Gallery Paintings Research Articles

Rethinking Delaroche/Recovering Leighton

W ehen I first saw it a little more than a decade ago, Frederic Leighton's Lachrymae (c. 1895; fig. 1) was hanging in the remotest and most dimly lit room in the Metropolitan Museum's nineteenth-century painting galleries.1 This compelling meditation on the nature of death and loss belongs among Leighton's final, and most extreme, explorations of the possibilities and limits of the painted surface. Yet, in accordance with art-historical orthodoxy, the museum positioned it quite literally at the margins of the canon, in a dingy Fifth Avenue salon des refuses from where one could only distantly hear the excited buzz of visitors clustered around works of Monet and Pissarro.

Defining Militancy: Radical Protest, the Constitutional Idiom, and Women's Suffrage in Britain, 1908–1909

May some definition be given of the word “militant”? (Chelsea delegate Cicely Hamilton)Scholarship on the women's suffrage movement in Britain has reached a curious juncture. No longer content to chronicle the activities or document the contributions of single organizations, historians have begun to analyze the movement's strategies of self-advertisement and to disentangle its racial, imperial, and gendered ideologies. Perhaps the most striking development in recent scholarship on suffrage, however, has been the proliferating discourse on militancy among literary critics, a development with which few historians have engaged. Yet, while militancy has spawned a veritable subfield in literary studies, continually generating new articles and books, these accounts portray the phenomenon in similarly reductive terms. After 1903 the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), under the leadership of Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, revitalized a genteel and moribund women's suffrage movement. The WSPU introduced the use of militancy, first interrupting Liberal Party meetings and heckling political speakers, then moving to the use of street theater, such as large-scale demonstrations, and ultimately to the destruction of government and private property, including smashing windows, slashing paintings in public galleries, and setting fire to buildings and pillar-boxes. Once the Liberal government introduced forcible feeding as an antidote to the suffragette hunger strike, militants created a visual activism, dependent upon the exhibition of women's tortured bodies as spectacle. By this account, the activities of the WSPU became exemplary of what critic Barbara Green has called “performative activism” and “visibility politics” in early twentieth-century feminist praxis, creating “almost entirely feminine communities where women celebrated, suffered, spoke with, and wrote for other women,” and that “allowed women to put themselves on display for other women.”

