Following in the methodological footsteps of his prize-winning Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Painter in Society, Richard Wendorf's new book on British art in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is an experiment in cultural history, combining the analysis of specific artistic objects with an exploration of the cultural conditions in which they were created. Themes include an investigation of what happens when a painter dies, the role of writing around and within visual objects, and the nature of evidence in art history. Extended interpretations of some of the most iconic images in British art, including Constable's Cenotaph, Raeburn's Skating Minister, Stubbs's Haymakers and Reapers, and Rossetti's Prosperpine, Venus Verticordia, and Blessed Damosel, are part of a broader investigation of the ways in which we practice art history today. Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

Though a Bostonian by birth and upbringing, Winslow Homer lived and maintained his studio in New York City for twenty-five years, establishing himself as a leading figure in New York's art world. In 1881, determined to broaden his status as a painter, Homer journeyed to Great Britain. During his trip, major changes appeared in nearly everything he did as a painter. The changes came so rapidly during his first months abroad that there can be little doubt that the crucial turning point occurred during his first weeks in London. After his return to New York in November of 1882 and during his later years in Maine, the sequence of major oil paintings that came from his brush owed much, in the most fundamental ways, to transformations that began in London. Tatham's book Winslow Homer in London: A New York Artist Abroad is the first to examine in detail this preeminent American painter's crucial weeks in London during his year and half in Great Britain. Tatham pres ents new information concerning Homer's time in the city, the centuries-old American associations of his London neighborhood, and his visits to London art institutions; he also considers in detail the artist's iconic painting The Houses of Parliament. Concluding chapters consider New York's reception of Homer's post-London paintings from the fishing village of Cullercoats and show how London and this village together formed the foundation for the major paintings of the artist's later career. Tatham's acute examination is enhanced with several illustrations of Homer's most celebrated paintings.

Focusing on the art of Henri Fantin-Latour (1836-1904) and his colleagues Gustave Courbet, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Frederic Bazille, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, "Fellow Men" argues for the importance of the group as a defining subject of nineteenth-century French painting. Through close readings of some of the most ambitious paintings of the realist and impressionist generation, Bridget Alsdorf offers new insights into how French painters understood the shifting boundaries of their social world, and reveals the fragile masculine bonds that made up the avant-garde.

A dedicated realist who veered between extremes of sociability and hermetic isolation, Fantin-Latour painted group dynamics over the course of two decades, from 1864 to 1885. This was a period of dramatic change in French history and art--events like the Paris Commune and the rise and fall of impressionism raised serious doubts about the power of collectivism in art and life. Fantin-Latour's monumental group portraits, and related works by his friends and colleagues from the 1850s through the 1880s, represent varied visions of collective identity and test the limits of association as both a social and an artistic pursuit. By examining the bonds and frictions that animated their social circles, Fantin-Latour and his cohorts developed a new pictorial language for the modern group: one of fragmentation, exclusion, and willful withdrawal into interior space that nonetheless presented individuality as radically relational."

She is famous throughout the world, but how many know her name? You can admire her figure in Washington, Paris, London, New York, Dresden or Copenhagen but where is her grave? She danced as a 'petit rat' at the Paris Opera. She was also a model, she posed for painters and sculptors - among them Edgar Degas. Taking us through the underbelly of the Belle Epoque, Laurens casts a light on those who have traditionally been overlooked in the study of art, and opens a space for essential questions. She paints a compelling portrait of Marie van Goethem and the world she inhabited, in the 1880s; a time when art unsettled the hypocrisy of society.

In this beautifully illustrated overview, Renee Worringer provides a clear and comprehensive account of the longevity, pragmatism, and flexibility of the Ottoman Empire in governing over vast territories and diverse peoples. A Short History of the Ottoman Empire uses clear headings, themes, text boxes, primary source translations, and maps to assist students in understanding the Empire's complex history.

