Beginning with a question about how the spectator apprehends a figure or bust in marble as a representation, this article uses eighteenth-century portrait busts in marble to explore how competing theories about representation and the apprehension of art might be applied to a distinctive class of sculpture in a particular material from a specific period. It explores how the terms of a debate formulated by E. H. Gombrich and Richard Wollheim about pictorial illusion might be applied to our perception of sculpture, and goes on to examine the ways in which contemporary accounts of viewing eighteenth-century portrait sculpture might be understood within this context.
{"title":"Sculpture and representation: apprehending marble portrait sculpture in the eighteenth century","authors":"M. Baker","doi":"10.3828/sj.2021.30.2.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/sj.2021.30.2.2","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Beginning with a question about how the spectator apprehends a figure or bust in marble as a representation, this article uses eighteenth-century portrait busts in marble to explore how competing theories about representation and the apprehension of art might be applied to a distinctive class of sculpture in a particular material from a specific period. It explores how the terms of a debate formulated by E. H. Gombrich and Richard Wollheim about pictorial illusion might be applied to our perception of sculpture, and goes on to examine the ways in which contemporary accounts of viewing eighteenth-century portrait sculpture might be understood within this context.","PeriodicalId":21666,"journal":{"name":"Sculpture Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43569734","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Knowledge of the materiality of stone during the Enlightenment expanded following the exploration of mineralogical structure, to alter ideas about taxonomy and challenge the role of rocks in the history of the earth. Close studies of the material of marble sculpture generated expertise on grain size, surface varieties and stone deposits. This mode of reception became intertwined with contemporary controversies about the age of the earth. This article focuses on both French sculpture and geological discourses of the eighteenth century to reveal an international and interdisciplinary network centring on protagonists such as Denis Diderot, Paul-Henri Thiry d’Holbach and Étienne-Maurice Falconet; through these figures, debates can be connected concerning both geology and art theory. Within these contexts, the article discusses the translation processes between these artistic and geological interests.
{"title":"A ‘milky mass’ and ‘uniform material’: white marble in eighteenth-century French discourses on sculpture and geology","authors":"Marthe Kretzschmar","doi":"10.3828/sj.2021.30.2.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/sj.2021.30.2.9","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Knowledge of the materiality of stone during the Enlightenment expanded following the exploration of mineralogical structure, to alter ideas about taxonomy and challenge the role of rocks in the history of the earth. Close studies of the material of marble sculpture generated expertise on grain size, surface varieties and stone deposits. This mode of reception became intertwined with contemporary controversies about the age of the earth. This article focuses on both French sculpture and geological discourses of the eighteenth century to reveal an international and interdisciplinary network centring on protagonists such as Denis Diderot, Paul-Henri Thiry d’Holbach and Étienne-Maurice Falconet; through these figures, debates can be connected concerning both geology and art theory. Within these contexts, the article discusses the translation processes between these artistic and geological interests.","PeriodicalId":21666,"journal":{"name":"Sculpture Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49031938","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article focuses on two British sculptors who straddled the worlds of practical geology and sculpture in the nineteenth century, and in particular how their work affected the scientific and popular understanding of marble. Francis Chantrey and William Brindley were both long-term members of the Geological Society of London and contributed practical understanding of stone to the development of the geological discourse on white and coloured decorative marbles. This article looks at Chantrey’s use of fossiliferous British ‘marbles’ and his role in the growing comprehension of Carrara marble as a metamorphosed limestone in the 1830s. The second part of the article deals with William Brindley’s discovery and popularization of coloured marbles from ancient quarries around the world, and the role of these stones in contemporary imperialist discourse.