Donato Creti: Melancholy and Perfection

Reviewed by: Donato Creti: Melancholy and Perfection Jeffrey Collins Donato Creti: Melancholy and Perfection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 27 October 1998–31 January 1999; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 12 February 1999–12 April 1999. Catalog: Edited by Eugenio Riccòmini and Carla Bernardini in cooperation with Keith Christiansen. Milan: Edizioni Olivares, 1998. Pp. 96. $19.95 paper. [fig. 1] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Donaldo Creti, Girl Meditating. Bologna, Musei Civici d’Arte Antica. Photo Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. It is uncommon for American museums to mount exhibitions of eighteenth-century Italian artists; apart from a handful of Venetians and Romans like Tiepolo, Guardi, Batoni, or Piranesi, few command sufficient recognition to draw large audiences. It is even rarer for major institutions like the Metropolitan and the Los Angeles County Museums of Art to devote monographic shows to figures like Donato Creti (1671–1749), an Emilian painter little known except to specialists and whose work is nearly impossible to study outside his native Bologna. Donato Creti: Melancholy and Perfection was thus a historic event, which offered the American public an unprecedented introduction to this neglected master. It was also a model of intelligent exhibition practice that will, together with a superb accompanying catalog, put Creti back on the map for scholars of eighteenth-century European culture. The organizers’ task was not an easy one, since Creti’s art contradicts what we normally admire about the eighteenth century. Perfection, after all, seems less progressive than informality, personal expression, and spontaneity. Unlike his better-known contemporary Giuseppe Maria Crespi, Creti drew inspiration not from everyday life but from the great Bolognese tradition of the Carracci and their followers from Reni to Albani to Cantarini. Creti was perhaps the last representative of an idealizing art based on purity, order, balance, and harmony. His accomplishment was to make these qualities seem logical and believable in lush, graceful, painterly compositions that hover between formal abstraction and naturalistic observation. Yet, in one of history’s paradoxes, Creti’s aesthetic poise belies his personal desperation. By the artist’s own account he was melancholic and depressive, plagued by illness, insomnia, and delirium throughout his adult life. Far from becoming a romantic expressionist like Salvator Rosa, Fuseli, or Goya, the long-suffering Creti seems to have sought and found peace in his ultraclassicizing art. Nonetheless—as the exhibition’s title suggests—the artist’s elegant restraint conceals an undercurrent of enigma, a “sad and sinister melancholic” (to quote his friend and biographer Giampietro Zanotti) that humanizes Creti and makes him so visually compelling. Faced with how best to bring out these complex features of Creti’s art, the curators wisely limited the show to the key corpus of sixteen works Creti painted for his most [End Page 571] important patron, Marcantonio Collina Sbaraglia, between ca. 1714 and 1722. Although their original setting and purpose is not entirely clear, these paintings form a coherent group and may have been meant to hang together in public; Sbaraglia bequeathed them to the city in 1744 and they have remained in Bologna’s Palazzo Pubblico. This unity structured the Metropolitan’s installation of the exhibition in a single luminous room off the European painting galleries. Unlike the neighboring blockbuster devoted to Ferrarese court painter Dosso Dossi, whose sixty works offered a standard chronological cursus complete with area labels, dividing screens, and comparative material, Creti’s pictures were hung symmetrically with the precision of a snowflake. Although it meant splitting the set’s constituent groups—four Virtues on copper tondi, four scenes from the life of Achilles, six monochrome figural overdoors, and two larger canvases of Mercury, Paris, and Juno mounted like twin altarpieces on the far wall—this strategy helped recreate a palazzo setting and highlighted the symbolic and formal correspondences. Most visitors remarked on the unusual installation and stopped to ponder the cycle at length. Pale lemon-yellow walls with warm grey moldings brought out the abstract qualities of Creti’s strong local colors while enhancing the pervasive calm. Minimalist labels, too, avoided dates and interpretations in favor of basic identifications and references to Creti’s artistic models. It was the...

Maxwell River Archaeological Survey 1986

SUMMARYIn January 1986, Aboriginal cave paintings were discovered in the remote valley of the Maxwell River. It is the most spectacular gallery of cave paintings known in Tasmania and the first to be found in western Tasmania. The art is highly significant even though its age is presently unknown.In addition, five occupation sites were also discovered, one of which probably contains an occupation deposit that is the first of its kind to be discovered in Tasmania.

Articles and Publications

ARTICLES AND PUBLICATIONS Prepared by Barbara L. Curtis 631 Walnut Lane, Haverford,PA 19041 Michael P. Graves, chairman ofthe division ofcommunication and literature at George.Fox College, Newberg, Oregon, has published "Functions of Key Metaphors in Early Quaker Sermons, 16711700 " in the QuarterlyJournal ofSpeech, v. 69 (1983), p. 364-378. According to Professor Graves, much of the material for the article was obtained in the Quaker Collection at Haverford College and the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College. Jessica Kross has recently had a book published by Temple University Press entitled The Evolution of an American Town: Newtown, New York, 1642-1795. The book contains a considerable body of material relating to Quakers in Newtown which is located not far from Flushing, on Long Island. Thomas C. Kennedy's article "Southland College: the Society of Friends and Black Education in Arkansas" appeared in the summer 1983 issue ofthe Arkansas Historical Quarterly, pp. 207-238. Charles Fager of Kimo Press, P.O. Box 1361, Falls Church, VA 22041, has published Quakers and King Philip's War, 1671-1676. The story ofthis bloody conflict with Indians in New England is told from an empathetic Quaker perspective. From the same source and recently presented to the National Gallery in Washington, experience and survival ofa Quaker family during the Irish Rebellion of 1798. It is entitled Divine Protection Through Extraordinary Dangers Experienced . . . during the Irish Rebellion of 1 798, and was written by the Irish Quaker Dinah W. Goff (1784-1858). Haverford College has marked the 150th anniversary of its founding as a Quaker institution ofhigher learning by publishing a history of the college entitled The Spirit and the Intellect: Haverford College , 1833-1983. Gregory Kannerstein served as editor ofthe publication , copies ofwhich may be obtained from the Haverford College Bookstore, Haverford, PA 19041, at $20.00 for the hard cover, and $12.00 for the soft cover, plus postage, handling and tax where applicable. 59 60Quaker History Peter van den Düngen, School ofPeace Studies at the University of Bradford, England, has recently prepared a valuable and informative introduction to a newly published reprint of William Penn's classic An Essay Towards the Present and Future Peace ofEurope. Georg Olm's Verlag of Hildesheim, Zurich, and New York, has done the facsimile reprint under the aegis of the United Nations Library at Geneva. The copy used for reproduction was made available through Friends Reference Library, London. Four paintings by Edward Hicks have been reproduced in a publication ofthe National Gallery of Art entitled American Naive Paintings . These paintings are part ofa substantial gift ofnon-professional art works collected by Edgar W and Bernice C. Garbisch since 1944 and recently presented to the National Gallery in Washington. The University of Pennsylvania Press has recently published a Guide to Women 's History Resources in the Delaware Valley Area edited by Trina Vaux. There is considerable information for Quaker historians in this work which is a product ofthe Mayor's Commission for Women ofthe City of Philadelphia. Shirley Neff and Carole McGlumpy's "Abraham Tyson—His Roots and Branches" is a narrative account with genealogical detail of the Quaker Tyson family of Abington township, near Philadelphia. It appeared in the Old York Road Historical Society Bulletin, v. 41 (1981) pp. 7-12. Two British publications of historical interest are Corder Catchpool , by Alex Bryan, and My Ancestors Were Quakers—How Can I Find Out More About Them, by E. H. Milligan and M. J. Thomas. Bryant's account ofCatchpool appeared under the imprint of Quaker Home Service, London. Milligan and Thomas, both associated with the Friends Reference Library, Friends House, London, published their work under the imprint of the Society of Genealogists in London. Thomas E. Terrell, Jr. of the University of North Carolina has published an article in Early American Literature, v. 18 (1983) entitled "Some Holsom Exhortation!: Henry White's SeventeenthCentury Southern Religious Narrative in Verse." White was a Quaker who lived in the Albermarle region ofVirginia. George S. Snyderman, retired Supervisor of Counseling Services for the Pennsylvania State Employment Service, has an article in the Proceedings ofthe American Philosophical Society, v. 127, no. 4, Articles And Publications6 1 1983 entitled "Witches, Witchcraft and...

Notes from the Prado

Forty years ago I made my first visit to the Prado. Like Harold Bruder, I was deeply impressed and at times overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by a gallery of paintings that Mr. Bruder dismisses with the phrase “The El Grecos … are just too raw for me.” Has taste changed? Or was it my youthful enthusiasm? Readers will have their own opinions of the relative merits of the great Spanish painters, but they will doubtless enjoy sharing vicariously in Mr. Bruder's enthusiasms.—Ed.The galleries of the Prado seem to spread out in all directions, with hidden stairways and large senselessly numbered rooms. At various times of the day the sun chooses to reward favorite paintings with a radiant glow and then will indifferently blacken out or reflect upon surfaces to make whole rooms invisible. One learns to anticipate its movement in the sky. In October the early Flemish paintings were best seen at noon—Velázquez in the early morning. It's like playing a game with illumination as the great paintings magically reveal themselves in this fluctuating light. I had been warned that the Prado would be bleak in the Fall, totally in darkness. This was not so. The light was cool and clear, but almost human in its inconsistent behavior.

From specimens, curiosities and illustrations to representatives of the history of art

-investigating the role of painting in the display context of the eighteenth century Copenhagen Kunstkammer.Paintings and fine art in general have always formed a part of the royal collections in Denmark, but they have not always been perceived in the same way or venerated for the same reasons. This is particularly true of the eighteenth century Kunstkammer where paintings formed an integral part of the encyclopaedic display in the first half of the century, only to be segregated gradually during the second half in order to be placed in the first of a series of specialized galleries of paintings. Two versions of the royal gallery of paintings were installed in the first decades of the nineteenth century; the latter was based on an art historical approach. Most of the paintings in the Kunstkammer survived the transformation from illustrations to fine art, whereas others where deemed unfit candidates for the great survey history of art.

THE NARGORKUN‐NARLINJI CULT

is scattered over an area of 30 x 10 miles and deals with an inseparable mixture of primitive religion - myths, rites, moral codes, tribal laws and rock art, the selection of a title was difficult, brief titles based on location or on subject matter seemed inadequate. And though the term cult/' used in the title, may prove to be not fully justified by some definitions, it is convenient. The following aspects of the subject are covered : (1) The enactment of the annual Sickness Ceremony and Bone-Offering Rite ; hence the name Sickness Dreaming Place. (2) The seclusion and training of adolescents - hence the names Bulla:luk (youth-place) in the Djuaun language and black-fella high school in pidgin English. (3) Myth and home of the Creator of Earth and People. (4) Location of painting galleries with several hundred figures that portray : (a) The Creator in his many shapes.

A remarkable gallery of cave paintings in eastern New South Wales

The rock shelter containing this extraordinarily fine set of drawings and stencils is situated in the Hawkesbury district on Crown land. Because of the need to protect the gallery from vandals its precise locality cannot be disclosed. For this reason, also, the Cumberland County Council has erected a thick wire screen across the entire front of the shelter. The shelter forms part of the vertical face, about 8 ft. high, of an extensive sandstone rock surface which runs across the base of a marsh. A dozen potholes, 3 ft. to 4 ft. in diameter and up to 2 ft. deep, have been formed in the bed of the main flow of water, which runs in rainy weather and is usually seeping over the rock. Beside some of these pools are, in all, several dozen axe-grinding grooves.

Spenser's Treatment of Myth

Spenser's treatment of classical mythology has been generally praised, The Faerie Queene being viewed, in Douglas Bush's phrase, as an endless gallery of mythological paintings. When Spenser, in rendering the myth of Leda and the swan, refers to the wondrous skill, and sweet wit of the man, / That her in daffadillies sleeping made, we rightly turn the praise to himself as he writes: she slept, yet twixt her eyelids closely spyde, / How towards her he rusht, and smiled at his pryde. But such praise limits our awareness of Spenser's treatment of myth to our enjoying the elocutio of his art. Spenser is the English Ovid, but in a more profound way than we have allowed. In the Renaissance the classical poets themselves are praised rather for their fiction than their ornament, as Homer is extolled by Chapman for his naked Ulysses, clad in eternall Fiction. 1 That the Fable and Fiction is (as it were) the form and Soule of any Poeticall worke is the central doctrine of Renaissance criticism by which writings are praised according as they are full of rare invention.' 2 Therefore the greatest demands are made upon the mythopoeic powers of the poet that he invent his own fiction or mythology. In fulfilling these demands, Spenser so entirely recreates classical mythology, rendering it his own, that it belongs to the invention of his poem. My purpose in this paper is to show how Spenser's treatment of classical mythology helps our understanding the allegory of The Faerie Queene. Briefly, I shall illustrate four kinds of treatment. In Book I where he imitates Holy Scripture, his treatment is episodic, and provides a point-counterpoint analogy between classical and Christian statements of man's fall and restoration.

Gallery of Western Paintings

Gallery of Western Paintings

New Painting Galleries

New Painting Galleries

The Rearrangement of the Painting Galleries

The Rearrangement of the Painting Galleries

The Walter H. Schulze Memorial Gallery of Paintings

The Walter H. Schulze Memorial Gallery of Paintings

The Marianne North Gallery of Paintings of “Plants and their Homes,” Royal Gardens, Kew

MANY readers of NATURE are doubtless aware that the large collection of beautiful and instructive pictures of flowers painted in various countries by Miss Marianne North, is now, through the noble generosity of this lady, the property of the nation. The collection is in a handsome building specially erected in Kew Gardens for the purpose, at Miss North's expense, and from designs given by Mr. James Ferguson, F.R.S. Last week the gallery was opened without any ceremony whatever, and henceforward it will be open and free to the public at the same times and hours as the museums and other buildings in the Gardens.

XXXVIII.—On the action of light upon sulphide of lead, and its bearing upon the preservation of paintings in picture galleries

XXXVIII.—On the action of light upon sulphide of lead, and its bearing upon the preservation of paintings in picture galleries