Canvas Journal XXI - Fall 2022 Honors Thesis Issue by Canvas Journal

Introduction

Three eccentrically dressed figures enter the scene, carry ing with them plants, Ikea furniture, and a yoga mat. The steel Puerto Rican flag just behind our hipster subjects situates the semi-fictive scene in the real-world Chicago neighbor hood of Humboldt Park — a traditionally working-class com munity that has seen high rates of gentrification. This is the scene described in The Discovery of Humboldt Park (2017) (fig. 1), a painting by Brooklyn-based artist Esteban del Valle.

With this artwork, del Valle equates gentrification with neo colonialism, positioning the bohemian subjects as colonizers of a long-established community that is strongly identified by its working class Puerto Rican culture. However, instead of founding a new country in their 21st-century version of the New World, they are creating bike shops, microbreweries, and, odds are, Street Art. As a muralist himself, del Valle is acutely aware of Street Art’s role in gentrification and the related pro cess known as artwashing.1 Artwashing, in broad terms, de scribes a phenomenon in which art and creative class con sumption act as a harbinger of gentrification.2 Though the past decade has seen an increase in academic scholarship studying this phenomenon and its related processes, these studies have largely been based in US cities like Los Ange les, Chicago, and New York City. This research will draw from said scholarship (Billingham 2017, Deutsche and Ryan 1984, Lin 2021) and from Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the social pro duction of space in order to contextualize the phenomenon as it occurs in Montreal, investigating the social, political, and economic factors that inform di erent modes of Urban Art.3 Montreal, as a UNESCO recognized “Creative City” and host to hundreds, if not thousands of murals, is a metropole that has fashioned itself as a go-to destination for its thriving arts scene. It is the site of a territorial dispute between Gra ti writ ers and Street Artists, with each side claiming a right to the city’s walls. The Plateau-Mont-Royal, a Montreal neighbor hood synonymous with both the arts and with gentrification, is perhaps the epicenter of the Montreal Street Art scene and the stage on which the Gra ti and Street Art rivalry is visibly played. For this reason, my research will focus on this neigh borhood, and more specifically on two murals situated in its heart: Summer of 67 by Whatisadam (fig. 2) and Norte-Sur by Shalak and Guko (fig. 3). These murals have been chosen be cause they represent a microcosm of the converging Urban Art phenomena in the Plateau-Mont-Royal. Through a critical study and in-depth analysis of Summer of 67 and Norte-Sur, the unique context of Montreal, and the city planning para digm known as the Creative City, I argue that Urban Art in the Plateau-Mont-Royal is a visual manifestation of the conflict ing spatial politics in a gentrified neighborhood of Montreal.

Figure 02 | Esteban del Valle, Transplants: The Discovery of Humboldt Park, 2017. Acrylic on raw canvas.

Spatialization in the Creative City: Urban Neocolonial Conquest

Despite having been a topic of study in a diverse range of fields, from sociology to geography to urbanology, an agreed upon definition of gentrification remains evasive since its coinage in 1964 by sociologist Ruth Glass.4 In 1984, Rosalyn Deutsche and Cara Gendel Ryan, in their writing on the gentrification of New York City’s Lower East Side, describe the multifaceted nature of gentrification that varies significantly depending on the social positioning of the definer, who is most often the gentrifier rather than the gentrified. An urbanologist’s defini tion, for instance, of a neighborhood’s changing demograph ic landscape would be a “transfer of places from one class to another, with or without concomitant physical changes tak ing place.”5 The media, Deutsche and Ryan continue, would label it in terms of renewal, revitalization, or a “renaissance” of the city. In stark contrast to the academics’ definitions, Deut sche and Ryan cite one member of an urban minority who, from their perspective, see gentrification as, “...the process of white people ‘reclaiming’ the inner cities by moving into Black and Latin American communities,” calling to mind del Valle’s painting that would be made three decades later.6 The rhetor ically colonial implications of this claim are of particular note and will be analyzed further in this essay. Yet, before we get lost in the ever-shifting definition of gentrification, one must identify the specific processes that explain the “resettling of a white population in neighborhoods where until recently they would never have dared to venture,” in an acknowledgement that before a demographic change occurs there must first be a physical transformation of the space.7 I posit that the prolif eration of murals through urban planning initiatives and Street Art festivals transforms the urban landscape in such a way that it stimulates demographic changes and gentrification, which in turn continues to alter the physical space and cre ate social tension as Gra ti pushes back against artwashing. I argue that Lefebvre’s theory of spatialization, or the produc tion of social versus abstract space, applies to this discus sion as we regard the transformation of the physical urban space as a visualization of opposing agents of spatialization. Before delving into the unique role of art in the process of ur

Figure 03 | Shalak and Guko, Norte-Sur, 2008. Spray paint on wall, Plateau-Mont-Royal, Montréal

ban renewal, let us recall the one “urban minority” cited by Deutsche and Ryan who referred to a “reclaiming” of Black and Latin American communities, as we consider neoco lonialism a process that underpins urbanization and is in extricably linked with gentrification. The narrative of out siders arriving and settling down in another social group’s home, ultimately enacting negative consequences upon the original community’s culture and forcing their migration, harkens back to the colonial era when European settlers colonized the so-called “New World”’ and its Indigenous peoples. Neocolonialism, as the name suggests, describes how similar processes are played out in the contemporary period, including the capitalist economic motivations and racial hierarchies that structured them. Though neocolo nialism is generally employed in an international context, describing a relationship between two or more countries, the core ideologies of the phenomenon, such as racism and capitalism, can be applied on a more micro scale, feed ing into critical examinations of relationships between var ious social groups, government bodies and corporations within a single city, such as Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal. In a neigh borhood such as the Plateau, where rates of Indigenous displacement and homelessness have risen concurrently with gentrification and increased presence of “bourgeois bohemians,”8 there are multiple layers of past colonial re percussions and contemporary neocolonial practices that converge. In other words, on the unceded land of Canada, gentrification is colonialism within ongoing colonialism.

To aid us in our understanding why art has so often been the chosen conduit in neocolonial gentriﬁcation processes, let us turn to Henri Lefebvre’s theory regarding the social production of space, or spatialization. In his book entitled La Production de l’espace (The Production of Space), the French philosopher argues that space is a social product, which is semi-successfully employed by social and political state forces as a means of control, domination, and power.9 Social space encompasses complexities of social relations and their reproduction, allowing di erence to exist, where as abstract space imposes commonality and neutrality, viewing anything “other” as transgressive.10 As Eugene J. McCann writes in his article contextualizing Lefebvre in the U.S. city, “It is Lefebvre’s ability to link representation and imagination with the physical spaces of cities and to empha size the dialectical relationship between identity and urban space that makes his work so attractive to many contempo rary urban researchers.”11 As such, Lefebvrian spatial theory can provide a useful framework in our understanding of art that exists in urban public spaces, particularly the economic factors that inform its production, as we seek to understand the conditions under which it was made, what institutional powers it embodies, and the impacts of its creation. Build ing our argument upon the notion that the construction of

abstract space is a fundamental step in bourgeois capitalist expansion, we can argue that Street Art is one method of instill ing a space with more cultural, thus economic, value, rendering it a fertile ground for attracting higher spending residents and new lucrative businesses.12 The concurrence of street art and gentriﬁcation is evidence to this point, suggesting that the two phenomena feed o of each other — the result of the cultur al policy being enacted globally known as the Creative City.