{"title":"Two sculptor-geologists and the perception of marble in nineteenth-century Britain: Sir Francis Chantrey and William Brindley","authors":"M. Sullivan","doi":"10.3828/sj.2021.30.2.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/sj.2021.30.2.10","url":null,"abstract":"This article focuses on two British sculptors who straddled the worlds of practical geology and sculpture in the nineteenth century, and in particular how their work affected the scientific and popular understanding of marble. Francis Chantrey and William Brindley were both long-term members of the Geological Society of London and contributed practical understanding of stone to the development of the geological discourse on white and coloured decorative marbles. This article looks at Chantrey’s use of fossiliferous British ‘marbles’ and his role in the growing comprehension of Carrara marble as a metamorphosed limestone in the 1830s. The second part of the article deals with William Brindley’s discovery and popularization of coloured marbles from ancient quarries around the world, and the role of these stones in contemporary imperialist discourse.","PeriodicalId":21666,"journal":{"name":"Sculpture Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46494567","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
According to the classical tradition, marble sculptures were to be made of ‘pure’ white material. This remained an aesthetic ideal even after archaeological findings had revealed evidence of ancient polychromy. This article argues that tinting as well as natural staining on marble figures in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were not only aesthetically but also morally reprehensible, because they violated the ideal of homo clausus. This term, coined by the sociologist Norbert Elias, conceptualizes a subject that imposes ‘self-restraint’ to control its physical body and its emotions. Perfect control was seen embodied in the ancient images of the gods, which were assumed to have been made of immaculate white marble. Any colouring, whether of natural origin or deliberately produced, seemed to contaminate this concept. My investigation is focused on the historical justifications for John Gibson’s scandalous Tinted Venus, and figures of veined marble rejected in France on similar grounds in the late eighteenth century, such as Christoph-Gabriel Allegrain’s Venus and Jean-Antoine Houdon’s Frileuse. I examine how the coloured veins and tints of the stone gained semantic qualities in female figures, where a blush or a vein seemed to reveal emotions and desires and thus infringe the ideal.
{"title":"Impure stone and the threat to decency: marble tints and veins","authors":"M. Wagner","doi":"10.3828/sj.2021.30.2.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/sj.2021.30.2.3","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000According to the classical tradition, marble sculptures were to be made of ‘pure’ white material. This remained an aesthetic ideal even after archaeological findings had revealed evidence of ancient polychromy. This article argues that tinting as well as natural staining on marble figures in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were not only aesthetically but also morally reprehensible, because they violated the ideal of homo clausus. This term, coined by the sociologist Norbert Elias, conceptualizes a subject that imposes ‘self-restraint’ to control its physical body and its emotions. Perfect control was seen embodied in the ancient images of the gods, which were assumed to have been made of immaculate white marble. Any colouring, whether of natural origin or deliberately produced, seemed to contaminate this concept. My investigation is focused on the historical justifications for John Gibson’s scandalous Tinted Venus, and figures of veined marble rejected in France on similar grounds in the late eighteenth century, such as Christoph-Gabriel Allegrain’s Venus and Jean-Antoine Houdon’s Frileuse. I examine how the coloured veins and tints of the stone gained semantic qualities in female figures, where a blush or a vein seemed to reveal emotions and desires and thus infringe the ideal.","PeriodicalId":21666,"journal":{"name":"Sculpture Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42351056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The recent blossoming of studies on central Italian sculpture of the first half of the eighteenth century has not yet focused on artistic technique. In this article, an attempt is made to introduce this subject by providing, through a series of examples, a first picture of the practice and skills of two fundamental figures of those years: the sculptor Filippo della Valle and the stonemason Francesco Cerroti. The article focuses on their technical knowledge of materials in order to highlight the production system of the sculptor’s workshop, which included the extensive use of measuring points and ruled copying frames, and the important skills of the stonemason, so as to shed new light on a type of specialization that is often little considered. This reconstruction, although very specific, raises an important issue: the semi-industrialization of sculptural practice, regarding both specific tools and the involvement of professional figures, has always been attributed to the context of Antonio Canova, but as this article shows, it has much deeper roots.
