Crisis and Resolution in Vuillard’s Search for Art Nouveau Unity in Modern Decoration: Sources for ‘The Public Gardens ’ (original) (raw)

The use of Japanese print in Monet's and Van Gogh's work

The middle class of the 19 th century, after experiencing the deepest level of the expansive capitalist reformation, reasserted its dominant role in the ongoing social, political and cultural evolution. During the same century, the reformation of capitalism meant the spring of socialism, the immigration, the formation of new nations and national identities and, more importantly, the formation of an all-powerful middle class, due to the expansive phenomenon of urbanization. The advantages of this will mean the development of Parliamentarianism in the larger part of Europe, the redefinition of human liberties and rights, the free market, the decline of religion and the rise of science and technology. At the same time, the European nations and the countries of the New World will engage in a bitter competition and rivalry in spreading their influence around the world, by taking advantage of their scientific and technological advances. At the same time, the disadvantages will be many. The new unbalances in the political and social field will not keep pace with the ongoing changes and not everybody will benefit from capitalism. As a result, social injustice, poverty, prostitution and social struggle will become the main sources of an artistic and intellectual movement in Europe with no antecedent.

A French Nineteenth-Century Painting in the Lantern Slide Collection of the Freer Gallery of Art

RIHA Journal, 2024

Starting from the presence of a painting by Aimé Morot among the slide collection of Charles Lang Freer, a collection otherwise devoted to modern American painters and Asian art, the essay traces back the origin of this slide to the collection of Ernest Fenollosa and untangles the documentation on how his slides found their home in the Freer Archives in Washington, D.C. Fenollosa's use of this slide to juxtapose ancient Japanese art and modern French painting is a starting point for reflecting on the role that the presence-or absence-of images played in printed texts as opposed to lectures, and how that in turn fueled the tendency towards stylistic comparisons. Lastly, the position of lantern slides as a tool that was once indispensable to art history, and now, in the digital era, becomes a historical and material object to be studied as such, allows us to reflect on one of the many epistemological shifts that we face as art historians.

Decorative Painting and Politics in France, 1890-1914

2014

benefit to me, especially in the final stages-as were his careful and generous (re)readings of the text. Susan Siegfried and Michèle Hannoosh were also early mentors, first offering inspiring coursework and then, as committee members, advice and comments at key stages. Their feedback was such that I always wished I had solicited more, along with Michèle's tea. Josh Cole's seminar gave me a window not only into nineteenth-century France but also into the practice of history, and his kind yet rigorous comments on the dissertation are a model I hope to emulate. Betsy Sears has also been an important source of advice and encouragement. The research and writing of this dissertation was funded by fellowships and grants from the Georges Lurcy Foundation, the Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan, the Mellon Foundation, and the Getty Research Institute, as well as a Susan Lipschutz Award. My research was also made possible by the staffs at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Institut nationale d'Histoire de l'Art, the Getty Research Library, the Musée des arts décoratifs/Musée de la Publicité, and the Musée Maurice Denis, iii among other institutions. Special thanks go to a number of individuals who provided particular assistance. I would like to express my gratitude to the late Françoise Cachin for allowing me access to the Signac Archives and to Marina Ferretti-Bocquillon for devoting her time to those archival visits and to subsequent questions and requests, as well as to Charlotte Liébert Hellman for related permission requests. At the Musée Maurice Denis, Marie El Caïdi could not have been more welcoming and informative, while Fabienne Stahl, working nearby on the artist's catalogue raisonnée, has been generous both with information and images. Others I would like to thank for research assistance are Michèle Jasnin and Virginie Vignon at the Musée de la Publicité, Anne-Marie Sauvage at the BN's Département des estampes et de la photographie, as well as Laurence Camous and François-Bernard Michel. I would also like to take the opportunity to highlight three professional opportunities that played a particularly strong role in furthering my reflection, and the people who made those opportunities possible. New Directions in Neo-Impressionism, organized by Tania Woloshyn and Anthea Callen at Richmond, the American International University in London on November 20, 2010 led to an issue of the same name in RIHA Journal, edited by Woloshyn and Anne Dymond. Their feedback on my submission, along with that of Robyn Roslak was instrumental in shaping the core of chapter three (which also benefitted from editing by Regina Wenninger). Having welcomed my attendance at sessions of her graduate seminar, Ségolène Le Men kindly invited me to contribute to a stimulating Journée d'étude (Jules Chéret, un pionnier à la iv croisée de l'art décoratif et de l'affiche) at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs on October 20, 2010, she co-organized with Réjane Bargiel in conjunction with the museum's exhibition of the artist's work. This experience, as well as the exhibition itself and its catalog/catalogue raisonnée, helped me to define the argument(s) of chapter two. It also led to many fruitful discussions on posters and other subjects with Karen Carter. Chapter two has also benefitted from thinking and research prompted by my contribution to a forthcoming volume edited by Anca I.

