Art Appreciation Lecture Series 2014 Realism to Surrealism: European art and culture 1848-1936

Ballerinas and Muscle Men: The Body in Motion

Dr Jessica Priebe

12/13 March 2014

Lecture summary:

This lecture examines the representation of the human body in motion in nineteenth-century European and American art. We begin around 1850 with Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet’s paintings of rural labourers. We then move to the urban metropolis of Paris in the 1860s and 70s, where we will look at the work of Edgar Degas, specifically his images of the Opéra Ballet.

The second half of the nineteenth century was also an exciting time in the development of photography as both an art and a science. We will consider the contributions of rapid motion photographers Eadweard Muybridge and Étienne-Jules Marey. Finally we will look at the influence of Muybridge and Marey’s work on the late nineteenth-century American Realist artist Thomas Eakins, who was responsible for bringing photography into mainstream American art.

Slide list: *1. Gustave Courbet, The Stonebreakers, 1849, oil on canvas, 165 x 257 cm, destroyed during World War II. 2. Millet, The Gleaners, 1857, oil on canvas, 83.5 x 110 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. 3. Edgar Degas, Scene of War in Middle Ages, 1865, oil on canvas, 87 x 147 cm, Musée d’Orsay. 4. Degas, Scene from the Steeplechase: The Fallen Jockey, 1866, reworked 1880-1881 & c.1897, oil on canvas, 180 x 152 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. 5. The rue Le Péletier Opéra, 1873, engraving, Bibliothèque nationale de France. 6. Michel Manzi, Caricature of Degas as a Dancer, 1885, pencil and ink heightened with gouache and watercolour, 53 x 43.6 cm, private collection. 7. Edgar Degas, Two Dancers on a Stage, c. 1874, oil on canvas, 61 x 46 cm, The Courtauld Gallery, London. *8. Degas, The Orchestra at the Opera, c.1870, oil on canvas, 56.5 x 45 cm, Musée d’Orsay. 9. Degas, Ballet Rehearsal, 1873, oil on canvas, 45.8 x 61 cm, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University. *10. Degas, The Dance Class, 1874, oil on canvas, 83.5 x 77.2 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC. 11. Degas, Three Dancers in Yellow Skirts, c.1899, oil on canvas, 81.3 x 65.1 cm, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. 12. Degas, Préparation à la danse (front and rear view), c.1920, Bronze cast, 56.3 cm, The Courtauld.

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13. Degas, Three Ballet Dancers, c.1878, monotype, 20 x 41 cm, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. 14. Eadweard Muybridge, Woman Walking Downstairs, chronophotograph, published in Animal Locomotion, 1887. 15. Muybridge, The Horse in Motion, published in La Nature, 1878. 16. Muybridge, Zoöpraxiscope, c.1879, wood, photographic lens, metal, 58.8 x 27.5 x 143.5 cm, Kingston Museum and Heritage, UK. 17. Muybridge, First Ballet Action, chronophotograph, published in Animal Locomotion, 1887. 18. Étienne-Jules Marey, Chronophotographic Gun, 1882, Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris. 19. Marey, Chronophotographe Fixed-plate Camera, 1883, wood, photographic lens, metal, 57 x 54 x 35.5 cm, National Media Museum, Bradford, UK. 20. Marey, Birds in Flight, 1882, chronophotograph. 21. Marey, Flight of a Gull, 1887, bronze, 16.5 x 58.5 x 25.7 cm, Dépôt du Collège de France, Musée Marey, Beaune. 22. Marey, Study in Motion, chronophotograph, published in Station Physiologique: Locomotion humaine, 1886. 23. Thomas Eakins, The Wrestlers, 1899, oil on canvas, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 24. Eakins, The Wrestlers, c.1899, oil sketch and photograph. 25. François Sallé, The Anatomy Lesson at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1888, oil on canvas, 218 x 299cm, Art Gallery of NSW. *26. Thomas Eakins, A May Morning in the Park, 1879, oil on canvas, 60.3 x 91.8 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art. 27. Eakins, Study in Human Motion, 1880s, chronophotograph. 28. Eakins, Eakins’s Students at “The Swimming Hole”, Albumen print, 1884, Getty Museum, Los Angeles *29. Eakins, Swimming, 1884-5, oil on canvas, 70 x 92 cm, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas.

References: Martin Berger, Man Made: Thomas Eakins and the Construction of Gilded Age Manhood (Berkeley: University of California Press), 2000. Mar a raun, i tu ing Time : The Work of Etienne-Jules Marey, 1830-1904 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 1994. Jill DeVonyar and Richard Kendall, Degas and the Dance (New York: Harry N. Abrams), 2002. Jill DeVonyar and Richard Kendall, egas and the allet i tu ing o ement (London: Royal Academy of the Arts), 2011. Eadweard Muybridge, The Human Figure in Motion (New York: Dover Publications), 2012. Eadweard Muybridge, Animals in Motion (New York: Dover Publications), 2012. Linda Nochlin, Realism: Style and Civilization, (London & New York: Penguin Books), 1990. (Originally published in 1971.) Linda Nochlin, Courbet (London: Thames & Hudson), 2007. Amy Beth Werbel, Thomas Eakins: Art, Medicine, and Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia (New Haven: Yale University Press), 2007.

Images

Gustave Courbet, The Stonebreakers, 1849, oil on canvas, 165 x 257 cm, destroyed during World War II.

Edgar Degas, The Orchestra at the Opera, c.1870, oil on canvas, 56.5 x 45 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

Edgar Degas, The Dance Class, 1874, oil on canvas, 83.5 x 77.2 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC.

Thomas Eakins, A May Morning in the Park, 1879, oil on canvas, 60.3 x 91.8 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Thomas Eakins, Swimming, 1884-5, oil on canvas, 70 x 92 cm, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas.