Eighteenth-century Painting Research Articles

K. Dian Kriz. Review of "Picturing Imperial Power: Colonial Subjects in Eighteenth-Century Painting" by Beth Fowkes Tobin.

K. Dian Kriz. Review of "Picturing Imperial Power: Colonial Subjects in Eighteenth-Century Painting" by Beth Fowkes Tobin.

French eighteenth-century painting techniques

Recent conservation treatment of several eighteenth-century French paintings at the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art allowed the authors to examine French painting techniques from this period more closely. The paintings proved to have unexpectedly complex layer structures that were revealed initially in the examination of paint cross-sections. Thin, non-pigmented, fluorescent layers were found isolating double grounds and paint layers. Polarized light microscopy and fluorescing stains were helpful in determining the nature of some of these layers. Additional examination using Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR) and gas-chromatography/massspectrometry (GC-MS) identified the media used by the artists. Energy dispersive X-ray microanalysis (SEM-EDX), electron-probe microanalysis and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) identified the pigments in the multiple paint layers. These findings are discussed in connection with relevant seventeenth- and eighteenth-century lectures and treatises.

Some Penetrating Insights

Clyster syringes, used to administer enemas, appear with considerable frequency in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century painting and caricature, where they support an unmistakable scatological context.1 Artists at this time were especially responsive to the satirical possibilities inherent in Louis XIV's passion for enemas, as a particularly explicit political cartoon by Romeyn de Hooghe shows (fig. 1). The scene depicts the French roi de soleil, identified by a sun-burst on his head, sitting atop a terrestrial globe, impaled upon a large clyster syringe. Lacking the necessary commode, the contents of the royal bowel, successfully loosened by the procedure, spill over the world. Holland seems to get the worst of it, with various German cities (Heidelberg, Offenburg, etc.) also receiving the exalted anal effluvia. The background of the scene alludes to the chaotic events of the year 1674 (the date inscribed on the clyster syringe), as rampaging Protestants burn and pillage the landscape. A representative of Spain, allied with France, appears at the left, seated upon a unicorn with ass's ears. In the eyes of a Dutch satirist, the military, religious, and territorial policies of Louis XIV, embodied in the enema syringe and the incontinence resulting from its use, have befouled the earth.

Towards improved infrared reflectograms

This contribution attempts a better understanding and, where possible, an optimization of the components in the ‘image chain’ of infrared reflectography. It aims to protect the object against radiation in excess of that required for image acquisition, to reveal more of the underdrawing than does the conventional procedure, and to increase the image quality of both the single reflectograms and the assembled mosaic. The automatic acquisition uses a positioning system in which the camera is moved while the object remains stationary. ProcessIng and automatic mosaicing of the digitized reflectograms are done on a computer workstation. The results are demonstrated on a late eighteenth-century painting by J. G. von Dillis.

LEVER AND THE COLLECTING OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH PAINTINGS

Numerically, eighteenth-century British paintings were among the most important elements of Lever's collections. He favoured those artists made popular by the Georgian revival of his day, above all Reynolds, Gainsborough, Romney, Hoppner, Wilson and Morland. A key mentor's role was played by James Orrock, but in the long-term his influence created many difficulties and tensions. Lever was seldom concerned simply with artistic quality and tended to be preoccupied by considerations of value for money and the works’ decorative properties. His natural taste for and curiosity about eighteenth-century painting were limited

Where the Two Worlds Meet: the Great Lakes Fur Trade

Inspired by an exhibit of artifacts from the fur trade of the 1700s, this fascinating and attractive catalog includes a history of the fur trade and essays on various aspects of the early cross-cultural contacts between Indians and whites. Photos of tools, clothing, and trade items shown in the exhibit are accompanied by beautiful reproductions of eighteenth-century paintings and drawings, some in color.

The Golden Age of Naples: Art and Civilization under the Bourbons 1734–1805

Since the first exhibition in the United States of Italian eighteenth-century painting held almost exactly a decade ago (1970–71 in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Toledo), the period and country have been the focus of numerous scholarly presentations concentrating on various specific schools. The art of Naples was recently magnificently celebrated in America at The Detroit Institute of Arts (August 11–November 1, 1981) and at the Art Institute of Chicago (December 24, 1981–March 8, 1982). The exhibition first opened at the Capodimonte Museum in Naples, where the vast resources of the local churches, museums, and private collections contributed to an almost overwhelmingly rich display. Careful selections were made for travel to the United States (delayed by the tragic earthquake in Campania in the fall of 1980), where they were augmented by additional works. Although it, understandably, did not have the depth of its counterpart in Naples, the American version was a well-rounded presentation of all aspects of the visual arts during the rule of the Bourbon kings.

The Native American Image in Western Europe

Beginning soon after the discovery of the New World by Europeans, and for the next three hundred years, the allegorical symbol of the Americas in European art was the figure of an female wearing a feathered crown and skirt.1 Although the features and anatomical characteristics of thus represented, were European, the fact that an attempt was made to show a American is significant, for it indicates the fascination which American Indians had for Europeans. During the period of exploration and colonization of the two continents, the invaders, in addition to their descriptions of the geographic features and exotic flora and fauna, sent back highly colored descriptions of the appearance and life styles of the natives, whose leaders they usually termed kings and queens. When possible, actual specimens of this new form of humanity were persuaded or coerced into returning to the courts of Europe, where they exhibited their native dress, dances, and games for delighted crowds, and these visits were recorded in sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth century paintings. Today, in most parts of North, Central, and South America a new, largely European-derived, culture has replaced the variety of native cultures encountered by the early Spanish, Portugese, French, English, Swedish, Dutch, and other European discoverers. In most parts of North America, north of Mexico, it is a European physical type which one sees on the streets and in passing vehicles. Even in those states with the highest Native American populations, like Oklahoma, where I live and teach, or South Dakota, where I was born and grew up, most non-Indians are serenely unaware of the American Indian background of the state in which they live, or what the lives of the Native Americans who live there might be like. On one occasion a fellow professor at Oklahoma State University commented to me If it weren't for you continually talking about them, I wouldn't think of American Indians from one year to the next. Other professors and their wives, though perhaps not quite so in the dark as this man, still show a pathetic naivete toward Indians. But what of today's Europeans, the modern descendants of those people who explored, exploited, and colonized the Americas? What, if anything, remains of

The Native American Image in Western Europe

Beginning soon after the discovery of the New World by Europeans, and for the next three hundred years, the allegorical symbol of the Americas in European art was the figure of an female wearing a feathered crown and skirt.1 Although the features and anatomical characteristics of thus represented, were European, the fact that an attempt was made to show a American is significant, for it indicates the fascination which American Indians had for Europeans. During the period of exploration and colonization of the two continents, the invaders, in addition to their descriptions of the geographic features and exotic flora and fauna, sent back highly colored descriptions of the appearance and life styles of the natives, whose leaders they usually termed kings and queens. When possible, actual specimens of this new form of humanity were persuaded or coerced into returning to the courts of Europe, where they exhibited their native dress, dances, and games for delighted crowds, and these visits were recorded in sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth century paintings. Today, in most parts of North, Central, and South America a new, largely European-derived, culture has replaced the variety of native cultures encountered by the early Spanish, Portugese, French, English, Swedish, Dutch, and other European discoverers. In most parts of North America, north of Mexico, it is a European physical type which one sees on the streets and in passing vehicles. Even in those states with the highest Native American populations, like Oklahoma, where I live and teach, or South Dakota, where I was born and grew up, most non-Indians are serenely unaware of the American Indian background of the state in which they live, or what the lives of the Native Americans who live there might be like. On one occasion a fellow professor at Oklahoma State University commented to me If it weren't for you continually talking about them, I wouldn't think of American Indians from one year to the next. Other professors and their wives, though perhaps not quite so in the dark as this man, still show a pathetic naivete toward Indians. But what of today's Europeans, the modern descendants of those people who explored, exploited, and colonized the Americas? What, if anything, remains of

Notes on Public Art Museums

The new Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, opened on October 4, giving this lively city its third art museum (the other two, the Fort Worth Art Center Museum and the Anion G. Carter Museum of Western Art are adjacent). Kay Kimbell, who amassed a fortune—not in oil, but in grain, food processing and merchandising—had started collecting English eighteenth-century painting in the 1930's, but over the years, partly through the advice of the New York dealers. Bertram Newhouse and sons, Clyde and Ross, his collecting had broadened to include many fine examples of later European Renassance, French nineteenth century and American nineteenth century art. As the pictures outgrew the walls of the Kimbell home, loans were made to leading regional institutions of the Gainsboroughs, Corots, Van Dycks and Innesses and the collection became well known in the Southwest.