September Issue of the Art History Carnival

Welcome to the September 1, 2010 edition of the Art History Carnival.

I was so pleased to receive so many fantastic submissions for this issue - thank you to everyone for making this possible!

art history

Jason, author of Executed Today presents his post 1599: Beatrice Cenci and her family, for parricide which examines "the reciprocal social construction between a family tragedy, a Romantic legend, and a (misattributed) painting." You might also want to check out Jason's post on the rather gruesome death of Marco Antonio Bragadin 1571: Marco Antonio Bragadin, flayed Venetian, which shows how current events informed Venetian artwork.

H Niyazi presents Painted Into Immortality : Dante and Virgil on a Hellish Boat Ride, posted at Three Pipe Problem, saying "great works of Art or Literature often share a truly special feature - they tie together ideas, people and places spanning many eras and summate them in manner that not only makes them relevant for the audience it was created for, but resonates just as strongly through time." A beautiful and well-written post - be sure to check it out!


Hermes, author of Pre-Raphaelite Art, has has written a post on the Study for John William Waterhouse's Lady of Shalott that examines the artistic process.


Monica Bowen, author of the beautiful art history blog Alberti's Window,  presents a post correcting some misconceptions about ghiberti's north doors that have managed to make their way into art history textbooks. I'm always amazed at how many errors find their way into scholarly works.


Meredith Hale presents Art and Design in Glasgow and Edinburgh posted at Meredith Hale: Art and Inspiration. She notes that "this post is on art and architecture I had the pleasure of seeing in person in Glasgow and Edinburgh. It focuses on the works of Phoebe Anna Traquair and Charles Mackintosh." An interesting that introduces some less widely known artists like Phoebe Anna Traquair.


H Niyazi nominated Wired Art History posted at Art History Today, saying, "David Packwood's unique contemplation of Art History and cyberspace was a fascinating exploration of the way new technology is impacting on Art appreciation."   The author has a very different perspective on this issue than I do, so it was a particularly fascinating read for me. I hope many of you will take the time to read this post and weigh in!


Romeo Vitelli presents a journey through the tortured psyche of artist Edvard Munch in Curing Munch, posted at Providentia.

architecture

Joanne Capella presents a review of the documentary "My Architect", which chronicles the life of architect Louis Isadore Kahn posted at Design & Desire in the Twentieth Century

exhibits

Helen, author of Art and Architecture, Mainly, has written an in-depth review of the Stadel Museum's new exhibit:  European Masters: Städel Museum 19th - 20th Century, which will be on display until October 2010. 

Alexandra Korey presents Daniel Spoerri Sculpture Garden in Maremma, Tuscany | TuscanyArts posted at Tuscany Arts. This is a fabulous review includes photos, video and information about how to get around. If you plan on being in Tuscany, it looks like this is a must-see for art lovers!

H Niyazi nominated another post by Alexandra Korey, entitled Top 5 sculptures to see in the Bargello museum in Florence | TuscanyArts posted at Tuscany Arts, saying, "Based in Florence, Alexandra Korey provides valuable insights to art minded travellers to Tuscany and Florence!" Thank you for suggesting this post, Hasan.


That concludes this edition. I would  like to note that I chose not to include a number of wonderful submissions that were several months out of date. My sincere thanks to the authors that submitted them, but I would like to keep this carnival as up-to-date as possible. Thank you for understanding!

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The Art History Carnival Returns September 1st!

Earthly Paradise is announcing the return of the Art History Carnival! 

I will be hosting a Carnival of Art History on The Earthly Paradise on the first of each month, beginning September 1, 2010. You can submit articles for inclusion in the carnival until 48 hours before the issue comes out (in this case, August 30, 2010). 

What kind of blog articles will be included? 
Posts covering all periods and art mediums are welcome, as are posts discussing art criticism, architecture, design, theory and aesthetics. All submissions will be carefully reviewed. 

What is a Blog Carnival? 
According to Wikipedia, a blog carnival is "a type of blog event...similar to a magazine, in that it is dedicated to a particular topic, and is published on a regular schedule, often weekly or monthly. Each edition of a blog carnival is in the form of a blog article that contains permalinks links to other blog articles on the particular topic." 

Blog Carnivals are a great way to help your blog reach a new audience and to make new friends in the blogosphere! 

Who can submit? 
Anyone, as long as you have a blog! And If you don't blog, you can submit one of your friend's articles (except they better be good--I'll be reading them!). 

