accumulated by Paul Durand-Ruel, the 19th century Parisian art collector. Degas, Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, and Sisley, are among the artists that he helped to establish through his galleries in London, New York and Paris. The exhibition, bringing together Durand-Ruel's treasures, is the focus of the film, which also interweaves the story of Impressionism and a look at highlights from Impressionist collections in several prominent American galleries. Paintings: Rosa Bonheur: Ploughing in Nevers, 1849 Constant Troyon: Oxen Ploughing, Morning Effect, 1855 Théodore Rousseau: An Avenue in the Forest of L’Isle-Adam, 1849 (Barbizon School) Jean-François Millet: The Gleaners, 1857 (Barbizon School) Jean-François Millet: The Angelus, c. 1857-1859 (Barbizon School) Charles-François Daubigny: The Grape Harvest in Burgundy, 1863 (Barbizon School) Jean-François Millet: Spring, 1868-1873 (Barbizon School) Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot: Ruins of the Château of Pierrefonds, c. 1830-1835 Théodore Rousseau: View of Mont Blanc, Seen from La Faucille, c. 1863-1867 Eugène Delecroix: Interior of a Dominican Convent in Madrid, 1831 Édouard Manet: Olympia, 1863 Pierre Auguste Renoir: The Swing, 1876 16 Alfred Sisley: Gateway to Argenteuil, 1872 Édouard Manet: Luncheon on the Grass, 1863 Edgar Degas: Ballet Rehearsal on Stage, 1874 Pierre Auguste Renoir: Ball at the Moulin de la Galette, 1876 Pierre Auguste Renoir: Portrait of Mademoiselle Legrand, 1875 Alexandre Cabanel: The Birth of Venus, 1863 Édouard Manet: The Fife Player, 1866 Édouard Manet: The Tragic Actor (Rouvière as Hamlet), 1866 Henri Fantin-Latour: A Studio in the Batingnolles, 1870 Claude Monet: The Thames below Westminster, c.
    [Show full text]
  • Impressionist Adventures
    impressionist adventures THE NORMANDY & PARIS REGION GUIDE 2020 IMPRESSIONIST ADVENTURES, INSPIRING MOMENTS! elcome to Normandy and Paris Region! It is in these regions and nowhere else that you can admire marvellous Impressionist paintings W while also enjoying the instantaneous emotions that inspired their artists. It was here that the art movement that revolutionised the history of art came into being and blossomed. Enamoured of nature and the advances in modern life, the Impressionists set up their easels in forests and gardens along the rivers Seine and Oise, on the Norman coasts, and in the heart of Paris’s districts where modernity was at its height. These settings and landscapes, which for the most part remain unspoilt, still bear the stamp of the greatest Impressionist artists, their precursors and their heirs: Daubigny, Boudin, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Morisot, Pissarro, Caillebotte, Sisley, Van Gogh, Luce and many others. Today these regions invite you on a series of Impressionist journeys on which to experience many joyous moments. Admire the changing sky and light as you gaze out to sea and recharge your batteries in the cool of a garden. Relive the artistic excitement of Paris and Montmartre and the authenticity of the period’s bohemian culture. Enjoy a certain Impressionist joie de vivre in company: a “déjeuner sur l’herbe” with family, or a glass of wine with friends on the banks of the Oise or at an open-air café on the Seine. Be moved by the beauty of the paintings that fill the museums and enter the private lives of the artists, exploring their gardens and homes-cum-studios.
    [Show full text]
  • Review Volume 20 (2020) Page 1
    H-France Review Volume 20 (2020) Page 1 H-France Review Vol. 20 (December 2020), No. 217 Jennifer Forrest, Decadent Aesthetics and the Acrobat in Fin-de-Siècle France. New York: Routledge, 2020. 216 pp. Figures, notes, and index. $160.00 U.S. (hb). ISBN 9780367358143; $48.95 U.S. (eb). ISBN 9780429341960. Review by Charles Rearick, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Jennifer Forrest takes us back to a time when many of the artistic avant-garde in Paris frequented the circus and saw acrobatic performances. Her argument in this new book is that innovative writers and artists found much more than images and themes in those popular entertainments. They also found inspiration and models for a new aesthetics, which emerged full-blown in works of the fin-de-siècle movement known as Decadent. First of all, I must say that anyone interested in the subject should not take the title as an accurate guide to this book. The word “acrobat” likely brings to mind a tumbler, tight-rope walker, or trapeze artist, but in Forrest’s account it includes others: the sad clown, the mime, the stock character Pierrot, and the circus bareback rider. The words saltimbanque and funambule (as defined by the author) would cover more of the cast of performers than “acrobat,” though neither French term is quite right for all of them or best for a book in English. The author begins with the year 1857 and a wave of notable works featuring clowns and funambules--works by Théodore de Banville, Honoré Daumier, Charles Baudelaire, Thomas Couture, and Jean-Léon Gérôme.