Montreal: The Creative City

The Creative City, briefly defined, is an urban planning paradigm or cultural policy in which “urban regeneration and renewal are linked intrinsically, inseparably, to the arts and other ‘creative’ practices.”13 In his work “The Ugly Truth: Street Art, Gra ti and the Creative City,” Raphael Schacter argues that Street Art is a neutralized form of Gra ti that “has emerged through what is now an almost total complicity with the world-dominating gospel of the Creative City,” a paradigm that he argues has re duced the arts to a “cog in the ‘creative’, ‘regenerative’ wheel.”14 The concept of the Creative City, in many ways, can be regard ed as a subsection within the larger processes of neocolonial ism and spatialization as they relate to gentrification. Within the Creative City paradigm, the active, intentional encourage ment of murals enacts a Lefebvrian spatialization — imbuing space with abstract cultural and economic value, transform ing and rendering it newly appealing for a di erent social and economic demographic to inhabit (or rather to colonize if we are to think of it in a neocolonial sense). Street Art, at least as it is employed in the Creative City, is not a community-em bedded form of artistic expression, but rather a strategically placed magnet intended to attract prospective visitors, rent ers, and businesses. The General Director of the Société de

développement du boulevard Saint-Laurent, or SDBSL (an organization representing 700 businesses on Saint-Lau rent), Tasha Morizio, notes that the placement of a mural on a building makes it more attractive for businesses to occu py, as business owners are cognizant of the increased vis itors who will inevitably come to the mural to take pictures and enjoy the space.15 Thus, the physical transformation of a space, with the aid of Street Art, heightens potential for prof it, setting the foundations for artwashing. Such transforma tions, although they occur year-round, are accelerated by the Street Art Festival — a mainstay of any Creative City.16

Montreal hosts a number of Street Art festivals, notably MURAL Festival, MU, and Under Pressure, some of which align more closely with the Creative City paradigm than others. The former, the MURAL Festival, is not only the most wellknown in Montreal, but is also arguably the most represen tative of the Creative City in how it alters the physical urban landscape of the Plateau and actively pushes back against Gra ti. It is also the same festival for which Summer Camp 67 was created. Beginning in the 1970s, when Montreal was in a state of economic stagnation and at risk of losing its cul tural significance on the global stage, city planning author ities turned to a strategy focused on “renewing traditional sectors and…finding new international niches.”17 From then onward, Montreal has increasingly positioned itself as an in ternational city, particularly in the arts sector, aligning itself with the cultural policy of the Creative City by intertwining its economic growth with the arts. The reason for this shift, Schacter argues, is because city authorities are “desperate to capture the potential (in fiscal terms) of this particular no tion of the creative, desperate to gain access to the market able outputs that this innovative sector can provide” and in doing so use art as a “tool for advancement in material rath er than societal terms.”18 The MURAL Festival, supported by its eight institutional partners (including the Ville de Montre al, le Gouvernement du Québec, the Government of Cana da, and the Conseil des Arts de Montréal) is an international ly-geared event that attracts large crowds to its murals, along with live music, workshops, and other cultural activities. In describing itself as an “important gathering of the global ar tistic community” that “has transformed Montreal, reinforc ing the city as a go-to global destination for contemporary urban art and an ultimate tourist destination,” the organiza tion appears to further the city’s agenda to become an international attraction.19 The success of this agenda has already been well documented. Since 2006, Montreal has been a UNESCO-recognized Creative City of Design (the use of the term “Creative City” here having no intentional connec tion to the city planning paradigm of the same name). The international attention has been remarked upon by locals, albeit not in a positive way. For instance, a 2018 bylaw set by the administrative government of the Plateau-Mont-Roy

Figure 04 | Unknown Gra ti writer, Bou e trop chère = loyers trop chers, 2016. Spray paint on wall, Saint-Henri, Montréal.

al proposed to limit the authorization of short-term rentals (geared of course towards tourists) to commercial sectors around the main arteries of the city, including Saint-Laurent, Sherbrooke, Ave. Mont-Royal, and Saint-Denis, demon strating the link between art tourism, commercialism, and the quality of life for permanent neighborhood residents.20 Many local artists are also displeased by the international art festival. In an email correspondence with Lost Claws, a Montrealer and Urban Artist, they wrote, “[M]ural festivals are built on the exploitation of local artists.”21 Indeed, the structured and consumerized designs of public spaces like Saint-Laurent are intended to limit most free expres sion, despite their proclivity for donning the term “arts dis trict,” which is evident in the strict ban on Gra ti.22 Because space is a product, its accepted practices, values, and per ceptions can be constructed or changed. Both Gra ti art ists like Lost Claws and Street Art festivals like MURAL are trying to make di erent products out of the same space, and the space physically reﬂects this dual pull. In other words, the Creative City is not creating its abstract space in a void, but rather on top of — in opposition to — an existing social space. The opposing forces of spatialization, when their as sociated visual cultures interact, are observable in the phys ical public space, creating a visible conﬂict on the walls of the city as it is embodied in the Gra ti and Street Art rivalry.

To understand the tension between Gra ti and Street Art, it is imperative to understand the di erence between the two visual cultures. Gra ti, the progenitor of Street Art, is a rad ical practice that is inherently a rejection — it rejects itself as art, it rejects profit, it rejects the behavioral limitations im posed by the law.23 McCann describes Gra ti in terms of re sistance, a response to the changing nature of public space that embodies a “spatial politics [that] allows marginalized groups to create ‘spaces of representation’ through which they can represent themselves to the wider public and in sert themselves in the discourses of the bourgeois public sphere.”24 As a mode of resistance, Gra ti is commonly em ployed in explicitly critiquing gentrification, as visible in the anti-gentrification tag written on the property of Le Smoking Vallée, a bistro in the Saint-Henri neighborhood of Montreal, that equates expensive restaurants with impending rent increases (fig. 4). In his study of spatialization in the contem porary city, McCann also points to the lack of racial consid erations in Lefebvre’s writing, arguing that the discussion of race and racial identities in U.S. urban settings (something that we can reasonably extend to Canadian urban settings) is imperative to understand the role of imagination and rep resentation in the social production of space. Indeed, the popular association of Gra ti with low-income Black and Latin American communities has lent the practice a nega tive public perception that cannot be extracted from race.

Street Art, on the other hand, is created under entirely di er ent circumstances and intentions, and lacks the racialized connotations of Gra ti. Unlike Gra ti, Street Art is not only legal, but encouraged, and its perception in the public eye is overwhelmingly positive, being heralded as a contemporary, progressive art of the people that breaks free of the confines imposed by the white cube gallery, inviting all to participate in art appreciation. In some ways, certainly, this is true. Many murals, Norte-Sur included, are created with substantial input from the local community, who sometimes even partic ipates in the physical making of the artwork, thus strength ening the residents’ bond with the physical space of their neighborhood. Street Art under the Creative City’s domin ion, however, appropriates the aura of Gra ti, that of authen ticity and rebelliousness, in order to eliminate the community and culture from which it arose, often literally painting over pre-existing Gra ti, constructing an abstract space suitable for economic expansion. To quote Schacter, a vocal critic of the Creative City, “the ‘edgy’ authenticity of Street Art makes it just the perfect fit for the ‘creative’ Creative City: it is just perfectly, marvelously edgy enough. It provides an aesthetic of transgression — the transgression that all innovation must be borne of — whilst remaining perfectly numb to the social realities it occludes.”25 In this regard, Street Art is “entirely be holden to the strategic, acquisitive desires of the contemporary, neo-liberal city.”26 To put it in Lefebvre’s terms, the space it creates is an abstract space, a “space represented by elite social groups as homogenous, instrumental, and ahistori cal in order to facilitate the exercise of state power and the free flow of capital.”27 Street Art, in simpler terms, paints on

top of a regular city and transforms it into a Creative City. The MURAL Festival, responsible for placing murals over existing Gra ti, is complicit in upholding the divide between Gra ti and Street Art in terms of their perceived cultural and societal value, and it is fundamental in building an abstract space of proﬁtable creativity in the Plateau-Mont-Royal. Ta sha Morizio with the SDBSL describes murals as “l’embel lisement du territoire” that attracts both renters and tour ists, whereas Gra ti is, in her eyes, “une nuisance au niveau de la perception négative de l’artère.”28 Street Art is thus a strategic balancing act — it assumes the adrenaline-in ducing allure of gra ti and repackages it in a cleaner, le gally sanctioned form of artistic expression. The artists are commissioned and paid for their works, not unlike artists in a traditional setting, with the only di erence being their phys ical placement on brick and concrete walls rather than the white walls of the gallery. Their physical medium of spray paint cans rather than oils or acrylics lends the art form just the right amount of perceived authenticity and liberation aesthetics without carrying the negative connotations of danger, dirtiness, poverty, and racialization that gra ti so often carries. Having made clear the distinction between Street Art and Gra ti, we are better equipped to under stand the di erent modes of space-making that each form simultaneously represents and enacts, allowing us to study their coexistence, though fraught, through a clearer lens.

Figure 05 | Unknown Gra ti writers, Gra ti tags on Whatisadam mural, date unknown. Spray paint on wall, Plateau-Mont-Royal, Montréal.

A Case Study of Street Art

Having established the theoretical groundwork and context, let us examine a point in the neighborhood that represents how the above processes intersect on the visual plane. Rather than attempt to study an entire neighborhood’s worth of constant ly changing murals and gra ti tags, I have pinpointed one sin gular spot, on Avenue Duluth E near Avenue Coloniale, where the 2018 mural Summer Camp 67 by What is Adam (WIA) and the 2008 mural Norte-Sur by Shalak and Guzo sit across the street from each other, both tagged with Gra ti. I chose this spot not only because it contains instances of Street Art that both a rm and problematize the neocolonial Creative City, but also because despite their marked di erences, both murals have been tagged by Gra ti writers (ﬁgs. 5 & 6), thus adding a third layer of spatialization in this focused space.