The prints of Jacques Villon. Vol 1. Interpretation works

Jacques Villon (1875-1963 real name Gaston Émile Duchamp) was perhaps the most underappreciated painter of the masters of the School of Paris and also of the twentieth century. The present work is the first instalment of the author's hommage to a painter that was also probably the most accomplished engraver of his time –and the person who initiated Stanley William Hayter to the technique. In 1955 the Museum of Modern Art, New York, organized a major retrospective devoted to Villon's printmaking activities: Jacques Villon: His Graphic Art (October 19, to November 5, 1955). Jacques Villon was the eldest brother of Marcel Duchamp, Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti and the sculptor Raymond Duchamp-Villon. His grandfather was Emile-Frédéric Nicolle (1830-1894), maritime broker by profession, was a reputed engraver. Many of his plates are today preserved at the Chalcographie du Louvre. Jacques Villon went to Paris in 1894 and started making drawings and submitting them to various magazines and newspapers, some of which were politically oriented. He also produced posters for cabaret shows and prints. Villon's technical virtuosity was already evident, and he practiced color aquatint, drypoint and lithography with equal ease. His prints captured the joie de vivre and charm of Paris at the turn of the century, His publisher Edmond Sagot had no trouble distributing Villon's productions. He had found a style, a formula and a niche and could have been content with such easy success. But he quickly felt the limits of this pleasant art, which encloses and condemns him to a form of repetition. The adoption of cubism brought radical changes to his paintings and prints production. The paintings of this period show him anxious to question nature, to analyze it to better synthesize it. Jacques Villon became a leading exponent of the new style, exhibiting nine paintings in the 1913 Armory Show in New York that opened the U.S. to modern European art. Top collectors like John Quinn and Walter Conrad Arensberg, bought his works. Villon will remain loyal to Cubism throughout his life but in a very personal form, without dogmatism, which his discreet, restrained character, excluded. The result in the field of engravings are very dense etchings, patiently meditated and worked on, made up of facets and hatching which seem to decompose the subject but at the same time give it a presence, a life of its own, a depth that catches the eye. The success and enormous repercusions of the Armory Show gave Villon high expectations for the future, but the outbreak of the First World War dissolved all hopes. After spending six years in the army, without a stock of paintings, since he had no artistic activity for six years, and with no regular source of income, the painter was forced to accept produce, for Bernheim-Jeune Éditions, engravings of interpretation with the purpose of promoting Impressionism and supporting contemporary creation. These engravings constitute the main part of this volume. The resumption of painting and printmaking his own works came with the improvement of Villon's finances in the 1930's. His etchings and engravings of the 1920's and 30's left behind the austerity of his cubist prints and he concentrated on the interplay of light and shade in an exercise that has sometimes bein called "cubist-impressionism". This push will bring Villon once again to the forefront of the French art scene. Villon's graphic work had already been the subject of two major books: Jacques Villon. Catalogue de son oeuvre gravé, by Jacqueline Auberty & Charles Perussaux, published in 1950, and Jacques Villon. Les estampes et les illustrations, catalogue raisonné, by Colette de Ginestet & Catherine Pouillon, published in 1979. But the limits of these catalogues –prints undated, information on each extremely limited and not a single color illustration– made us realize that another attempt would be useful for collectors, dealers, auctioners or art lovers. This first volume to be published relates to pure works of interpretation because of practical reasons. This is the most compact and easily identifiable part of Villon's graphic oeuvre.