From Hogarth to Reynolds, from Gainsborough to Turner, the great protagonists of English painting between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This is the first comprehensive overview of the extraordinary development of British painting during the eighteenth century, which anticipated themes, styles, and techniques that later became paradigms of modernity. This volume focuses on the English context at a time when the growth of artistic standing was accompanied by the country's conquest of hegemony on a historical, political, and economic plane. The volume is arranged chronologically in seven sections, which include a selection of over 100 masterpieces by the most significant English painters. The main objective is to enable readers to rediscover the genres of portrait and landscape, which have always characterized British art. Readers can admire the work of artists like William Hogarth, Henry Fuseli (Johann Heinrich Fussli), Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, Joseph Wright of Derby, George Stubbs, John Constable, and William Turner, who offer a completely original cross section of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century painting in Great Britain.

Written by Marilyn Martin, a former director of the South African National Gallery, Between Dreams and Realities is based on extensive research and experience. This book revisits important exhibitions, events and forgotten controversies; it highlights the achievements of directors, who often faced political agendas and strained relationships within and outside the institution. Between Dreams and Realities considers the aspirations and role of civil society in creating and maintaining a national institution for the common good.

Concurrently, the book examines long-standing government disinterest and neglect for the museum, and the difficulties that confronted directors in acquiring a collection worthy of its status. It also tells the story of excellent public cooperation and support, and of boards of trustees, directors and staff together overcoming the realities of budget cuts, government interference and severe space constraints. Between Dreams and Realities is a celebration of South Africa’s heritage and cultural wealth; it contributes to the fields of museum, heritage, cultural and curatorial studies, as well as visual and art history. It opens up the discourse and revives interest in public art museums in general and in the national art museum in particular, while offering perspectives on the future, and galvanising custodians and the public into action.

Brussels is well known for its wide variety of buildings in the Art Deco style, which were built in the aftermath of the Great War in the 1920s and 1930s. In this book, the authors have created seven walking (or biking) itineraries that explore Art Deco and modernist architecture in neighbourhoods throughout the city. Several key architects are profiled, and the historical context of the period is discussed, offering readers new insights into the living heritage that lines the streets of Brussels. Also available: Brussels Art Nouveau ISBN 9782390250456.

Published in conjunction with the second major exhibition The Museum of Modern Art is organizing for the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Van Gogh to Richter: People, Places and Things is an exploration of the myriad innovative ways modern artists have reinvented the traditional genres of portrait, still life and landscape from the 1880s to today. By looking closely at works in a range of media, the catalogue shows how these long-established categories have expanded and transformed from Post-Impressionism to Photorealism, reflecting changes in our conceptions of individuals, objects and spaces. The selection of works range from Frida Kahlo's confident selfrepresentation to Gerhard Richter's blurred likeness; from Paul Cezanne's iconic tabletop arrangements to Jeff Koons's commodified objects; from Vincent van Gogh's roiling olive trees to Richard Long's land art, each demonstrating how modernism's radical new forms have continuously revitalized art history's conventional subjects. An introductory text reflects on how these artists both inherit and reject the traditions of their adopted genres, and three essays provide close readings of a key portrait (Henri de Toulouse Lautrec's La Goulue at the Moulin Rouge), still-life (Paul Cezanne's Still Life with Ginger Jar, Sugar Bowl and Oranges), and landscape (Van Gogh's The Olive Trees) from the dawn of modernism, and expand to consider subsequent works.

Alexander Gardner is best known for his innovative photographic history of the Civil War. What is less known is the extent to which he was involved in the international workers’ rights movement. Tying Gardner’s photographic storytelling to his transatlantic reform activities, this book expands our understanding of Gardner’s career and the work of his studio in Washington, DC, by situating his photographic production within the era’s discourse on social and political reform. Drawing on previously unknown primary sources and original close readings, Makeda Best reveals how Gardner’s activism in Scotland and photography in the United States shared an ideological foundation. She reads his Photographic Sketch Book of the War as a politically motivated project, rooted in Gardner’s Chartist and Owenite beliefs, and illuminates how its treatment of slavery is primarily concerned with the harm that the institution posed to the United States’ reputation as a model democracy. Best shows how, in his portraiture, Gardner celebrated Northern labor communities and elevated white immigrant workers, despite the industrialization that degraded them. She concludes with a discussion of Gardner’s promotion of an American national infrastructure in which photographers and photography played an integral role. Original and compelling, this reconsideration of Gardner’s work expands the contribution of Civil War photography beyond the immediate narrative of the war to comprehend its relation to the vigorous international debates about democracy, industrialization, and the rights of citizens. Scholars working at the intersection of photography, cultural history, and social reform in the nineteenth century on both sides of the Atlantic will find Best’s work invaluable to their own research.

This transatlantic study analyses a missing chapter in the history of art collecting, the first art market bubble in the United States. In the decades following the Civil War, French art monopolized art collections across the United States. During this "Gilded Age picture rush," the commercial art system-art dealers, galleries, auction houses, exhibitions, museums, art journals, press coverage, art histories, and collection catalogues-established a strong foothold it has not relinquished to this day. In addition, a pervasive concern for improving aesthetics and providing the best contemporary art to educate the masses led to the formation not only of private art collections, but also of institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and to the publication of art histories. Richly informed by collectors' and art dealers' diaries, letters, stock books, journals, and hitherto neglected art histories, The New York Market for French Art in the Gilded Age, 1867-1893 offers a fresh perspective on this trailblazing era.

A fascinating guide to Van Gogh's itinerant life, with vibrant images and stories about the many places where he lived and worked This exciting publication familiarizes readers of all ages with the many fascinating facets of Vincent van Gogh (1853--1890)-artist, correspondent, traveler, and modern explorer of Europe's cities and countryside. Thanks to Van Gogh's wanderlust and the rapid expansion of the railway system in Europe in the late 19th century, Van Gogh covered thousands of miles in his lifetime. He lived and worked in more than twenty locations: from the peaceful countryside of the Netherlands and the south of France to the hustle and bustle of big cities such as London and Paris. Authors Nienke Denekamp and Rene van Blerk trace the artist's route across Europe "from Z to A," beginning in his birthplace of Zundert in the southern Netherlands and ending where he died, in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris. Each location is described with lively and accessible texts, comprehensive timelines, city and country maps, contemporary photographs, and related artworks by Van Gogh. Featuring an eye-catching design, captivating excerpts from Van Gogh's vast body of letters, and hundreds of color images, The Vincent van Gogh Atlas offers a truly unique version of the enduringly compelling story of Van Gogh and instills an appreciation of the many journeys-literal and figurative-that the artist made throughout his life.

As an artist, Edgar Degas (1834-1917) defies easy description. Allied with the French impressionists through his commitment to portraying modern life, he also took an independent course, preferring line over color and the visible brushstroke, and working in a studio instead of out-of-doors. He is perhaps best known as a painter, but his most widely known work is a sculpture, "Little Dancer Aged Fourteen." Executed in wax, near life-sized, dressed in a ballerina's tutu, with real ballet slippers and real hair, the sculpture caused a sensation when it was exhibited in 1881. It is the only sculpture Degas ever showed publicly, though more than one hundred--of dancers, horses, and bathers--were found in his studio after he died, all dusty, some fallen apart. For almost forty years after his death, these works were known only through the bronzes his heirs had cast from the originals.Then, in 1955, the waxes themselves appeared on the art market. Thanks to the discernment and generosity of Paul Mellon, the majority are now preserved at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, most on permanent display.

This groundbreaking volume honors this extraordinary gift by linking art and science. It brings together the insights of a distinguished art historian of nineteenth-century painting and sculpture and the specialized knowledge of National Gallery conservators and scientists who have published pioneering technical studies. Including essays on Degas' life and work, his sculptural technique and materials, and the story of the sculptures after his death, it features art-historical and technical discussions of every work in the collection as well as indispensable concordances and bibliography. The richly illustrated text is intended for both art lover and specialist. Was Degas the sculptor technically inept or unusually inventive? How do we understand his sculpture in light of his paintings, prints, and photographs? These questions and many others are explored with originality and depth, adding immeasurably to our understanding of the artistic avant-garde in the late nineteenth century and to our appreciation of this controversial artist.