The Gra ti tags on both artworks are not coincidental, but rather representative of the larger tension between Gra ti and Street Art, gentrified and gentrifiers, and so cial space and abstract space in the Plateau-Mont-Roy al. The now-common practice of tagging an artists’ mural has sparked divisive debate, with some being more sympa thetic towards the Gra ti writers and others condemning what they perceive as the defilement of another creator’s work. It is a conversation that is taking place mostly on so cial media rather than in the scholarly field, meaning this research will bridge the gap between discourses and ex amine the phenomenon in conjunction with spatial theory.

Though many people have more nuanced opinions on the subject, the debate can be boiled down to two main sides. The first is the side of Street Art, which claims Gra ti tags to be visually unappealing and disrespectful. An example of this viewpoint can be seen in a Reddit post in which the user uploads an image of a mural on Saint-Viateur that has been tagged over, commenting, “This is why taggers have no class.”29 Several commenters agree with the sentiment. One user responds “too many taggers in the city screwing up mu rals” while another writes “Murals are beautiful and an expres sion of giving back to your community, tagging is taking what you want and not caring about others.”30, 31 The other side of the debate suggests that since many murals are intentionally covering up existing Gra ti, taking up wall space for future Gra ti, and contributing to the gentrification of their home town, Gra ti writers are justified in reclaiming the wall space. Lost Claws lies on this side of the debate, writing: “[G]ra ti artists (writers) are illegally tagging any wall that they paint, so does it matter what wall it is? I guarantee that under every mural in this city there are the names of ‘illegal’ tags that were there first. Why respect artwork that doesn’t respect you?”32 On the aforementioned Reddit post, a user who goes by bos ny wrote a lengthy response delving into the nuances of the issue and the critical ideological di erences between Gra ti and Street Art. In the post, they address several issues, includ

ing the element of gentriﬁcation, as they question the value of Urban Art forms, writing: “Does the mural add culture to its environment [social space], or is it purely decorative [ab stract space]? If so, is it taking up public space that could actually be contributing to public discourse?”33 Bosny’s ar gument references a critical problem that underpins our dis cussion, which is that of opposing modes of production be hind two forms of Urban Art that seek to either establish an abstract space, feeding into gentriﬁcation, or to create a social space that is by and for the residents of the community.

To begin unraveling how Summer Camp 67 and Norte-Sur create spatial meaning, we must therefore begin with a comparison of their respective modes of production. Sum mer Camp 67, as previously stated, was one of the murals commissioned for the MURAL Festival in collaboration with the Canadian retail brand Roots, which uses its national identity as a key marketing strategy. The mural, therefore, is an advertisement for the brand, as is visible in the design itself. The figure on the right of the composition sports a t-shirt with the Roots logo just visible enough that it is unam biguously identifiable, but just hidden enough so that it reg isters almost subliminally in the viewer’s mind. Slightly more obvious but still relatively di cult to discern is the #Root sIsCanada at the top right corner of the mural, underscoring yet again the Canadianness of the brand. Whatisadam is an artist who takes inspiration from Canadian imagery in many of his artworks, making him an unsurprising choice for a Roots marketing job. In writing about working with cor porate sponsors in an email correspondence, Whatisadam acknowledges that the brand representative will usually make revisions to the content, meaning that in works like Summer Camp 67 it is not simply the artist who creates the content, but corporate interests as well.34 Thus, the space it creates is abstract, a space of commodification and de tachment from the needs of the people surrounding it.

Norte-Sur, though also classiﬁed as Street Art, has a rather di erent story behind its conception, design, and creation. The Maison de l’amitié, for whom the mural was made, was approached by the artists, Carlos Ortiz (Guko) and Elisa Monreal (Shalak), who wanted to create a mural on a blank wall exploring themes of justice, culture, nature, migration, exchange, art, and indigeneity. They were making a mural because they had received funds from Vivacité, a cultural vitality project o ered by the Ville de Montréal. In this way, the mural contains elements of the Creative City, having been encouraged to create Street Art by the city authori ties in an e ort to promote the vague notion of “cultural vi tality.” However, Guko and Shalak evidently possessed enough artistic agency to decide how and where they would go about encouraging said cultural vitality, appear ing to have comparatively more freedom in their mural than

Whatisadam. In choosing to create a piece for the Maison de l’amitie, a community center founded in 1974 that is commit ted to fighting social isolation, prejudice, discrimination and violence by supporting marginalized locals and developing a sense of belonging to the neighborhood, Shalak and Guzo are inserting their practice within the concerns of the com munity — a practice that is visible in their other projects as well. Shalak, for instance, has facilitated workshops for at risk youth, women and community empowerment groups, and prisoners, attributing her community-forward view of art to the social and cultural values she received from her family who immigrated to Canada as part of the Chilean po litical diaspora after the 1970s military dictatorship. Like wise, Guko has, throughout his career, demonstrated a ten dency to employ his craft in support of social betterment. In April 2014, he participated in the making of the Plateau-lo cated mural Missing Justice (fig. 7), made with Montreal-based grassroots collective Missing Justice that raises awareness for the epidemic of gendered and racialized violence against Indigenous women, who are at least five times more likely to die as the result of violence than other women living in Canada.

Figure 06 | Unknown Gra ti writers, Tags on Shalak and Guko Mural, date unknown. Spray paint on wall, Plateau-Mont-Royal, Montréal.

Further, Shalak and Guko actively consulted with the own ers of the wall on which Norte-Sur was painted, Apollon and Kula Stamoulos, who own the laundromat next to the Maison de l’amitié and who were given a say in the colors and imag es used in the mural. The creation of Norte-Sur, therefore, challenges the generalizing notion that places all Street Art under an umbrella of bourgeois commercialism and neoco lonial gentrification. However, the impact of the mural, like whether or not it contributed to rising rent prices or if it financially benefited the neighborhood residents, Indigenous or otherwise, is di cult to concretely discern. We can however argue, given what we know about the artwork, that NorteSur falls on the side of social space — an act of spatializa tion that is in dialogue with the community in which it is locat ed, rather than imposing a di erent community in its place. In the existing literature surrounding artwashing, there has been surprisingly little attention paid to specific artworks involved. I intend to fill this gap in the scholarship, arguing that through a visual analysis of Street Art and Gra ti, we can add depth and nuance to the conversation surround ing spatialization and Urban Art. Taking Summer Camp 67, for instance, we have already established how both person

al and corporate interests play a role in certain subject mat ter of a mural, most notably in the brand logo and the artist’s specific style that works in tandem with advertisement tac tics. However, I argue that the decisions made with regards to the subject matter render the piece more susceptible to the spatial politics of the Creative City, particularly in its appeal to youth and social media. In his book Aesthetics of Gentrifi cation: Seductive Spaces and Exclusive Communities in the Neoliberal City, in which he draws a link between marketable “hipster” aesthetics and the gentrification of Northeast L.A., Jan Lin identifies the primary aesthetic trends that draw in visitors, residents and investors to gentrified neighborhoods, creating a “neobohemia.” One such trend is the appeal to vintage aesthetics and Black and Latin American cultures, which we can certainly identify in Whatisadam’s mural (the ti tle of which already places it in the 1960s, creating a vintage postcard-like scene).36 As Lin argues, the creative neoliberal class is “lured by the air of authenticity which is both ethnic … and vintage Americana in character (vintage products in clude historic homes, clothing, musical instruments, and vinyl records).” 37 The knee high white socks worn by the figure on the left, the high waisted jean shorts, and the vinyl record on the right of the composition all nod to elements of a vintage style that have all coincidentally reentered mainstream trends at the time of the mural’s creation. One of the most intriguing, even ironic, elements of Summer of 67 is that the artist cre ated his own faux Gra ti in the orange background, a deci sion that lucidly illustrates Schacter’s argument that Street Art is an appropriation of Gra ti for corporate gain, for in in cluding faux Gra ti, Summer of 67 is directly appealing to the edgy authenticity of Gra ti in order to sell Roots products.