Can I host a carnival? 
Absolutely! Please let me know if you'd be interested in hosting the next issue of the carnival. 

How to submit articles
You have two options:

1. Send me an email. Include the title and permalink URL of the post you are nominating for inclusion in the carnival, along with the name of the blog. Please put "Art History Carnival" in the title of your email to help me recognize it in my inbox!

2. Use the submission form provided by Blog Carnival (this is probably the easiest!). 

One final thing to keep in mind: 
To keep things current, posts should have been written after the date of the last Carnival.

Thank you for your participation! Share the news if you know someone who likes to write about art!

Rare Millais Sketches Found in Led Zeppelin Record Sleeves

Former Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page is one of the world's best known collectors of Pre-Raphaelite art. But he nearly lost a handsome stash of sketches by John Everett Millais as the result of what appears to be an auction house mix-up. 

Apparently, four drawings by Millais were found tucked inside Led Zeppelin records that were due to be put up for auction. Interestingly, the records were actually owned by Rick Hobbs, who had worked for the band for a number of years. Originally, the auction house had believed that the sketches were a gift from Page to Hobbs, but the auction house was uncertain enough to withhold the items from the auction. 

Fortunately for art fans, the sketches have been well-preserved within the LP covers, and they are undamaged. Millais made the drawings in 1843 when he was just 14 years old and a student at the Royal Acadamy. Two of the sketches were inspired by the poetry of Robert Burns. One depicts a scene in Venice were a gondolier is singing to a lady from beneath a window, accompanied by a verse from Farewell Thou Stream "The music of thy voice I heard/Nor wist while it enslav'd me!/I saw thine eyes, yet nothing fear'd/Til fears no more had sav'd me!"

Amazing that the sketches remained hidden in those LP covers all these years!

Elbert Hubbard's Little Journeys

If you haven't already seen it, take a moment to visit Stephanie Pina's Lizzie Siddal blog to read Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers: Rossetti and Siddal. Stephanie found a 14 volume set of Elbert Hubbard's Little Journeys at a local bookshop and she's taken the time to transcribe and scan Hubbard's rendition of the story of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal. I had a wonderful time reading it - it's a charming and entertaining version of the story. I found Hubbard's non-judgmental approach to Rossetti quite refreshing (you could say he tries a little too hard to make excuses for him, but I think Rossetti has enough critics). The story can also be found in Volume 13 of Hubbard's Little Journeys, which is available on Project Gutenberg (along with a number of his other writings).

Those of you who are familiar with the Arts and Crafts movement in the United States will recognize Elbert Hubbard as one of the founders of the Roycrofters and the Roycroft Press. (His magazine, The Philistine, which was published by the Roycroft Press, is nearly as well known as the The Germ). Hubbard was heavily influenced by William Morris' philosophy of the Arts and Crafts movement, and the Roycroft community in East Aurora, New York, was probably the most ardent attempt to see Morris' socialist vision put into practice in the real world. His art colony may not have survived, but his writings remain available to readers as a window into his world.

"Useful and Beautiful" Conference at the University of Delaware Announced

The University of Delaware has announced a conference entitled "Useful and Beautiful: The Transatlantic Arts of William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites." The conference will run between October 7-9 at the University of Delaware, the Delaware Art Museum, and the Winterthur Museum. This sounds like such an exciting conference. Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend, but I hope that some readers will go and report back!

The conference, which has been organized together with the William Morris Society in the United States, will take feature rare books and manuscripts from the University's holdings, as well as fine and decorative arts from the Delaware Art Museum. The keynote speaker for the conference will be Fred Kaplan, Professor Emeritus of English at Queens College and the Graduate Centre of the City University of New York. His address will be held Thursday, October 7, at 4:30 p.m. in the Reserve Room of the Morris Library. Dr. Kaplan has written a number of biographies,including The Singular Mark Twain; Gore Vidal; Henry James: The Imagination of Genius; Charles Dickens; Thomas Carlyle(finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize); and, most recently,Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer. His lecture, entitled “Useful and Beautiful: Henry James and Mark Twain,” is sponsored by the University of Delaware Library Associates and associated with the exhibition, London Bound: American Writers in Britain, 1870–1916, at the University of Delaware Library.

In addition to the keynote address, there will be numerous sessions by internationally recognized scholars and specialists in Pre-Raphaelite Art, and a special performance of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest by the University of Delaware's critically acclaimed Resident Ensemble Players/Professional Theatre Training Program.