Henri Dorra, in his comprehensive new book, presents the development and the aesthetic theories of the symbolist movement in art and literature. Included are writings (many never before translated or reprinted) by artists, designers, architects, and critics, along with Dorra's learned commentary. Fifty photographs of symbolist works complement his encyclopedic coverage. Dorra traces symbolism and its roots from artist to artist and critic to critic from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century. The decorative arts and architecture are examined as well as painting and sculpture. The Arts and Crafts movement, art nouveau, the work of Eiffel in France, and that of Sullivan in the United States are well represented. The close relations between symbolist poets and artists are reflected in the chapter on literary developments. Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, and Mallarme are here, but so, too, are writers less well known. A section on the post-impressionists and the "artists of the soul" rounds out Dorra's rich and varied text, and his Epilogue lays the groundwork for what was to follow symbolism. Here Dorra discusses, on the one hand, the new trend toward abstraction and the related development of formalist criticism and, on the other, the new stress on interplay between the tangible and the intangible, fact and dream, that eventually led to surrealism. Dorra beautifully integrates the different aesthetic branches of symbolism, the different media, and national variations, without ever losing sight of the whole. The historical context provided makes this a particularly appealing collection for students and scholars of art history and literature, as well as for anyone interested inthe evolution of symbolism.

Erika Szivos places the fine arts and their practitioners in the political, cultural, and social context of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. She investigates the influence of European patterns on the public role of the arts and the changing status of the artist in fin-de-si?cle Hungary.

Rare Merit is a beautifully illustrated and astute examination of women photographers in Canada as it took shape in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Throughout, the camera was both a witness to the colonialism, capitalism, and gendered and racialized social organization, and a protagonist. And women across the country, whether residents or visitors, captured people and places that were entirely new to the lens. This book shows how they did so, and the meaning their work carries.

Delacroix's Journal is one of the great documents in art history, a magnificent work of literature as well as vital documentary source for scholars and students. In it the artist discusses his own paintings, his life, his sorrow and hopes; the paintings and sculptures of Rubens, Michelangelo, Constable, Bonington and others: old and new literature and the music of Mozart, Rossini and Chopin, the events of his time.

Evelyn Waugh's first book: a portrait of one of the greatest artists of the nienteenth century, from one of the greatest writers of the twentieth 'Biography, as books about the dead are capriciously catalogued, is still very much in the mode' This is a sparkling account of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's tragic and mysterious life, telling the story behind some of the greatest poetry and painting of the nineteenth century. Shot through with charm and dry wit, and illuminated by his sense of kinship with the Pre-Raphaelite artist, Rossetti is at once a brilliant reevaluation of Rosetti's work and legacy, as well as a blast of defiance against the art establishment of Waugh's day. 'The youthful high spirits of the writing make this a true cultural delight' New Statesman 'To be celebrated with fireworks, bunting and marching bands' Country Life

Frederic Church, the acclaimed Hudson River School artist, first traveled to Maine in 1850. Over the next decades Church ventured repeatedly from his New York State home, Olana, to explore the Maine coast and its rocky islands. He also frequently trekked inland to visit Mount Katahdin. Maine provided sensational sunsets, robust waves crashing on rocky shores, and an abundance of wilderness well suited to Church's artistic vision.

Maine Sublime brings together all of the artwork in the Olana collection resulting from and inspired by Church s travels, from finished oil sketches that Church selected to mount, frame, and display at his home to pencil sketches and cartoons that he stored in portfolios. The subjects include such specific locations as Sunset Bar Harbor (1854) and works like Sunset (ca. 1852 65) and Twilight a Sketch (1858), which were inspired by dramatic Maine skies and are evocative of the region as a whole. Throughout his life, Church would continue to visit Maine, sketching, fishing, and hiking. In 1878 he bought land on Lake Millinocket with a view of Katahdin and built a simple cabin. After Church s marriage in 1860, his wife Isabel often joined his excursions to Maine. In a witty cartoon included in this catalog, Frederic and Isabel Church on Mount Desert Island, Church captures his wife s admiration of the scenery.

Maine Sublime accompanies an exhibit of Church s Maine artwork that will be displayed at the Portland Museum of Art (Portland, Maine) from June to September, 2012; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston from February to May 2013; and the Evelyn and Maurice Sharp Gallery at Olana (Hudson, New York) from July to October, 2013."