On a formal level, the mural is reminiscent of retro advertise ments, something from which Whatisadam explicitly draws inspiration (likely the reason so many corporations have commissioned his work). The flat planes of color with which he constructs his scene are saturated, as seen in the bright orange background, the royal blue of the clothing and ac companiments, and the baby pink accents in the figures’ hair, clothing, and vinyl record sleeve. The forms are done in a linear style, with everything clearly outlined by black. The medium of spray paint, interestingly, is hidden — the hand of the artist erased. Unless one views the mural from up close, which is not how it is meant to be viewed given its large scale, the trademark qualities of spray paint are invisible, melting into the flat, even planes of color. Compared with the Gra ti tags, which maintain the hazy, airbrushed quality and drips of paint that typically appear with spray paint, the mural’s lines and shapes are clean. The di erent treatment of the medium can likely be attributed, at least in part, to the fact that Street Artists have an extended period of time to carefully execute their work, whereas Gra ti taggers must work quickly so as to avoid being caught, lending their work a spontaneous quali

Figure 07 | Guko and Monk-E, Missing Justice, 2014. Spray paint on wall, Ville-Marie, Montréal.

ty that most Street Art lacks. This is perhaps most evident in the faux Gra ti that Whatisadam painted on the back ground. At first glance, the viewer might not realize that the sporadic black marks are supposed to be Gra ti, as they appear too clean and linear to be realistic. From Wh adisadam’s perspective, the formal di erences between Gra ti and Street Art can also be attributed to their di er ent ideological intentions. “Gra ti is a subculture where the art is really made for other gra ti artists, and it’s about the respect you get from these other artists. Street Art is generally more for the public, and these days… social media,” he writes.38 Indeed, his work is undoubtedly fit ted for social media, not just in its hashtag in the top right corner and its linear qualities and vibrant primary colors that would translate well on most mobile phone camer as, but also in its hipster aesthetic that many members of the Millennial and Generation Z age groups would likely find appealing. To this point, as of December 2021, Insta gram counts 11.9 million posts under the hashtag “mural.”

Norte-Sur certainly shares many of the same stylistic qualities as Summer of 67, including bright colors and clean outlines, but such qualities can in this case be large ly attributed to the personal styles of the artists. Having no need to appeal to a corporation or significant social media audience (remembering that his work was created in 2008 and Instagram was created in 2010), the stylistic choices can likely be attributed to the tastes and prefer ences of Shalak, Guko, and the people who they consult ed, including the Stamouloses, who are all private citizens rather than corporate marketing teams. What is most no table regarding the subject matter of Norte-Sur is its em phasis on indigeneity. Depicting elements from multiple Indigenous cultures, including the inukshuk, the profile of what appears to be a Haida totem, a man in a headdress, and the brightly and geometrically rendered iguana (native to tropical regions in Central and South America) make it evident that the indigeneity represented here is not limit ed to the First Nations communities traditionally living in Tiohtiá:ke, the unceded territory of the Kanien’kehá:ka, but rather a broader indigeneity that is inclusive of communities across the Americas. By including visual allusion to Indigenous visual cultures across North and South America, the mural reflects the reality of urban Indigenous demographics. In doing so, the mural counters the spec tral narrative of indigeneity, which visually and discur sively excludes Indigenous peoples from contemporary Canadian reality, relegating Indigenous existence to the past.39 Norte-Sur therefore problematizes the dialectical relationship between Street Art and neocolonialism, po tentially disrupting the Creative City’s exploitative hold on Street Art by creating a mural by the community that is reflective of Indigenous reality in the Plateau-Mont-Royal.

Summer of 67 also proposes its own narrative of Canadian identity, albeit one that contrasts starkly to that proposed by Shalak and Guko. Roots, as we have already established, uses its national identity as a marketing tool, meaning it relies on a notion of Canadianness that is as positive as possible. “Companies don’t like negative attention or to o end anyone, so the art usually doesn’t contain any social or political mes saging,” writes Whatisadam.40 This said, there are no traces of any darker parts of Canadian history or experiences, nor are there any markers of Indigenous presence on the land. To begin with, there are several visual cues that place the scene in Canada. The famous “Pure Maple Syrup” can, the main stay of souvenir shops and any duty-free retailer in Canadian airports, is a pleasing symbol of Canadian identity. The fleur de lys tattoo on one of the subject’s legs and the notebook that reads “Camp de Montréal” signals to us that we are in Montréal, Quebec more specifically. Having established a national and provincial alliance, the painting constructs a narrative of a welcoming, diverse Canada, one where three young people of di erent races are coexisting happily and without tension. Unlike Norte-Sur, there is no visual evi dence of indigeneity nor is there an acknowledgement of the unceded nature of the land on which the figures sit. To illuminate the happy, diverse Canadian narrative depicted in Summer of 67, let us read it in terms of the liberal spectacle.

As described by Johan F. Hartle, the liberal spectacle is part of an aesthetic politics with “the capacity… to both expose and integrate just about anything without touching upon the

material grounds of social (re-)production, the capacity to tolerantly produce an overabundance of images and representations without touching on the structural core of the capitalist accumulation with all the logics of expansion and marginalization, of implicit and explicit violence applied.”41 For this reason, the liberal spectacle finds a natural conduit in Street Art, which Schacter described as “numb” to the social realities that lead to its creation and to the implica tions of its very presence. Summer of 67, in giving viewers a picture of progressive Canadian utopia, an ideal that nec essarily erases the genocide and ongoing oppression of First Nations and Inuit communities not just in Montreal but across the country, the mural can indeed be read as an act of neocolonialism that hides the reality of marginalization in Canada. It embodies the “ideology of Canadian multicultur alism,” a myth that has been criticized for silencing the lived experiences of the marginalized within Canada in order to maintain the country’s reputation as a post-racial haven.42 Damaris Rose, in writing about the social mix in a gentrified Montreal, explains that post-industrial cities have “a growing interest in marketing themselves as being built on a founda tion of ‘inclusive’ neighborhoods capable of harmoniously supporting a blend of incomes, cultures, age groups and ‘life styles’” often through targeting young, creative renters.43 In this way, Summer of 67 is a gentrifier’s liberal spectacle — a reduction of progressive politics to neutral representations of that which political and social practice seeks to achieve.

Conclusion

Certainly, such an incisive criticism of a simple mural may por tray the agents in an overly black and white manner, accusing them of knowingly and villainously contributing to gentrifica tion and neocolonial exploits. Odds are, this is not the case, for the reality is far more complicated. Whatisadam, when questioned about the mural tagging phenomenon, took no side. Rather than criticize those who painted on top of his mural, he merely acknowledged the essential di erences between Street Art and the subculture Gra ti. To place the blame for rising incomes and displacement on a single mural, artist, business, or policy, therefore, would disavow the en tanglement of past and present actions that foster an envi ronment for Street Art and Gra ti to exist in conflict in the first place. From its inception to its implementation to its afterlife in the public space, each mural has its own story and makes its own space. Thus, the intentions, conscious or uncon scious, behind our two murals’ creations are only one string in a web of practices, motivations, and agents that intertwine. What makes the study of this web of visual culture and its material consequences so di cult to untangle, however, is that even positive intentions can produce negative impacts. For this reason it is imperative that interdisciplinary studies on the phenomenon of artwashing continue to be done so that we may be better able to identify harmful artistic prac tices and instead foster an environment wherein Street Art can be the democratic artform that it has the potential to be.

Endnotes

1. Interview with Esteban del Valle,” L.A. Taco, January 6, 2016. https://www.lataco.com/interview-with-esteban-delvalle.

2. Emmanuel Hamidi, “Visualizing Narratives of Art as Gentriﬁcation in the ‘Artwashing’ of Boyle Heights,” Berkeley Undergraduate Journal 34, no.1 (2020): 1.

3. For the purpose of this essay, I will use the term Urban Art to describe all visual culture situated in public urban spaces, describing both Street Art and Gra ti, that is distinct from Public Art.

4. D.J. Hammel,“Gentriﬁcation,” in International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, ed. Rob Kitchin and Nigel Thrift, 360-367 (Elsevier, 2009), 360.

5. Peter D. Salins, “The Limits of Gentriﬁcation,” New York A airs, vol. 5 (Fall 1979), quoted in Rosalyn Deutsche and Cara Gendel Ryan, “The Fine Art of Gentriﬁcation,” October 31 (1984): 94.

6. Deutsche and Ryan, “The Fine Art of Gentriﬁcation,” 94.

7. Deutsche and Ryan, “The Fine Art of Gentriﬁcation,” 94.

8. Chase Billingham in his article “Waiting for Bobos: Displacement and Impeded Gentriﬁcation in a Midwestern City” (2017) employs the term “bobo” to describe the bourgeois bohemian, or the sophisticated metropolitan professional who moves into a previously undervalued urban area.

9. Lefebvre, H., & Nicholson-Smith, D., The Production of Space (Blackwell: Oxford, 1991): 289.

10. Lefebvre, H., & Nicholson-Smith, D., The Production of Space (Blackwell: Oxford, 1991): 289-292.

11. Eugene J. McCann, “Race, Protest, and Public Space: Contextualizing Lefebvre in the US City,” Antipode 31, no. 2 (1999): 168.

