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Picturing Music in Victorian England Suzanne Fagence Cooper

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Picturing Music in Victorian England Suzanne Fagence Cooper Picturing Music in Victorian England A Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Suzanne Fagence Cooper Volume 1 Faculty of Design Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College Brunei University November 2005 This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author under the terms of the United Kingdom Copyright Acts. No quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. Abstract This thesis analyses musical imagery created by Victorian artists. It considers paintings, decorative arts and photography, as well as contemporary art criticism and poetry. Focusing on artists associated with Pre-Raphaelitism and a~stheticism, it shows how they used musical subjects to sidestep narrative conventions and concentrate instead on explorations of femininity, colour, mood and sensuality. This thesis begins by considering the musical experience of four artists - Frederic Leighton, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones and James Whistler - and the influence of personal taste on their musical subjects. It then looks at the depiction of non-Western performance, including images of dancing girls. The third chapter explores the links between music and worship, and the subversion of traditional religious iconography by aestheticist artists. Chapter four analyses images of musical weimen, and especially the late-Victorian interest in mermaids and sirens. The theme of sensuality continues with an investigation of the connections between music and colour, by assessing the influence of Renaissance Venice, Wagner and French theories of synaesthesia on the Victorian art-world. The final chapter looks at the interconnectedness of music, nostalgia and bereavement in aestheticist painting. Although this study approaches the subject of music-in-art from a number of different directions, there are two key themes that underpin the interpretation of musical images. The first is that musical symbolism was malleable: music could signify both religious devotion and sexual passion. The second is that, in the Victorian imagination, music was oppositional and unstable. It was linked with femininity, emotion, colour, desire and the supernatural. This thesis demonstrates that the idea of music was a key component in the emergence of anti-Establishment art in Victorian England. Acknowledgments Any thesis i~ a collaborative process, but this one has had a particularly long gestation. It grew out of an MA dissertation completed nearly a decade ago, supervised by Caroline Arscott at the Courtauld Institute. Since then my research has been helpE.:d - and made much more pleasurable - by many colleagues and friends who have shaped my ideas and opened up new lines of enquiry. I know th~t itwill be hard to thank them all personally, but I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisors, Reg Winfield and Greg Votolato, for their support, and also to Paul Springer and Juliet Simpson at BCUC. My research has been made possible by a fellowship based at the Victoria and Albert Museum. I have been given access to the outstanding 19th century collections, thanks to the staff in the National Art Library and the Print Room. I have also benefited from the wisdom of my V&A colleagues, especially Martin Barnes, Charles Newton, Stephen Calloway, Flora Dennis, and Anna Fletcher. The good humour of the Exhibitions team, led by Linda Lloyd-Jones, has kept my spirits up. Jennifer Taylor and Claire Longworth, working as volunteers at the V&A, have helped me track down some of the objects 'in this study, and Amy Hibbert assisted with the illustrations. I have been supported throughout by the Research Department, especially Paul Greenhalgh, Carolyn Sargentson and Christopher Breward. In the early stages, I learnt a great deal from musicologists, especially those I met through Bennett Zon at the Music in 19th century Britain conference held in Durham in 1999. Phyllis Weliver offered numerous insights into the connections between music and literature in Victorian England, and Sophie Fuller helped me to understand the nature of women's performance. Paul Banks and Michael Musgrave also offered information and encouragement, and Oliver Davies told me about AJ. Hipkins's analysis of Rossetti's musical paintings. John Lowerson introduced me to the I.H.R. seminar run by Cyril Ehrlich, and I was grateful for the chance to discuss my work with this group. ii Zdravko Blazekovic gave me the chance to fine~tune my research on St. Cecilia, and through him I met Julia Grella O'Connell. My questions on archaic musical instruments were cheerfully answered by the staff at the Bate Collection in Oxford, who also offered to baby~sit while I looked at the collection. Brian Blood and the Dolmetsch workshop kindly helped with my enquiries about the Burn_e~Jones clavichord. I was also glad to talk about our . shared interests with Kristina Marie Guiguet, Regula Hohl and Nicky Losseff. I have been able to discuss my research with a wide range of historians and art historians. In particular I would like to thcmk Paul Atterbury. I was very fortunate to be able to work with him on The Victorian Vision exhibition. His breadth of knowledge and his generosity are without peer. At the same time, with the help of John Mackenzie, I learnt to look at the Orientalism debate in a new way. I have also been lucky enough to discuss my interests, at various stages, with Jim Cheshire, Jan Marsh, Michael Whiteway, John Christian, Richard Jefferies, David Ekserdjian and Stephen Wildman. Tessa Sidey, at Birmingham Museum, has always been welcoming. I have also found the staff at the Ashmolean Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Brasenose College Library, the Bodleian Library and at Leighton House Museum unfailingly helpful. Robin Spencer helped with my queries about Whistler and Lawrence Marks answered my questions about synaesthesia. Sarah Williams talked me through the minefield of Victorian spirituality. My family and friends have been a constant support. They have borne with my enthusiasms and my anxieties, and listened to me as I wrestled with sections of my argument. This thesis could not have been written without .their help. I am grateful to the Kirkman family, Frances Button, Fiona Mackintosh and the choir of St. Barnabas Church, Oxford for teaching me about music. Matthew Grimley, Clare Griffiths and Susan Skedd have given me invaluable friendship, as well as sound scholarly advice, over many years. As for Julia Yates and Elizabeth Player, we are 'ever the best of friends'. My parents have made this thesis happen. They have offered IT support, childcare, a listening ear, cups of tea and a bed for the night. They iii have never wavered in their belief that I would, one day, finish it. Finally I come to John (a gentleman and a scholar) and my dear Rosalind. You have been with me every step of the way. Thank you. Nun Monkton, Yorkshire November 2005 IV Table of Contents Page Abstract Acknowledgements ii Table of Contents v List of Illustrations viii Introduction Prelude 1 The Scope of the Thesis 2 Work in Progress: the Development of the Thesis 4 Music and the Emergence of Aestheticism 10 Literature Review 17 Primary Texts 19 Secondary Texts 20 Condus~n 24 Chapter One: Music in the Studio Introduction 26 Leighton and the Aesthetic Interior 27 Burne-Jones and the Early Music Revival 33 Rossetti and the Sirens 40 Whistler: a Wagnerian Painter? 47 Condus~n 51 Chapter Two: The Orient and Beyond Introduction: the Victorian Idea of the Orient 53 John Frederick Lewis and the Silent Harem 57 Roger Fenton and the Dancing Girls 63 Japan and Aestheticism 69 Whistler and Japan 71 Albert Moore's Formal Beauty 75 Condus~n 79 Chapter Three: Spirituality Introduction 80 Hymn-singing,and the 'Hallelujah Chorus' 82 The Music of the Spheres 84 Music in Heaven 85 Hymns to the Virgin 87 Music in Dante: Sacred and Sensual 92 Music and Spiritualism 95 Music and Mesmerism 102 Music and Trance: Rossetti and St. Cecilia 104 Music and Desire: Burne-Jones and St. Cecilia 113 v The Symbolic Value of Portative and Positive Organs 117 Condus~n 120 Chapter Four: Sensuality and Femininity Introduction 122 Music and Otherness 122 Masculinity and Effeminacy 126 Music as a Domestic Discipline 129 Courtship and Seduction 132 The Implications of P!Jblic Performance 137 Women Painting Women 139 Unnatural Desires: the Lady of Shalott 144 Unnatural Desires: Sirens and Mermaids 146 Music, Water and the Libido 152 Condusion 158 Chapter Five: Colour and Correspondances Introduction 159 Making Sound Visible 160 Rossetti and Renaissance Venice 164 Contemporary French Theories of Sound and Colour 173 Whistler and Contemporary France 175 Musical Theories in Whistler vs. Ruskin 178 The Influence of Wagner 182 The Tannhauser Motif in Aesthetic Art and Writing 187 Pater and the Condition of Music 194 Reconciling Venice and France in Pater's Writing 198 Melody and Harmony in Burne-Jones's Paintings 201 Conclusion 205 Chapter Six: Memory, Nostalgia and Loss Introduction 207 The Vanitas Tradition 210 The Orpheus Tradition 212 The Idyll Tradition 213 Reworking the Vanitas Tradition 214 Reworking the Orpheus Tradition: Whistler 220 Music and Loss in Whistler's Symphonies in White 222 Music and the Mirror-Image 224 Reworking the Orpheus Tradition: Leighton 229 Reworking the Idyll Tradition: Leighton 230 Reworking the Idyll Tradition: Burne-Jones 234 Music, Water and the Passage of Time 236 Music, Nostalgia and the End of Empire 239 Silence and Death 242 Condusion 244 Conclusion 246 Music's Challenge to Realism 248 VI Music, Women and Sensuality 251 Music, Loss and Nostalgia 252 Music and the Spirit 252 Music and the Suppression of Narrative 253 Finale 254 Bibliography Primary Texts 255 Secondary Texts' 261 Vll List of Illustrations in Volume 2 Frontispiece: Edward Burne-Jones, Laus Veneris, (1873-1878, oil, gold paint and stamping, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle) Figure 1: Edward Burne-Jones, Painted Piano (Ladies and Death) (1860, American walnut, paint and gesso, Victoria and Albert Museum) Figure 2: Edward Burne.:Jones, Painted Piano (St.
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