Thomas Jeckyll, James McNeill Whistler, and the Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room: A Re-Examination

This dissertation uncovers three previously unrecognized innovations of Thomas Jeckyll in the Peacock Room. At the same time, the dissertation admits that sometimes James McNeill Whistler chose a more conventional path in the design of the room than previously acknowledged. The dissertation illuminates the often overlooked principle of Classical Decor, first described in the first century BC by Vitruvius, and analyzes how it was instituted in the Peacock Room. Four major points illustrate this conclusion. First, the meaning of the sunflower in the West is explored to account for the flower’s popularity and absorption into ancient heliotropic lore. Thomas Moore’s poetry may have inspired Aesthetic Movement designers such as Jeckyll to use the motif. Second, this dissertation demonstrates that the Peacock Room is only a distant descendant of the traditional European porcelain chamber. It was a new idea to turn the porcelain chamber into a dining room. Further, the room lacks two of the three key features of a porcelain room: lacquer panels and large plate-glass mirrors. When Whistler made the surfaces of this room dark and glossy, he made the room more traditional, aligning it with the customary lacquer paneling of porcelain rooms. And Jeckyll’s sho-dana shelving system in the Leyland dining room was without precedent in porcelain or other kinds of Western rooms, with influences from Japan and China. Third, Decor in the dining room was revealed as an established pattern in eating rooms from Ancient Roman triclinia to the present day. Fourth, Decor is present in the Peacock Room in four ways: in the trappings of the table used to decorate a dining room, in the darkness of this dining room, in the use of a foodstuff, the peacock, to decorate the room, and in the hearth’s sunflowers. Through the lens of the history of Western domestic interiors, significant innovations by Jeckyll have been brought to light, and the meaning of specific elements in the Peacock Room has been elucidated. Jeckyll and Whistler gave the world a sensational story in the Peacock Room but also a complex work of art that is only beginning to be illuminated

Couleur et transparence à l’ère des procédés photomécaniques

International audienceThis paper aims to show that the reception of British coloured illustrated books in the early twentieth-century reflects the artistic and aesthetic repositioning induced by the development of photomechanical process. Photomechanical reproduction freed the graphic line as well as colour. Reviews published at the turn of the century—as exemplified by The Studio—reveal a tension between opacity and transparency, materiality and lightness, chromophilia and chromophobia. These oppositions apply to the art of the book—as in the books illustrated by Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac—as well as to interior decoration. They are subsumed in the image of the peacock’s ocellus, the eyespot that symbolises the exercise of aesthetic judgement. Taste for colour finds expression in a form of tempered chromophilia best understood in the light of three factors: the practice of black and white graphic arts (notably wood engraving), the reception of photography and the revived conflict between line (disegno) and colour.Cet article s’attache à montrer que la réception de l’illustration en couleur au début du 20ème siècle en Grande Bretagne reflète les repositionnements artistiques et esthétiques engendrés par l’avènement des procédés photomécaniques. La reproduction photomécanique libère en effet le trait et la couleur. La réception critique au tournant du siècle, dont la revue The Studio se fait le baromètre, révèle une tension entre opacité et transparence, matérialité et légèreté, chromophilie et chromophobie qui s’exprime en termes moraux et esthétiques. Cette opposition valable pour l’art du livre (à propos des ouvrages illustrés par Arthur Rackham ou Edmund Dulac) s’applique aussi à la décoration intérieure et repose sur un exercice du jugement esthétique symbolisé par un motif qui la résume : l’ocelle de paon. Le goût pour la couleur s’affirme selon une chromophilie tempérée qui ne peut se comprendre qu’en tenant compte de trois paramètres : la pratique des arts graphiques en noir et blanc (et de la gravure sur bois notamment), la réception de la photographie et la résurgence du clivage entre ligne (disegno) et couleur

Review of ‘Sculpture Victorious: Art in an Age of Invention, 1837–1901’ at the Yale Center for British Art, 11 September to 30 November 2014

An academic review of the exhibition ‘Sculpture Victorious: Art in an Age of Invention, 1837–1901’ at the Yale Center for British Art, assessing the impact of the exhibition for the future of studies into Victorian sculpture

Interiores domésticos ingleses na viragem do século XIX para o século XX

Na Inglaterra, o chamado Estilo Vitoriano, correspondente à sucessão de várias correntes ou atitudes no âmbito projectual, duraria um longo período (1837-1901), que coincidiu com o processo da Revolução Industrial e a emergência de uma nova classe. Encontraremos, por um lado, projectos de interiores domésticos que evocam espacialidades de períodos anteriores, movidas por uma vontade de reconstituição; por outro lado, projectos cujo conceito resulta efectivamente de uma fusão de princípios provenientes de épocas passadas que conduzem a uma solução original. Há que evidenciar o papel do movimento Arts and Crafts que contribuirá igualmente para a formulação de princípios que estarão na génese da Arte Nova continenta

An Interior

The work An Interior is a painted room. It grew from the proposition, ‘What if I painted wallpaper?’ This proposition is related to my ongoing interest in the psychological and social functions of decor and labour spent decorating. Some questions I ask are: How do people use the spaces of their homes and the stuff they keep in them to build and maintain their relationships to themselves and others? And, a longstanding puzzle in contemporary practice, what is the relationship between decor and art, especially with regard to gender? The paintings in An Interior are an investigation of these questions through the lens of my body and experiences. This document expands on that investigation in three sections. The introductory section is a formal discussion of the work. The second section provides an overview of the complex relationship between the contemporary home, its decor, and its inhabitants which compelled the work An Interior, and the last discusses specificities of my painting practice and process as a mode for understanding this relationship

Pattern and Decoration: An Ideal Vision in American Art, 1975-1985

This illustrated catalogue accompanied an exhibition at the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, New York (October 27, 2007-January 20, 2008). It is the first extended discussion of the Pattern and Decoration movement. This exhibition catalogue was edited by Anne Swartz with an introduction by Michael Botwinick, with essays by Temma Balducci, Arthur C. Danto, John Perrault, and Anne Swartz

Charles Lang Freer and his gallery of art : turn-of-the-century politics and aesthetics on the National Mall.

This qualifying paper examines the contradiction of a public museum dedicated to one man\u27s vision of art collecting. Charles Lang Freer established the Freer Gallery of Art in 1906, regarded as the first national public art museum on the National Mall. Section One presents the biographical history of Freer, and clarifies his place in the contexts of collecting and aestheticism at the turn of the century. Section Two presents the political situation in Washington, D.C. that gave way to President Theodore Roosevelt\u27s efforts to use Freer\u27s private collection for a public museum on the National Mall. This paper concludes with a review of the original visitors\u27 reactions at the museum\u27s 1923 opening. The reactions of the first visitors are then connected to the present condition of the museum and its relevance today

Volume 12, Number 3 - January 1932

Volume 12, Number 3 – January 1932. 28 pages including covers and advertisements. Who\u27s Who in the Alembic Frontispiece - The Halt of the Wise Men Considine, George L. John La Farge Powers, Paul J. The Matinee - and After Murray, Herbert No Stars Tonight McDonough, John Dona Nobis Pacem! Higgins, Daniel J. PC Personalities: John J. Cleary Melaragno, Alfred A. Play Not the \u27Pastorale\u27 Sophs At Play - By Three of Them Editorials Shunney, Walter J. Open Letter Number Three Haylon, William D. Checkerboard O\u27Neill, Matthew F. The Alumni Corner Tebbetts, George Athletic