12. Lefebvre and Nicholson-Smith, The Production of Space, 290291.

13. Rafael Schacter, “The Ugly Truth: Street Art, Gra ti and the Creative City,” Art & the Public Sphere 3, no. 2 (2014): 163.

14. Schacter, “The Ugly Truth,” 162.

15. Rad Point, “Pourquoi les gra teurs taguent les murales à Montréal? On leur a posé la question,” YouTube video, 10:21, 18 October 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfn-0O4v6fg.

16. Schacter, “The Ugly Truth, 163.

17. Damaris Rose, “Local state policy and ‘New-Build Gentriﬁcation’ in Montréal: The Role of the ‘Population Factor’ in a Fragmented Governance Context,” Population, Space and Place 16, no. 5 (2010): 414-15.

18. Schacter, “The Ugly Truth,” 163.

19. “The Festival,” About, MURAL Festival, https://muralfestival.com/ about.

20. Arrondissement Le Plateau-Mont-Royal, “Adoption du Règlement modifiant le Règlement d’urbanisme de l’arrondissement du Plateau-Mont-Royal (01-277) et le Règlement sur le certificat d’oc cupation et certains certificats d’autorisation (R.R.V.M., c. C-3.2) afin de revoir les secteurs où est autorisé l’usage « résidence de tourisme » et d’interdire le changement de vocation de certains immeubles de grande hauteur (2018-06).” October 2, 2018.

21. Lost Claws, email to author, November 18, 2021.

22. McCann, “Race, Protest, and Public Space,” 168.

23. Schacter, “The Ugly Truth,” 165.

24. McCann, “Race, Protest, and Public Space,” 168.

25. Schacter, “The Ugly Truth,” 164-5.

26. Schacter, “The Ugly Truth,” 162.

27. McCann, “Race, Protest, and Public Space,” 164.

28. Rad Point, “Pourquoi les gra teurs taguent les murales,” 2021. (Editor’s translation: “the embellishment/beautiﬁcation of the territory;” “a nuisance in terms of the negative perception of arterial roads”)

29. Quatro4u2, “This is why taggers have no class. One of my favorite murals on st-viateur,” Reddit post, 2017, https://www.reddit.com/r/ montreal/comments/6igi08/this_is_why_taggers_have_no_class_ one_of_my.

30. Yeezybreezy666, “I’m not surprised honestly, too many taggers in the city screwing up murals,” Reddit post, 2017. https://www.reddit. com/r/montreal/comments/6igi08/this_is_why_taggers_have_ no_class_one_of_my.

31. Abraxas514, “Murals are beautiful and an expression of giving back to your community, tagging is taking what you want and not caring about others,” Reddit post, 2017. https://www.reddit.com/r/ montreal/comments/6igi08/this_is_why_taggers_have_no_class_ one_of_my.

32. Lost Claws, email to author, November 18, 2021.

33. Bosny, “Does the mural add culture to its environment, or is it purely decorative? If so, is it taking up public space that could actually be contributing to public discourse?” Reddit post, 2017. https:// www.reddit.com/r/montreal/comments/6igi08/this_is_why_taggers_have_no_class_one_of_my.

34. Whatisadam, email to author, November 24, 2021.

35. “Missing Justice,” Murs-Walls, Guko, https://guko.ca/murs-walls/ missing-justice.

36. Jan Lin, “Boulevard Transition, Hipster Aesthetics, and Anti-Gentriﬁcation Struggles in Los Angeles,” in Aesthetics of Gentriﬁcation: Seductive Spaces and Exclusive Communities in the Neoliberal City, ed. Christoph Linder and Gerard F. Sandoval (Amsterdam University Press, 2021), 204-5.

37. Lin, “Boulevard Transition,” 204-5.

38. Whatisadam, email to author, November 24, 2021.

39. Sandrina de Finney, “Playing Indian and other Settler Stories of Indigenous Girlhood,” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 29, no. 2 (2015): 172-173.

40. Whatisadam, email to author, November 24, 2021.

41. Johan F. Hartle, “Art Contra Politics: Liberal Spectacle, Fascist Resurgence,” in Spectres of Fascism: Historical, Theoretical and International Perspectives, ed. Samir Gandesha (Pluto Press, 2020), 242.

42. Mehrunnisa Ahmad Ali, “Second-generation Canadian Youth’s Belief in the Myth of Canadian Multiculturalism,” Canadian Ethnic Studies 40, no. 2 (2008): 89-91.

43. Damaris Rose, “Social Mix in Gentrifying Neighbourhoods: a Montreal Case Study,” Canadian Journal of Urban Research 13, no. 2 (2004): 281.

Bibliography

Abraxas514. “Murals are beautiful and an expression of giving back to your community, tagging is taking what you want and not caring about others.” Reddit post, 2017. https://www.reddit. com/r/montreal/comments/6igi08/this_is_why_taggers_have_ no_class_one_of_my.

Ali, Mehrunnisa Ahmad. “Second-generation Canadian Youth’s Belief in the Myth of Canadian Multiculturalism.” Canadian Ethnic Studies 40, no. 2 (2008): 89-107.

Arrondissement Le Plateau-Mont-Royal. “Adoption du Règlement modifiant le Règlement d’urbanisme de l’arrondissement du Plateau-Mont-Royal (01-277) et le Règlement sur le certificat d’occupation et certains certificats d’autorisation (R.R.V.M., c. C-3.2) afin de revoir les secteurs où est autorisé l’usage « résidence de tourisme » et d’interdire le changement de vocation de certains immeubles de grande hauteur (2018-06).” October 2, 2018.

Billingham, Chase M. “Waiting for Bobos: Displacement and Impeded Gentriﬁcation in a Midwestern City.” City & Community 16, no. 2 (2017): 145-168.

Bosny, “Does the mural add culture to its environment, or is it purely decorative ? If so, is it taking up public space that could actually be contributing to public discourse?” Reddit post, 2017. https:// www.reddit.com/r/montreal/comments/6igi08/this_is_why_taggers_have_no_class_one_of_my.

De Finney, Sandrina “Playing Indian and other Settler Stories of Indigenous Girlhood.” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 29, no. 2 (2015): 168-181.

Deutsche, Rosalyn, and Cara Gendel Ryan. “The Fine Art of Gentriﬁcation.” October 31 (1984): 91–111.

Guko. “Missing Justice.” Murs-Walls. https://guko.ca/murs-walls/ missing-justice.

Hamidi, Emmanuel. “Visualizing Narratives of Art as Gentriﬁcation in the ‘Artwashing’ of Boyle Heights.” Berkeley Undergraduate Journal 34, no.1 (2020): 1-36.

Hammel, D.J. “Gentriﬁcation.” In International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, edited by Rob Kitchin and Nigel, 360-367. Elsevier, 2009.

Hartle, Johan F. “Art Contra Politics: Liberal Spectacle, Fascist Resurgence.” In Spectres of Fascism: Historical, Theoretical and International Perspectives, edited by Samir Gandesha, 241–60. Pluto Press, 2020.

“Interview with Esteban del Valle.” L.A. Taco, January 6, 2016. https:// www.lataco.com/interview-with-esteban-delvalle.

Lefebvre, Henri and D. Nicholas-Smith. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991.

Lin, Jan. “Boulevard Transition, Hipster Aesthetics, and Anti-Gentriﬁcation Struggles in Los Angeles.” In Aesthetics of Gentriﬁcation: Seductive Spaces and Exclusive Communities in the Neoliberal City, edited by Christoph Lindner and Gerard F. Sandoval, 199–220. Amsterdam University Press, 2021.

McCann, Eugene J. “Race, Protest, and Public Space: Contextualizing Lefebvre in the US City.” Antipode 31, no. 2 (1999): 163-184.

MURAL Festival. “The Festival.” About. https://muralfestival.com/ about/.

Rad Point. “Pourquoi les gra teurs taguent les murales à Montréal? On leur a posé la question.” YouTube Video, 10:21. 18 October 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfn-0O4v6fg.

Rose, Damaris. “Discourses and Experiences of Social Mix in Gentrifying Neighbourhoods: A Montréal Case Study.” Canadian Journal of Urban Research 13, no. 2 (2004): 278–316.

Rose, Damaris. “Local state policy and ‘New-Build Gentriﬁcation’ in Montréal: The Role of the ‘Population Factor’ in a Fragmented Governance Context.” Population, Space and Place 16, no. 5 (2010), 413-428.