    [Show full text]
  • Vincent Van Gogh the Starry Night
    Richard Thomson Vincent van Gogh The Starry Night the museum of modern art, new york The Starry Night without doubt, vincent van gogh’s painting the starry night (fig. 1) is an iconic image of modern culture. One of the beacons of The Museum of Modern Art, every day it draws thousands of visitors who want to gaze at it, be instructed about it, or be photographed in front of it. The picture has a far-flung and flexible identity in our collective musée imaginaire, whether in material form decorating a tie or T-shirt, as a visual quotation in a book cover or caricature, or as a ubiquitously understood allusion to anguish in a sentimental popular song. Starry Night belongs in the front rank of the modern cultural vernacular. This is rather a surprising status to have been achieved by a painting that was executed with neither fanfare nor much explanation in Van Gogh’s own correspondence, that on reflection the artist found did not satisfy him, and that displeased his crucial supporter and primary critic, his brother Theo. Starry Night was painted in June 1889, at a period of great complexity in Vincent’s life. Living at the asylum of Saint-Rémy in the south of France, a Dutchman in Provence, he was cut off from his country, family, and fellow artists. His isolation was enhanced by his state of health, psychologically fragile and erratic. Yet for all these taxing disadvantages, Van Gogh was determined to fulfill himself as an artist, the road that he had taken in 1880.
    [Show full text]
  • Baudelaire and the Rival of Nature: the Conflict Between Art and Nature in French Landscape Painting
    BAUDELAIRE AND THE RIVAL OF NATURE: THE CONFLICT BETWEEN ART AND NATURE IN FRENCH LANDSCAPE PAINTING _______________________________________________________________ A Thesis Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board _______________________________________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS _______________________________________________________________ By Juliette Pegram January 2012 _______________________ Dr. Therese Dolan, Thesis Advisor, Department of Art History Tyler School of Art, Temple University ABSTRACT The rise of landscape painting as a dominant genre in nineteenth century France was closely tied to the ongoing debate between Art and Nature. This conflict permeates the writings of poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire. While Baudelaire scholarship has maintained the idea of the poet as a strict anti-naturalist and proponent of the artificial, this paper offers a revision of Baudelaire‟s relation to nature through a close reading across his critical and poetic texts. The Salon reviews of 1845, 1846 and 1859, as well as Baudelaire‟s Journaux Intimes, Les Paradis Artificiels and two poems that deal directly with the subject of landscape, are examined. The aim of this essay is to provoke new insights into the poet‟s complex attitudes toward nature and the art of landscape painting in France during the middle years of the nineteenth century. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to Dr. Therese Dolan for guiding me back to the subject and writings of Charles Baudelaire. Her patience and words of encouragement about the writing process were invaluable, and I am fortunate to have had the opportunity for such a wonderful writer to edit and review my work. I would like to thank Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • Fall 2020/5781 “ Fix a P Eri Od F Or Th E Stud Y of Torah” Pirk Ei Avot 1: 15
    Congregation Beth El of Montgomery County THE RABBI SAMUEL SCOLNIC ADULT INSTITUTE FOUNDED IN 1977 IN MEMORY OF SAUL BENDIT Fall 2020/5781 “ Fix a p eri od f or th e stud y of Torah” Pirk ei Avot 1: 15 REGISTER ONLINE! Register NOW for the Early Bird Discount. Deadline: October 7 SIX TUESDAY MORNINGS October 13, 20, and 27; November 3, 10, and 17 SIX WEDNESDAY EVENINGS October 14, 21, and 28; November 4, 11, and 18 All classes are open to the public. There is no prerequisite–only a desire to participate, learn, and enjoy. The Rabbi Samuel Scolnic Adult Institute, founded in 1977 in memory of Saul Bendit, is one of the leading synagogue-based adult education programs in the Washington, DC area. Now in its 43rd year, the Institute has received national and international recognition. The Fall program, running for six weeks, comprises 11 courses offered Wednesday evenings beginning October 14, and five classes offered Tuesday mornings, beginning October 13. Classes meet by Zoom only; technical support for Zoom will be available. We are confident that you will find the courses interesting and informative. SCHEDULE OF CLASSES Wednesday Night Schedule with Minyan break from 8:20-8:40 pm 7:30 - 8:20 pm 8:40 - 9:30 pm Innovative Jewish Thinkers: Shtisel: Why Do We Love It? Henrietta Szold Rabbi Emeritus Bill Rudolph Rabbi Greg Harris Mindfulness and Meditation George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda: Hazzan Asa Fradkin Philo-Semitism and Proto-Zionism in 19th Century England Adjunct Rabbi Mindy Avra Portnoy The Dynamics and Diversity Jewish Resistance in the Holocaust of Jewish Music Eric Gartman Hazzan Emeritus Abraham Lubin Us and Them: Jews and Non-Jews What Kind of State Is the Rabbi Avis Miller United States of America? Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • Annual Report 1995