For more information, contact Mark Samuels Lasner, Senior Research Fellow, University of Delaware Library by email at: marksl@udel.edu, (302) 831-3250; or visit them on the web www.udel.edu/conferences/uandb

The conference is priced at $150 per person, and $75 for students. There is no charge for University of Delaware faculty, students and staff.

Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Arts

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." - Charles Darwin, The Origin of the Species

I ran across the website for Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Arts while doing a search to see what connections there might have been between Charles Darwin and the Pre-Raphaelites. I saw Creation, a very interesting film about Darwin a few weeks ago. The film starred Paul Bettany and I really enjoyed it. Very nicely done, in my opinion, though I know that many may have been disappointed by it. The film focused more on Darwin's relationship with his daughter than it did on science, but the movie captured the Victorian era so well, and I loved the Gothic way the story was told, so I would recommend it. At any rate, after seeing the film it occurred to me that Darwin was a contemporary of the Pre-Raphaelites, and I wondered what they had thought of them.

I always knew there was some disagreement between the Pre-Raphaelites and Darwin. Ruskin (who else?), was the most vocal critic I could find. He disliked Darwin because he felt his science robbed the world of wonder, mystery and beauty. He wrote frequently on the topic of natural selection (or rather, Ruskin's own highly amusing version of it). In response to Darwin's suggestion that "the final end of the whole flower....is the production of the seed" Ruskin argued that "the flower exists for its own sake...not for the fruit's sake." Oh well. There was no pleasing Ruskin - just ask Effie...

But what of the other Pre-Raphaelites?

One of the more direct artistic Pre-Raphaelite responses to Darwin's work that I could find was this painting by William Dyce, which was originally part of the "Endless Forms" exhibition. The picture features the artist's family gathering fossils in Pegwell Bay, near Kent. The painting, which is held today by the Tate Gallery, uses the tail of Donati's comet to cast an ominous and uncertain mood over the scene (the comet's tail is supposed to be "barely visible" in the center of the painting - I think it's one of the white spots near the top-middle area of the picture, but I can't be sure). Dyce was a devout Anglican, so the inclusion of the comet - which, conveniently, was not due to reappear for 2,000 years - is rich with symbolism.

Be sure to check out the virtual exhibition of "Endless Forms" online. It gives an interesting overview of artistic responses to Darwin, from early natural history drawings through to the Impressionists.

image courtesy Wikimedia

Botticelli and the Medici

I've been keeping busy over the last couple of days with Niall Ferguson's entertaining history of finance, The Ascent of Money. I've been meaning to read it for some time, and I've finally gotten around to it! (It's been easier to make time for reading, now that the World Cup is drawing to a close). Anyway, I'm having a grand old time - finance has always been one of my favourite subjects. And when art and finance intersect, all the better!

The first chapter of Ferguson's book is largely devoted to the financial machinations of the Medici. The Italian Renaissance was a time when art blossomed, thanks in a large part to the generous funding of wealthy patrons  like the Medici. The painting above, entitled "Adoration of the Magi" was commissioned by the Banker's Guild as a tribute to the Medici family. Ferguson notes that all three of the wise men are actually modeled on members of the Medici family. Cosimo the Elder is washing the feet of baby Jesus, while Piero (center, in red) and Giovanni (white) complete the trinity. Other family members featured in the picture are Lorenzo and Giuliano. Philosopher Pico della Mirandola (who was also patronized by Lorenzo de' Medici) is also pictured in the left foreground, wearing a dark robe and red hat. And if you ever wondered what the painter looked like, the young blond man to the far right is actually Botticelli. The painting really is a "who's who" of the Italian Renaissance.

The Medici were certainly trumpeting their success with this painting, though I should note that Cosimo, Piero and Giovanni (the three kings in the picture), were all deceased at the time the work was produced. That did not stop Lorenzo the Magnificent from getting in on it, though. Ferguson says that Lorenzo appears in the painting in a pale blue robe, though I've noticed others online that seem to think he's posing with the sword (which seems unlikely to me). I saw one posting that flags the man in black as Lorenzo, which makes the most sense to me. He's centrally located within the painting, but not too obvious...if I was a wealthy patron, that's where I'd put myself! Anyway, it certainly looks the most like Lorenzo...does anyone know for sure? I have been trying to find a more authoritative source, but so far, no luck.

So I'm doing a poll (unless any readers can offer a definitive ID). Where's Lorenzo? (you can click on the picture above to take a larger look)

Here's a head shot of Lorenzo, for comparison:

Let the debate begin!