Schacter, Rafael. “The Ugly Truth: Street Art, Gra ti and the Creative City.” Art & the Public Sphere 3, no. 2 (2014):161-176.

Quatro4u2. “This is why taggers have no class.” Reddit post, 2017. https://www.reddit.com/r/montreal/comments/6igi08/this_is_ why_taggers_have_no_class_one_of_my/.

Yeezybreezy666. “I’m not surprised honestly, too many taggers in the city screwing up murals.” Reddit post, 2017. https://www.reddit. com/r/montreal/comments/6igi08/this_is_why_taggers_have_no_ class_one_of_my/.

In this essay I am dealing with coverlet weavings from the Southern Appalachian region of the United States, specifi cally during the Craft Revival of the early 20th century. I will argue that my chosen topic has diverse feminist, econom ic, and artistic implications which give it a rich background for art historical reading. To execute this reading, I will first give a history of the region, the Craft Revival, and its key figures. I will then examine the social and economic struc tures weaving occupied in this setting. This context will help formulate a model for assessing coverlets as art in order to argue for their consideration in the art historical scope.

Introduction Geography and Cultural History

Figure 01 | John C. Campbell, Map of Southern Appalachia, John C. Campbell Foundation https://artsandsciences.sc.edu/appalachianenglish/node/783.

Allen Eaton defines the Southern Highlands or Southern Ap palachia as “the western strip of Maryland, the Blue Ridge and Alleghany Ridge counties of Virginia, nearly all of West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina, the counties of northwestern South Caroli na, northern Georgia, and northeastern Alabama.”1 I include this detailed definition to emphasize how large and diverse of a region we are dealing with when we say Southern Appala chia. The mountains in this area are specifically known as the Blue Ridge Mountains for the blue haze which covers them when seen from a distance. This area is a distinct region of the United States which is often treated as a backwater. This is due to the isolation which comes with the di cult terrain of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which contain Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi River. The area is large ly avoided by migration paths, with most early American pio neers choosing to take the Cumberland Gap or travel all the way to Georgia to avoid the mountains altogether. The im passability caused people who did settle in the region to ex perience great isolation. This led to a consistent othering of these people in discussions of subcultures within America.2

While this remoteness created many practical di culties and required a very self-su cient lifestyle, it also gave the region a distinct cultural identity which lingers into the 21st century. This culture is perhaps most famous for its Appa lachian music with its distinctive ﬁddle, banjo, and dulci mer.3 Probably most akin to folk music with roots in Scot land and Africa, Appalachian music was a major inﬂuence on rock n’ roll, bluegrass, and country. At the same time as the Craft Revival, there was a folk revival focusing on Appalachian music.4 This revival culture was due to the lack of documentation which comes with oral traditions passed through generations. With the increased access to the out side world, younger generations lost the desire and need to learn from their elders, therefore cultural recording projects saved much Appalachian cultural history.5 The region also has a history of square dance and clogging, as well as a rich storytelling and folklore tradition which was not yet widely recorded at the time of the Craft Revival.6 Decades of these rural traditions were disrupted, like most everything else, by the greatest loss of lives ever seen on American soil.7

The American Civil War left a path of destruction from Penn sylvania to Georgia.8 However, it also brought a wave of in dustrialization to previously homespun southern areas. In the rural reaches of the Appalachian mountains, new goods became accessible.9 While this created a new ease of life and room for economic growth, it also drastically damaged the culture of handicrafts from the region. Alvic states, “af ter the Civil War, looms were idle and were stored in barns.”10 Crafts including weaving, woodworking, and pottery were slowly lost. Practitioners gradually died without passing on their knowledge. Alvic cites a unique source written by Jake Carpenter of Three Mile Creek, North Carolina. He noted the death of community members along with their occupations from 1841 to 1916. The last noted as a weav er and spinner died in 1896. In the last 20 years of his re cords, Carpenter noted no weavers.11 This primary evidence suggests that by the 1890s, the distinct craft of coverlet weaving, which is the focus of this paper, was all but lost.

The Southern Appalachian Handicraft Revival

The saving grace of weaving and handicrafts was the South ern Appalachian Craft Revival. Started around Berea, Ken tucky and Asheville, North Carolina, the Craft Revival was not a cohesive or particularly intentional movement.12 In fact, it can only be called a movement in retrospect. Rather, it was the result of various individuals who saw value in saving these crafts, and it all serendipitously happened at the same time. The revival took two distinct forms based on Allanstand in North Carolina and Berea in Kentucky: craft groups/guilds that brought together artists who worked in their homes and organized schools where craft was taught and created. It revived knowledge of local craft in Appalachian people and created income by marketing goods to northern audienc es. There are multiple figures cited as the founders of the Craft Revival. There is Dr. William Frost from Berea College in Kentucky,13 Lucy Morgan from the Penland Weavers, 14 and Olive Campbell and her husband John.15 However, the most referenced name is Frances L. Goodrich, a mission ary from the north who saw the chance to create change through art.16 While the specific founder is not necessarily important, it is significant that the majority of leaders named are women. With the exception of Dr. Frost, the Craft Revival was spearheaded by women. From the start this movement was female-driven with the focus of bettering women’s lives.

Allanstand Cottage Industries, founded by Frances L. Go odrich, was based on Goodrich’s desire to bring “health ful excitement” to the isolated women of the area around Asheville, North Carolina.17 Goodrich, like many other cot tage weaving group founders, was a religious missionary who came to the region to help local residents. She came from a well-educated northern family; her great grandfa ther, Noah Webster, wrote the ﬁrst American dictionary.

Goodrich found an interested market in the Northern states for Appalachian coverlets and decided to embrace weaving as a means of social and economic opportunity for women.19 She did so in conjunction with Susan Chester Lyman, who brokered orders from northern consumers and brought the commissions to mountain weavers.20 Unlike Berea which functioned in a centralized location, Allanstand’s weav ers all worked from home. They met regularly to discuss weaving and form social connections. Allanstand was tak en over by the Southern Highland Craft Guild in 1931 and still works under this name now.21 I was able to visit this in stitution and see the sample book belonging to Frances L. Goodrich (ﬁg. 9), the comprehensive nature of which speaks to her thorough dedication to the Craft Revival.

Berea College still functions today much like it did in the ear ly 20th century. It was the first model for centralizing craft organizations in a similar manner to traditional colleges.22 In 1893, the new president of the school, Dr. Frost, took a tour of the surrounding area and came to love the tradition al weaving he saw on his travels.23 His love of these cover let weaving eventually led to a barter system in which he accepted coverlets in exchange for a portion of tuition fees at Berea.24 The college went on to start a weaving work shop, host homespun craft fairs where students could make profits, and establish its famous fireside industries.25 Like Goodrich, Frost found there was a sustained demand for these weaving in the north where home spinning and weaving were far less practiced.26 This commercial poten tial of coverlet weavings colored the entire Craft Revival and took it beyond cultural movement to major artistic moment.

In the early 20th century across the region, various groups of weavers organized around the craft following the ideas of Goodrich and Frost. Eaton lists thirty organizations formed from 1901 through the 1930s.27 These groups along with the Southern Industrial Education Association, Russell Sage Foundation, Conference of Southern Mountain Workers, and the Southern Highland Craft Guild created the Craft

Revival. The Southern Industrial Education Association was created to help women and children struggling after the Civil War by teaching them practical skills.28 The Russell Sage Foundation was created for the betterment of living con ditions in the United States.29 In the southern division, this broad mission took the form of economic investment in local crafts. Allen Eaton, the author of my major historical source, worked for the foundation. The Russell Sage Foundation also prompted the formation of the Conference of Southern Mountain Workers, where the usually disconnected peo ple working in isolation had the chance to connect and learn from each other.30 One meeting spurred the creation of the Southern Highland Craft Guild, which still functions today in Asheville, North Carolina.31 These organizations promot ed the educational and economic betterment of rural wom en through weaving and contributed immensely to the Craft Revival. All of the phenomena which undergird my argument were made possible by these people and organizations.

Figure 03 | Frances L. Goodrich

Argument and Source Summary Coverlets and Materials

Having established the cultural settings and the multifacet ed nature of the Southern Appalachian Handicraft Revival, I will delve into my three primary objectives. The ﬁrst is to illu minate the female community building that weaving spurred. Second, I will look at the complex economic and cultural im plications of the Craft Revival within and outside of Southern Appalachia. Third, I will advocate for the aesthetic, art his torical consideration of coverlet weaving. In the resources on coverlet weaving, there is a gap in art historical analysis beyond talk of color and pattern choices. I will try to ﬁll this gap and argue for the consideration of Appalachian cover lets as deserving recognition for their art historical value.