    19 9 5 ANNUAL REPORT 1995 Annual Report Copyright © 1996, Board of Trustees, Photographic credits: Details illustrated at section openings: National Gallery of Art. All rights p. 16: photo courtesy of PaceWildenstein p. 5: Alexander Archipenko, Woman Combing Her reserved. Works of art in the National Gallery of Art's collec- Hair, 1915, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1971.66.10 tions have been photographed by the department p. 7: Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, Punchinello's This publication was produced by the of imaging and visual services. Other photographs Farewell to Venice, 1797/1804, Gift of Robert H. and Editors Office, National Gallery of Art, are by: Robert Shelley (pp. 12, 26, 27, 34, 37), Clarice Smith, 1979.76.4 Editor-in-chief, Frances P. Smyth Philip Charles (p. 30), Andrew Krieger (pp. 33, 59, p. 9: Jacques-Louis David, Napoleon in His Study, Editors, Tarn L. Curry, Julie Warnement 107), and William D. Wilson (p. 64). 1812, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.15 Editorial assistance, Mariah Seagle Cover: Paul Cezanne, Boy in a Red Waistcoat (detail), p. 13: Giovanni Paolo Pannini, The Interior of the 1888-1890, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon Pantheon, c. 1740, Samuel H. Kress Collection, Designed by Susan Lehmann, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National 1939.1.24 Washington, DC Gallery of Art, 1995.47.5 p. 53: Jacob Jordaens, Design for a Wall Decoration (recto), 1640-1645, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, Printed by Schneidereith & Sons, Title page: Jean Dubuffet, Le temps presse (Time Is 1875.13.1.a Baltimore, Maryland Running Out), 1950, The Stephen Hahn Family p.
    [Show full text]
  • Renoir, Impressionism, and Full-Length Painting
    FIRST COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF RENOIR’S FULL-LENGTH CANVASES BRINGS TOGETHER ICONIC WORKS FROM EUROPE AND THE U.S. FOR AN EXCLUSIVE NEW YORK CITY EXHIBITION RENOIR, IMPRESSIONISM, AND FULL-LENGTH PAINTING February 7 through May 13, 2012 This winter and spring The Frick Collection presents an exhibition of nine iconic Impressionist paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, offering the first comprehensive study of the artist’s engagement with the full-length format. Its use was associated with the official Paris Salon from the mid-1870s to mid- 1880s, the decade that saw the emergence of a fully fledged Impressionist aesthetic. The project was inspired by Renoir’s La Promenade of 1875–76, the most significant Impressionist work in the Frick’s permanent collection. Intended for public display, the vertical grand-scale canvases in the exhibition are among the artist’s most daring and ambitious presentations of contemporary subjects and are today considered masterpieces of Impressionism. The show and accompanying catalogue draw on contemporary criticism, literature, and archival documents to explore the motivation behind Renoir’s full-length figure paintings as well as their reception by critics, peers, and the public. Recently-undertaken technical studies of the canvases will also shed new light on the artist’s working methods. Works on loan from international institutions are La Parisienne from Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919), Dance at Bougival, 1883, oil on canvas, 71 5/8 x 38 5/8 inches, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Picture Fund; photo: © 2012 Museum the National Museum Wales, Cardiff; The Umbrellas (Les Parapluies) from The of Fine Arts, Boston National Gallery, London (first time since 1886 on view in the United States); and Dance in the City and Dance in the Country from the Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
    [Show full text]
  • Claire Maingon, Claude Monet, Mentor Ou Repoussoir De La
    RIHA Journal 0047 | 14 July 2012 | Special Issue "New Directions in New-I pressionism" This article is part of the Special Issue "New Directions in Neo-Impressionism." The issue is guest- edited by Tania Woloshyn and Anne Dymond in cooperation with egina Wenninger and Anne-!aure "risac-#hra$bi from I%A &ournal. '(ternal peer reviewers for this Special Issue were %ollis #layson* Andr+ Dombrowski* #hantal -eorgel* #atherine .eneu(* obyn osla,* and .ichael Zimmermann. * * * Claude Monet, mentor ou repoussoir de la génération néo- impressionniste? Claire Maingon Abtract Was Monet the father of neo-impressionism? This article investigates the various answers that have been offered to this important and controversial question by examining the relationships – actual and purported ones – between Claude Monet and the neo- impressionists, notably !eorges "eurat and #aul "ignac. It discusses the significance that impressionism with its striving for spontaneity and its sub&ective approach to landscape had for the young painters. ' close reading of "ignac's letters to Monet suggests an amicable relationship between these two artists. Moreover significant artistic parallels can be observed between Monet(s painting and that of "eurat and "ignac especially with regard to the element of seriality$ )inally the article highlights the reception of Monet(s paintings by the neo-impressionists, notably of his *ouen Cathedral series in +,-.$ Sommaire Intro!uction Dans la o!ernit" !e #onet $n nou%el i pressionnisme &a série' la %ision( un en)eu !i**"rentiel &i+ert"
    [Show full text]
  • French Poetry and Contemporary Reality C. 1870 - 1887
    Durham E-Theses French poetry and contemporary reality c. 1870 - 1887 Watson, Lawrence J. How to cite: Watson, Lawrence J. (1976) French poetry and contemporary reality c. 1870 - 1887, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/8021/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk FRENCH POETRY AND CONTEMPORARY REALITY c 1870 - 1887 A study of the thematic and stylistic implications of the poetic treatment of the modern and the ephemeral LAWRENCE J WATSON Thesis submitted in the University of Durham for the degree of Doctor of philosophy December 1976 VOLUME TWO FULL COIIMtfTS Oi VULTJlli, TwO P^T TWO ^CMTIlilJiJ) onapter Two: Contemporary Subjects (f) Everyday Lue 478 (g) The World of Sens<?Tion 538 Chapter Three: The Impact of Contemporary Speech 582 (a) 'The Particulcrisation of Poetic Language in the /.ge of Science and ilc^terialism P.
    [Show full text]
  • Vmcent Van Gogh's Published Letters: Mythologizing the Modem Artist
    Vmcent van Gogh's Published Letters: Mythologizing the Modem Artist Margaret Fitzgerald Often the study of modem art entails an examination of he became associated with the symbolists. Neo-impres­ the artist along with his works. This interpretive method sionism and symbolism had in common. above all. their involves the mythology of an a.rtistic temperament from existence as variations of impressionism. They might even which all creative output proceeds. Vincent van Gogh ·s be seen as attempting 10 improve imprc.~sionism by making dramatic life, individual painting style. and expressive it more scientific. on the one hand. and by stressing the correspondence easily lend themselves to such a myth­ universal Idea over the personal vision. on the other.• The making process. This discussion bricHy outl ines the circum­ first critics 10 write about van Gogh's art in any depth were stances surrounding tbe pubLication of van Gogh ·s let1ers in symbolist writers. Once this association is made. the the 1890s io order to suggest that a critkal environment categorization persists in the criticism and forms the pre­ existed ready 10 receive the leucrs in a particular fashion. an dominant interpretation for van Gogh's art works . environment that in tum produced an interpretation for the In the initial issue of the Mercure de France, a paintings. symbolist publication that made its debut in January 1890. TI1roughou1 the 1890s. excerpts from van Gogh ·s Albert Aurier printed an article entitled ''The Isolated Ones: leners 10 his brother Theo and 10 the symbolist painter Vincent van Gogh ..., First in a seric.~ about isolated artists, Emile Bernard were published in the symbolist journal and fonuirously limed, since some of Vincent's works were Mercure de France.
    [Show full text]
  • The Domestication of History in American Art: 1848-1876
    W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 1998 The domestication of history in American art: 1848-1876 Jochen Wierich College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons, History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Wierich, Jochen, "The domestication of history in American art: 1848-1876" (1998). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539623945. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-qc92-2y94 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps.
    [Show full text]