RAR, Volume 28, 2012
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The RUTGERS ART REVIEW Published by the Graduate Students of the Department of Art History Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey Volume 28 2012 ii Copyright © 2012 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America ISSN 0194-049X RUTGERS ART REVIEW 28 (2012) iii Rutgers Art Review Volume 28 Editors Lauren Kane, Kira Maye, and Melissa Yuen Editorial Board Sara Berkowitz Stephen Mandravelis Seraphina Ferraro Mary Manning Natalie Fleming Robyn Radway Allison Harbin Randi Ragsdale Lauren Henning Tashima Thomas Proofreaders Isabel Bartolome Alexis Jason-Mathews Catherine Kupiec Mary Manning Kirsten Marples Tanya Sheehan Kathleen Sullivan Faculty Advisor Tanya Sheehan TheRutgers Art Review (RAR)is an annual journal produced by graduate students in the Department of Art History at Rutgers University. The journal is dedicated to pre- senting original research by graduate students in art history and related fields. For each volume the editors convene an editorial board made up of students from the department and review all new submissions. The strongest papers are then sent to established scholars in order to confirm that each one will contribute to existing scholarship. Articles appearing in RAR are abstracted and indexed online in America: History and Life, ARTbibliographies Modern, the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals, BHA (Bibliography of the History of Art), Historical Abstracts, and the Wilson Art Index. The journal is distributed by subscription to over one hundred many of the finest uni- versity, museum, and public libraries in North America and Europe. This is the last printed volume of the Rutgers Art Review. Beginning in with the future vVolume 29, Rutgers Art Review will be free to download via our website or and through EBSCO WilsonWeb. For more information about RAR, please visit our website at http://rar. rutgers.edu. Correspondence to RAR editors may be sent to [email protected] RUTGERS ART REVIEW 28 (2012) v CONTENTS Volume 28 2012 Articles Picturing Artistic Practice at the Royal Danish Academy, 1822-48 Leslie Anne Anderson-Perkins 2 Unpacking the White Box: Aspen 5+6 Sarah Archino 17 In the Midst of Floodwaters: Mapping Viceregal Mexico City's Urban Transformation, 1524-c.1690 John F. López 35 Picturing Contemplation: Titian's St. Nicholas Altarpiece and the Franciscans in Venice Kathleen Sullivan 53 vi Acknowledgements The completion of Volume 28 of the Rutgers Art Review would not have been possible without the dedicated help of many individuals. Foremost among those to whom we owe special thanks are the graduate students who contributed their essays for publication: Leslie Anderson-Perkins, Sarah Archino, John F. Lopez, and Kathleen Sullivan. We are also indebted to the supervision of our faculty advisor Professor Tanya Sheehan and to the stewardship of many past and present RAR editors. Many thanks to our editorial board for carefully reading, selecting and proofreading these papers for publication: Sara Berkowitz, Seraphina Ferara, Natalie Fleming, Allison Harbin, Lauren Henning, Stephen Mandravelis, Mary Manning, Robyn Radway, and Tashima Thomas. In addition to the hard work of these graduate students, many anonymous outside readers also graciously offered their time and expertise in reviewing these papers and enhancing the quality of the journal, and to them we extend our sincere appreciation. Assistance with pre-press preparation of the manuscript came from Catherine Kupiec. Benefactors Allen & Company The Office of the Associate Vice President for Academic and Public Partnerships in the Arts and Humanities, Rutgers University The Graduate Student Association, Rutgers University Patrons Tod Marder Gabriella Miyamoto The Emily and Jane Harvey Foundation Contributors Sarah Blake McHam Joan Marter Friends Sarah Brett-Smith 2 Picturing Artistic Practice Picturing Artistic Practice at the Royal Danish Academy, 1822-48* Leslie Anne Anderson-Perkins Until the appointments of Professors Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (1783-1853) and Johan Ludvig Lund (1777-1867) in 1818, the ossified curriculum of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts officially consisted of sketching plaster casts of antique statuary, écorché sculptures, and artificially-illuminated male models assuming heroic poses.1 During their tenure at the Academy, however, the two professors introduced supplementary coursework in painting from life under natural light, a practice assimilated by Eckersberg and Lund in their time spent in Jacques-Louis David’s Paris studio.2 In addition, private instruction under Eckersberg inaugu- rated plein air sketching excursions and specialized tutorials in the science of linear perspective. Thus, Eckersberg’s