There are a few key historical sources I cite throughout this essay. Allen Eaton’s comprehensive history is invaluable writing on the Handicraft Revival. It is cited in every other source on the subject, and still provides an incredibly use ful firsthand account of the movement. That being said, he has a tendency to stereotype his subjects as romanti cized, hardworking mountain people who are eager to work with their hands and take immense pride in self-sustaining homesteads. While this is surely true of some people, Eaton assigns this attitude to the entire region, firmly establishing him as enthusiastic and earnest, yet misinformed outsider. Philis Alvic’s Weavers of the Southern Highlands draws on Eaton’s original work but gives a more in depth look at spe cific actors in the revival. Kathleen Curtis-Wilson’s book, Tex tile Art of Southern Appalachia: The Quiet Work of Women, published in 2001, provides a comprehensive collection of coverlets with the rare addition of information on the weav ers who created them. It also includes pattern names and details, which are extremely useful to my analysis. Along with these essential sources, I reference relevant schol arship on textiles by Janis Je eries and Rozsika Parker.

Coverlets are decorative woven bedcovers. They are typically woven in the overshot style, and all of the cover lets in this paper are overshot.32 Since the looms were not large enough to weave an entire coverlet at once, weavers made two separate panels and sewed them together after weaving. In most instances, the center seam is visible since matching the patterns perfectly required immense attention to detail and wasn’t considered necessary by most weav ers. Ones without visible seams indicate incredibly skilled weavers and were likely meant to be sold, like the one by Josephine Mast here (ﬁg. 4). If there is no seam at all, it is a factory-woven coverlet.33 Coverlet patterns are record ed in drafts, but the ability to read draft notation was dwin dling by the time the Craft Revival began.34 Coverlet pattern names are also not ﬁxed, one pattern can have di erent names in di erent counties. There are some patterns that were popular across the region, like the double bowknot.

Though some weavers used pre-spun threads, most grew or locally sourced ﬂax, cotton, and sheep to make their lin en, cotton, and wool threads.35 Cotton and wool were more commonly used than linen, and weavers would card, pick, and spin their own cotton and wool. This was a laborious task. Most weavers also hand-dyed their threads, either with natu ral dyes from available sources or available synthetic dyes. 36 Goodrich goes through multiple natural dye recipes, conﬁrm ing that natural dye elements were still used well into the 20th century.37 The limited options from both natural and synthet ic dyes required weavers to apply innovative color theory to create the desired e ect. It makes the vivid and large range of colors achieved by home-dyers even more impressive.

Josephine Mast (1861-1936) is by far the most notable weav er of the revival. From Valle Crucis, North Carolina, her fam ily founded the Mast General Stores, which now operate across the southeast. Incredibly, Josephine Mast used her grandmother’s loom, built in 1820, and wove on it for over fifty years.38 She spun and dyed her own fiber for most of her life, though her late work did use commercially spun and dyed yarn.39 She was commissioned by first lady Ellen Wil son to provide weaving for the Blue Mountain Room in the White House in 1913 as seen here (fig. 5).40 This established her as one of the most commercially successful coverlet weavers of the time. This commission was also a significant factor in the growing northern market for southern-made goods. Since her coverlets were primarily intended to be sold, there is a level of detail not seen in the works of hob by weavers. For instance, she frequently finished coverlets with fringed borders as seen here (fig. 6). Due to her artistic and commercial success along with the quality of her ex tant work, I will reference Josephine Mast’s work through out the essay along with a select few other coverlets.

Figure 04 |J osephine Mast, untitled, 1920, coverlet weaving. Figure 05 | Harris and Ewing, President’s Blue Mountain Room at the White House, 1913, photograph.

Crafting Community and Feminism

The isolating geography of Southern Appalachia inﬂu enced every aspect of life. Outside of the few cities in the area, people lived with limited social opportunities. Weaving groups created a reason for female organization at a time when there were little to no reasons for women to congre gate and socialize outside of church.41 In the most rural com munities, church meetings only happened once or twice a year.42 At Allanstand, Frances Goodrich “aimed most of all to give the women a place to go and get together and do business of their own that mattered in the real world.”43 The moral qualities missionaries like Goodrich assigned to weaving have strong overtones of Protestant work ethic ideology. They emphasized the quality of character such an honest practice created.44 While these weaving groups were morally idealized, they were practically and socially im portant. Women gathered to “discuss questions of supplies, weaving instructions, and shipping and marketing the ﬁn ished work; but equally important is the social aspect where friends and relatives who had not come together over long periods, sometimes years, met more or less regularly.”45 In our interconnected age, it is hard to fathom going so long without any interaction with loved ones, especially ones liv ing in the same county. The community and focus on educa tion also gave many women the opportunity to pursue new interests. Eaton notes that through weaving he saw wom en take interest in “geography, history, sociology, science, and art.”46 Weaving groups facilitated knowledge-sharing and fostered community, both of which were crucial to the economic relevance of coverlets that I will discuss next.

Figure 06 | Josephine Mast, Sun, Moon, and Stars Variation (detail), 1918, coverlet weaving.

Sexism, Racism, and Economics of Othering

The history of weaving in America is inextricable from the lived experience of women in the country since it was histor ically considered a woman’s craft.47 Rozsika Parker identiﬁes “the historical hierarchical division of the arts into ﬁne arts and craft as a major force in the marginalization of women’s work.”48 This phenomenon applies across American history. In Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s The Age of Homespun, she dis cusses the rhetoric of Horace Bushnell, a 19th century min ister from Connecticut, and his public addresses. He coined the term “the age of homespun” in a speech on the virtue and importance of women’s spinning to the community.49 He pro claimed an “economy of homespun” would e ectively create a utopian society of equality.50 This choice to economically center women’s work feels incredibly feminist for the 1800s. However, Bushnell quickly descends into sexism, calling spinning the best way to calm women’s “nervous impulse.”51 What presents like feminist economics quickly spirals into praising women for their meekness and silence while expect ing them to perform free labor. According to Robertson and Vinebaum, “the devaluation of women’s hand-labor has un dergirded many supposedly utopian projects.”52 This whole example is the perfect case study for the past weaving has to overcome. It illustrates the challenge for feminist readings of historical textile arts since for most of history, women did not weave entirely by choice. They were praised for weav ing only because it was expected of them. After industrial ization lessened that burden, women seeking education in the arts were relegated to this acceptably feminine prac tice. Even Anni Albers, arguably the most well-known textile artist of the 20th century, only started weaving because of gendered expectations.53 A feminist reading of textiles takes form when we see them as subverting sexism from within by using the means of female oppression to express female ar tistic freedom. By applying this idea to spinning and weav

ing, we can recognize both the sexist confines of weaving and the unexpected innovation and artistry that came from women refusing confinement. The title of Rozsika Parker’s The Subversive Stitch, wittily sums up this idea. Just because something is historically associated with oppression does not mean it cannot be used for liberation. Using tools of oppres sion to fight norms imbues them with even greater potency.

One of the primary subversive qualities of weaving in Southern Appalachia, outside of artistic freedom, was the eco nomic impact of coverlet weavings. The personal financial importance of weaving for Southern Appalachian women is emphasized in all of the historical sources on the Craft Reviv al. The opportunity for women to make independent income was revolutionary. There was already very little economic op portunity in the rural Southern Highlands, so even small earn ings were greatly valued.54 Alvic notes that when asked, most women stated they preferred working in the home, therefore weaving fit their needs.55 Being able to make money while staying at home was previously out of the question. At most centers, weaving was also flexible, since income was based on accepted commissions, and women could take as many or few as desired.56 Historically, textiles were used to occu py women and keep them in the home, so using them to gain income and freedom subverted centuries of oppression.57 Many chose to spend their earnings on their children’s educa tion, some even sending their children to college with it.58 They also accessed new freedom to furnish their homes and pur chase items for personal enjoyment, such as victrolas.59 We should not underestimate the immense di erence in lifestyle items like these created for people previously living almost exclusively o of their land.60 While this supplemental income helped families to continue their long-lived mountain lifestyles in a rapidly modernizing world,61 it also gave women unprec edented financial power and influence in their family units.62

This brings us to the second question of feminism in this spe ciﬁc instance of weaving. While weaving helped women and their families continue living traditionally, was the traditional life better or equal to the opportunities for women in more indus trialized parts of the country? There is no one answer here as lifestyle is on a case-by-case preference. Perhaps given the option to leave, some women would have, but travel was not easy then and meant leaving both home and family. Women were also gradually gaining independence economically and socially in the rural communities where they were from. While I do not disagree that these rural women may have led more ful ﬁlling lives in a more urban context, the opportunities created by weaving greatly ameliorated their given situation. Moreover, their rural situation and continuation of tradition created a lot of their market appeal to consumers from outside of the region.63