{"title":"Pioneering sculptural workshop techniques: Filippo della Valle and Francesco Cerroti in eighteenth-century Rome","authors":"Camilla Parisi","doi":"10.3828/sj.2021.30.2.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/sj.2021.30.2.4","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The recent blossoming of studies on central Italian sculpture of the first half of the eighteenth century has not yet focused on artistic technique. In this article, an attempt is made to introduce this subject by providing, through a series of examples, a first picture of the practice and skills of two fundamental figures of those years: the sculptor Filippo della Valle and the stonemason Francesco Cerroti. The article focuses on their technical knowledge of materials in order to highlight the production system of the sculptor’s workshop, which included the extensive use of measuring points and ruled copying frames, and the important skills of the stonemason, so as to shed new light on a type of specialization that is often little considered. This reconstruction, although very specific, raises an important issue: the semi-industrialization of sculptural practice, regarding both specific tools and the involvement of professional figures, has always been attributed to the context of Antonio Canova, but as this article shows, it has much deeper roots.","PeriodicalId":21666,"journal":{"name":"Sculpture Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43365868","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The last two decades have seen a surge in publications and exhibitions on neoclassical sculpture, exploring histories of collecting, transnational artistic exchange, artistic self-fashioning strategies, workshop processes, new biographical insights and art-theoretical questions. However, there is relatively little research regarding the display and staging of neoclassical sculpture in comparison with earlier periods. The years around 1800 marked the peak of a fashion for purpose-built galleries that appeared all over Europe. The multimedia setting for sculpture in this new type of building tied in with contemporary patterns of staging and viewing artworks in different contexts, such as tableaux vivants and phantasmagorias. This article investigates the different modes of communication between viewer and object in neoclassical sculpture galleries to shed light on the reception of these objects and their respective material. Case studies are centred on the Viennese sculpture galleries of Nicolas II, Prince Esterházy, Andrej Razumovsky and Joseph Count of Fries in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
{"title":"On the reception and agency of neoclassical sculpture and its material: case studies from Viennese sculpture galleries (c. 1780-1820)","authors":"Anna Frasca-Rath","doi":"10.3828/sj.2021.30.2.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/sj.2021.30.2.6","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The last two decades have seen a surge in publications and exhibitions on neoclassical sculpture, exploring histories of collecting, transnational artistic exchange, artistic self-fashioning strategies, workshop processes, new biographical insights and art-theoretical questions. However, there is relatively little research regarding the display and staging of neoclassical sculpture in comparison with earlier periods. The years around 1800 marked the peak of a fashion for purpose-built galleries that appeared all over Europe. The multimedia setting for sculpture in this new type of building tied in with contemporary patterns of staging and viewing artworks in different contexts, such as tableaux vivants and phantasmagorias. This article investigates the different modes of communication between viewer and object in neoclassical sculpture galleries to shed light on the reception of these objects and their respective material. Case studies are centred on the Viennese sculpture galleries of Nicolas II, Prince Esterházy, Andrej Razumovsky and Joseph Count of Fries in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.","PeriodicalId":21666,"journal":{"name":"Sculpture Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69952914","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the last quarter of the eighteenth century the British Parliament voted public money to pay for a number of monuments to public figures in Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral. This was a critical period in the move towards creating a pantheon to commemorate national heroes. The central role of Westminster Abbey in national life had never before been challenged, but from around 1798, and certainly from the memorialization of Admiral Lord Nelson in 1805, Parliament’s commissioning of monuments shifted its focus to St Paul’s Cathedral to create a national mausoleum for memorials to military and naval heroes. This article explores the significance of this transitional period in the history of Westminster Abbey for the Abbey itself and for the development of a national school of British sculptors, looking specifically at the process of commissioning the monuments to Captain Montagu by John Flaxman and Captains Harvey and Hutt by John Bacon the Elder in 1798.