years at the Academy represent a distinct pedagogical shift that privileged the direct observation of nature over the imitation of antiquity.3 Coinciding with Eckersberg’s curricular expansion, students of the mid-1820s and 1830s depicted artistic labor in sketchbooks, intimate portraits called Freundschaftsbilder (or “friendship pictures”), and large-scale paintings intended for public exhibition.4 Interestingly, scenes of artistic labor were most popular among the first generation of students enrolled in the Davidian life classes, particularly Wilhem Bendz (1804-32), Christen Christensen (1806-45), Albert Küchler (1803-86), Martinus Rørbye (1803-48), and Jørgen Sonne (1801-90).5 In ad- dition, Eckersberg’s private pupils, including Constantin Hansen (1804-80), Christen Købke (1810-48), Wilhelm Marstrand (1810-73), Adam Müller (1811-44), Jørgen Roed (1808-88), and Frederik Sødring (1809-62), made significant contributions to this genre as both paint- ers and subjects.6 Shown at work or posed in the studio, these artists are often surrounded by a carefully selected sampling of tools and instructional aids. This paper argues that such artistic accoutrements reference the respective methodologies of the sitters, who typically subscribed to Eckersberg’s innovative artistic program. More specifically, it demonstrates that these objects often allude to and celebrate the Academy’s new auxiliary instruction. The absence of primary documentation and relevant historical context limits the few existing studies devoted to this subject matter.7 For example, Mogens Nykjær’s Pictures of Knowledge: Motifs in Danish Art from Eckersberg to Hammershøi traces common motifs in Danish nineteenth-century painting to their proposed source, namely the contemporary intellectual milieu. The author suggests that studio portraits by Bendz and Købke reflect the artists’ profi- ciency in the Neo-Platonic writings of Dane Adolph Wilhelm Schack von Staffeldt (1769-1826), particularly his poem “In Canova’s Workshop.”8 Yet, Staffeldt’s name remained obscure even after the publication of his collected poems in 1804, and Bendz’s surviving letters bear no mention of the poet nearly three decades later.9 While Nykjær appropriately conveys the profundity of these paintings, a more convincing theoretical analysis of Bendz’s and Købke’s imagery would require sufficient evidence of their personal alignment with such ideas. Jens Peter Munk’s article “Artist Portrait – Self Portrait: The Golden Age Artists’ Social and Cultural Self-Understanding, When Portraying Themselves and Each Other” posits that Danish studio pictures reveal artistic self-awareness, although this thesis must be expanded.10 The meritorious feature of the article is the establishment of the genre’s key typological divisions. Examining a broad sampling of works, Munk identifies the various settings and some of the basic components depicted in these images, such as the folding stool and the drawing board.11 Rutgers Art Review 28 (2012) 3 However, he does not define the significance of recurring motifs in relation to the chang- ing climate of the Academy. This study aims to situate Danish scenes of artistic labor within the environ- ment that was typically portrayed, namely the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts at Charlottenborg Palace in Copenhagen. In addition to pictorial evidence, primary source material sheds light on the chief events and academic techniques employed during this decisive period in the institution’s history. Of particular utility are Eckersberg’s dry, but methodically maintained dagbøger, or diaries, which chronicle the fulfillment of his professorial duties. In addition, a biographi- cal sketch, penned by his daughter Julie (b. 1831), describes the practices and enumer- ates the contents of his atelier. Drawings and paintings depict ca- Figure 1. Wilhelm Bendz, The Painter Niels Peter sually posed models bathed in natural light, Holbech, ca. 1824, oil on canvas, 31 3/4 x 27 in. folding stools, and portable paint boxes, all (80.65 x 68.58 cm). Fuglsang Kunstmuseum, of which function as signifiers of Eckersberg’s Toreby. pedagogical introductions. Of course, studies of nature served only as the basis for final, idealized compositions. Thus, the history painter’s maulstick becomes the signature tool of the professor’s students because this implement facili- tates the final stage in Eckersberg’s artistic process, the transformation of the real into the ideal. This paper explores the depiction of these objects. At times, they commemorate shared artistic ideology. However, at other times, the imposing scale and intended audience of the paintings suggest that they honor the Academy’s new pedagogical inclusiveness. In April 1822, Lund and Eckersberg lobbied on behalf of their students’ education