This collection reconsiders the life and work of Emile Jean-Horace Vernet (1789-1863), presenting him as a crucial figure for understanding the visual culture of modernity. The book includes work by senior and emerging scholars, showing that Vernet was a multifaceted artist who moved with ease across the thresholds of genre and media to cultivate an image of himself as the embodiment of modern France. In tune with his times, skilled at using modern technologies of visual reproduction to advance his reputation, Vernet appealed to patrons from across the political spectrum and made works that nineteenth-century audiences adored. Even Baudelaire, who reviled Vernet and his art and whose judgment has played a significant role in consigning Vernet to art-historical obscurity, acknowledged that the artist was the most complete representative of his age. For those with an interest in the intersection of art and modern media, politics, imperialism, and fashion, the essays in this volume offer a rich reward.

John Lockwood Kipling (1837-1911) started his career as an architectural sculptor at the South Kensington Museum (today the Victoria and Albert Museum). Much of his life, however, was spent in British India, where his son Rudyard was born. He taught at the Bombay School of Art and later was appointed principal of the new Mayo School of Art (today Pakistan's National College of Art and Design) as well as curator of its museum in Lahore. Over several years, Kipling toured the northern provinces of India, documenting the processes of local craftsmen, a cultural preservation project that provides a unique record of 19th-century Indian craft customs. This is the first book to explore the full spectrum of artistic, pedagogical, and archival achievements of this fascinating man of letters, demonstrating the sincerity of his work as an artist, teacher, administrator, and activist. Published in association with Bard Graduate Center Exhibition Schedule: Victoria and Albert Museum, London (01/14/17-04/02/17) Bard Graduate Center, New York (09/15/17-01/07/18)

A novel look at the relationship between Impressionist painting and photography and the forging of a national identity in France between 1850 and 1880 Between 1850 and 1880, Impressionist landscape painting and early forms of photography flourished within the arts in France. In the context of massive social and political change that also marked this era, painters and photographers composed competing visions of France as modern and industrialized or as rural and anti-modern. Impressionist France explores the resonances between landscape art and national identity as reflected in the paintings and photographs made during this period, examining and illustrating in particular the works of key artists such as Edouard Baldus, Gustave Le Gray, the Bisson Freres, Edouard Manet, Jean-Francois Millet, Claude Monet, Charles Negre, and Camille Pissarro. This ambitious premise focuses on the whole of France, exploring the relationship between landscape art and the notion of French nationhood across the country's varied and spectacular landscapes in seven geographical sections and four scholarly essays, which provide new information regarding the production and impact of French Impressionism. Distributed for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Saint Louis Museum of Art Exhibition Schedule: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (10/19/13-02/09/14) Saint Louis Art Museum (03/16/14-07/06/14)

This is the story of the Reeves Collection of botanical paintings, the result of one man's single-minded dedication to commissioning pictures and gathering plants for the Horticultural Society of London. Reeves went to China in 1812 and immediately on arrival started sending back snippets of information about manufactures, plants and poetry, goods, gods and tea to Sir Joseph Banks. Slightly later, he also started collecting for the Society but despite years of work collecting, labelling and packing plants and organising a team of Chinese artists until he left China in 1831, Reeves never enjoyed the same degree of recognition as other naturalists in China. This was possibly because he had a demanding job as a tea inspector. Reeves himself never claimed to be a professional naturalist and the plant collecting and painting supervision were undertaken in his own time. Furthermore, fan qui (foreign devils) were restricted to the port area of Canton and to Macau, so that plant-hunting expeditions further afield were impossible. Furthermore, Reeves never published an account of his life in the country, unlike Clarke Abel and Robert Fortune, but he left us some letters, notebooks, drawings and maps. The Collection is held at the Royal Horticultural Society's Lindley Library in Vincent Square, London. It is a magnificent achievement. Not only are the pictures accurate and richly coloured plant portraits of plants then unknown in the West, but they stand as a record of plants being cultivated in nineteenth-century Canton and Macau. In John Reeves: Pioneering Collector of Chinese Plants and Botanical Art, Kate Bailey reveals John Reeves' life as an East India Company tea inspector in nineteenth-century China and shows how he managed to collect and document thousands of Chinese natural history drawings, far more than anyone else at the time.