在18世纪的最后25年，英国议会投票决定用公共资金为威斯敏斯特教堂和圣保罗大教堂的一些公众人物纪念碑买单。这是为纪念民族英雄而建立万神殿的关键时期。威斯敏斯特教堂在国民生活中的中心地位从未受到挑战，但从1798年左右开始，尤其是从1805年纪念海军上将纳尔逊勋爵开始，议会委托建造纪念碑的重点转移到圣保罗大教堂，以建造一座纪念军事和海军英雄的国家陵墓。本文探讨了威斯敏斯特教堂历史上这一过渡时期对修道院本身和英国雕塑家国家学校发展的意义，特别关注1798年约翰·弗拉克斯曼(John Flaxman)为蒙塔古船长(Captain Montagu)和约翰·培根(John Bacon the Elder)为哈维和赫特船长(Captain Harvey and Hutt)制作纪念碑的过程。
{"title":"The politics of public monuments: parliamentary commissions of monuments for Westminster Abbey in 1798","authors":"Susan Jenkins","doi":"10.3828/SJ.2021.30.1.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/SJ.2021.30.1.2","url":null,"abstract":"In the last quarter of the eighteenth century the British Parliament voted public money to pay for a number of monuments to public figures in Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral. This was a critical period in the move towards creating a pantheon to commemorate national heroes. The central role of Westminster Abbey in national life had never before been challenged, but from around 1798, and certainly from the memorialization of Admiral Lord Nelson in 1805, Parliament’s commissioning of monuments shifted its focus to St Paul’s Cathedral to create a national mausoleum for memorials to military and naval heroes. This article explores the significance of this transitional period in the history of Westminster Abbey for the Abbey itself and for the development of a national school of British sculptors, looking specifically at the process of commissioning the monuments to Captain Montagu by John Flaxman and Captains Harvey and Hutt by John Bacon the Elder in 1798.","PeriodicalId":21666,"journal":{"name":"Sculpture Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":"9-29"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69953019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The mid-nineteenth century critical discourse compartmentalized art and industry by crediting each with specific powers. Manufacturing was identified with the development of technologically advanced processes, materials and products, while fine artists were given authority over the aesthetic aspects of industrial design. The idea that the two sectors had separate areas of responsibility has proved extremely enduring, and continues to influence our perceptions of Victorian manufacturing. This article contributes to the wider task of re-evaluating the relationship between art and industry in nineteenth-century Britain by examining the role of design in potteries and art metalworking firms from the manufacturer’s perspective. It shows that contrary to the picture painted by Victorian critics, design was central to the ambitions and commercial operations of manufacturing businesses. Crucially, decisions about the recruitment of design staff were shaped by the close connection between the creation of new products at the drawing board, and their fabrication in the workshop. Since each branch of manufacturing had its distinctive characteristics, there were significant practical, aesthetic and commercial advantages for manufacturers in employing experienced designers who knew the trade, and were fully conversant with production practices. Unless a professional sculptor joined a firm, they were unlikely to have this inside knowledge, which made commissioning one-off designs from artists a riskier proposition. Manufacturers found that one of the best ways to get around this was to make reductions of sculptures, and initial demand for statuettes in Parian suggested they would be profitable for all concerned. In the end, the market did not live up to its early promise, but the publicity given to Parian statuettes compensated manufacturers and sculptors. Overall, it was this increased public exposure for art manufactures that was the prime benefit of the mid-nineteenth century critical discourse for the industrial sector.
{"title":"Revisiting the relationship between art and industry in nineteenth-century Britain from the manufacturer’s perspective","authors":"A. Compton","doi":"10.3828/SJ.2021.30.1.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/SJ.2021.30.1.3","url":null,"abstract":"The mid-nineteenth century critical discourse compartmentalized art and industry by crediting each with specific powers. Manufacturing was identified with the development of technologically advanced processes, materials and products, while fine artists were given authority over the aesthetic aspects of industrial design. The idea that the two sectors had separate areas of responsibility has proved extremely enduring, and continues to influence our perceptions of Victorian manufacturing. This article contributes to the wider task of re-evaluating the relationship between art and industry in nineteenth-century Britain by examining the role of design in potteries and art metalworking firms from the manufacturer’s perspective. It shows that contrary to the picture painted by Victorian critics, design was central to the ambitions and commercial operations of manufacturing businesses. Crucially, decisions about the recruitment of design staff were shaped by the close connection between the creation of new products at the drawing board, and their fabrication in the workshop. Since each branch of manufacturing had its distinctive characteristics, there were significant practical, aesthetic and commercial advantages for manufacturers in employing experienced designers who knew the trade, and were fully conversant with production practices. Unless a professional sculptor joined a firm, they were unlikely to have this inside knowledge, which made commissioning one-off designs from artists a riskier proposition. Manufacturers found that one of the best ways to get around this was to make reductions of sculptures, and initial demand for statuettes in Parian suggested they would be profitable for all concerned. In the end, the market did not live up to its early promise, but the publicity given to Parian statuettes compensated manufacturers and sculptors. Overall, it was this increased public exposure for art manufactures that was the prime benefit of the mid-nineteenth century critical discourse for the industrial sector.","PeriodicalId":21666,"journal":{"name":"Sculpture Journal","volume":"30 1","pages":"31-52"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69953123","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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