Outsiders, people from areas other than Southern Appala chia, were integral in the Craft Revival. Without the protestant

missionaries like Frances L. Goodrich and educators like William Frost, Appalachian handicrafts in their current form would not exist. They came to the region with new ideas for educational models and community engagement. They were also critical to identifying the economic potential of coverlet weavings. By the 1850s, the art of home spinning and weaving was largely lost in northern states.64 Becker’s Selling Tradition: Appalachia and the Construction of an American Folk, 1930- 1940, discusses the othering of “folk” traditions that underlies this market. The people of rural Ap palachia were othered by “urban sophisticate” and added to the narrative of traditional America.65 Much of this othering was spurred by local color writers who traveled to the coun try in order to write about small pockets of people for urban ites’ enjoyment.66 These travel writers greatly romanticized the people and lifestyle of the region as an idyllic pastoral remnant of a forgotten time.67 The folk culture of Appala chia was made a foil to industrialized America and idealized as a kind of escape.68 Part of the desire for crafts from the region came from their association with “pure” American roots, aka an America of white European descent.69 South ern Appalachia became the locus of this racist ideal in the late 19th century after the abolition of slavery and the en suing white panic.70 Overall, this othering was problematic both for its underlying racism and its overgeneralization of a diverse group of people. Appalachia was not exclusive ly white, but the image sold of it was. This false and racist idea was not considered by the weavers or organizations in any source I have read. However, this problematic consum er mindset is an important reminder that coverlets were a white tradition, and their positive e ect did not seem to ex tend to people of color. While appreciating the progressive economic impact on individual Appalachian white women, we need to keep in mind the type of desires driving the de mand and the groups excluded from the history of coverlets.

A Critical Language of Weaving and Art Historical Situating

Coverlet weaving’s reception has been largely typical of “craft” objects, included in cultural exhibitions and muse ums and therefore not allowed to exist aesthetically alone. We allow art to speak for itself through visual qualities, but we expect craft to be supported by culture and history. Cov erlets are considered a craft in the art/craft divide which went largely unquestioned until the later 20th century.71 Be fore this, the division of art and craft dismissed traditionally feminine practices in textile as decorative and lacking the intellectual value of traditionally male art forms.72 Weaving was considered “too domestic and laborious to hold signif icant depth” according to scholarship on the Bauhaus atti tude towards weaving.73 This is precisely what I am arguing against. The disregard for female labor and art is evident in the artistic devaluing of weaving. Considering this point, my argument is a type of feminist art recovery from this dis regard. Coverlet weavings are not in complete obscurity; they are just artistically overlooked. There was one show of coverlets in 2001 curated by Kathleen Curtis Wilson, which I hope laid the ground for more museum appreciation of these works.74 However, this one show from twenty years ago does not constitute artistic recognition. It is an excep tional outlier. In order to advocate for this consideration, we have to re-frame our artistic vocabulary to ﬁt textile art.

Weaving happens in its own language. It is not easy to ex plain in a linear manner due to the literally interwoven nature of textile art. We cannot use the same approach appropriate for painting or drawings. Weavers have to plan in terms of the loom and threads and capabilities of the grid. We need to find weaving’s own pictorial-structural terminology. Female Bau haus weavers used the language of architectural functional ism in their argument for weaving as a specific and internally defined medium.76 Of these women, specifically Anni Albers and Otti Berger wrote extensively on the importance of tac tile engagement, followed by structure and color. For Berger, durability was important throughout the critical process.77 I am working from their key concepts to consider coverlets.

To look holistically at texture, we have to look at the mo tions that created it. Since coverlets were handwoven, we can investigate them in terms of a singular artist. Handweaving requires the entire body. The feet move the treadle to alternately raise the weft and warp, the hands manipulate the weft through the warp, the body danc es around the loom in order to weave. This rhythm is inte gral to how we understand construction. The structure of weaving itself indexes the movement of a woman in the act of creation. The rhythm of weaving creates the var ied textures and nuances of the textile. Therefore experiencing the texture of coverlets is artistically intimate.

In feeling the haptic qualities of the coverlet, it is natural to move to the identities of individual threads. Even in the tight est weave structure, each thread can be distinguished. Their texture is di erent alone versus within the larger composi tion. Albers discusses the a ordances of di erent materi al and weave pattern combinations, which come into play here. In the simplest terms, this is how the weave pattern and fiber a ect each other and gain agency in combination. For instance, wool in a standard weave versus a twill weave creates entirely di erent experiences.77 Threads may feel rough in isolation yet soft in the compositional context. In this example (fig. 8), we see how the condensed sections of purple weft threads appear softer than the warp-dominant white sections. Albers also emphasizes the importance of understanding raw elements and components when look ing at texture. Since we primarily interact with finished prod ucts, the impact of handling ingredients and engaging with their transformation greatly informs our tactile sensibility.78 Therefore it is important to mentally deconstruct and re construct textiles to grasp their haptic qualities. We need to visualize the raw white warp of this work by Mast gradually coming together with the purple and orange wefts dancing through. Then we begin to grasp the foundations of texture.

Senses do not happen in a vacuum. In experiencing the tactile qualities of a piece, we also take in the colors of the

threads. In the previous ﬁgure, the contrasting textures are heightened by the opposing colors. Color is an integral part of how we perceive texture. Coverlet weavers employed col or theory to achieve textural goals. As we see in Frances L. Goodrich’s sample book (ﬁg. 9), the color choices of these small weavings greatly impact how we perceive their tex ture. The swatches on the left page use contrasting colors and values to create distinct layers. On the right page, three of the swatches (excepting the top left) opt for more cohesive colors that visually meld together, making the fabrics appear softer. In Goodrich’s writings, she outlines the laborious pro cess of dyeing and mixing di erent colors.79 Some pigments were synthetic, others natural. The natural dyes were deter mined by locally available plants. These colors hold a unique connection to the land. In holding a pink section of a cover let, you may be holding a long-gone madder that grew a hun dred years ago.80 Even the synthetic dyes are tied to women’s hands through labor. The process of mixing dyes was not sim ple. The recipe for blue required: “½ a bushel pot full of warm water, 2 ounces of indigo in a little sack, 2 ounces of madder, or as much as you rub through of indigo. 1 teacup of wheat bran, or two handfuls, 1/2 pint of drip lye, or enough to make the bran feel slick or till water has a sweet taste.”81 Then one had to keep the dye pot warm for up to two weeks until the dye “comes” before the laborious task of dipping in the yarn to obtain color.82 Understanding the work behind coloring is an integral part of engaging with the visual and tactile qualities of a work, since it holds a chemical and artistic process entirely unique from the carding, spinning, and weaving of a coverlet.

The language of weaving must also include its functional as pects and how it interacts with its space. Fabric serves myriad useful purposes in our daily lives and coverlet weavings are not exceptions. They are decorative bed covers and made to keep users warm during cold nights. Typically made of cotton and wool, coverlets were woven in overshot style.83 This com bination of material and structure gives them a thick weight for cold nights but enough soft pliability for comfort. In looking at the role they play in space, we see how coverlets interact with individual bodies, beds, the looms they were woven on, spac es of family pride after becoming old and precious, and spac es of display in the few cases where they are treated like art. Each space gives di erent functional and aesthetic qualities to a coverlet. Not only does spatial form change from a bed to a wall, but interaction with light changes, therefore color is af fected in each scenario. The images we are seeing now only represent one identity of coverlets. Janis Je eries summa rizes this, stating that textile “never quite settles in the same space, can never be read in the same place, in the same way twice.”84 We give space the power to transform objects from mundane to art, and in doing so transform their visual qualities.

After looking at these aspects, we see how they consti tute an intentional visual experience, since coverlets were created with individual aesthetic goals. There is not a unified visual goal since each coverlet is unique, but the ma terial a ordances just discussed are evident in all of them. For instance, in Josephine Mast’s American Beauty (fig the physical relationship of the white warp and blue weft cre ates the illusion of a purple hue in the spaces where warp and weft are equally visible. In contrast with the concentrat ed squares of blue and lines of white, this purple gives the feeling of three distinct shades at work. This exemplifies the complex work coverlet weavers undertook using mini mal resources. In American Beauty, she uses the di erence of dark blue and light purple to emphasize the textural con trast in the star or flower pattern seen in this close shot (fig. 11). Focusing on this space between the primary circular mo tif brings the diagonal motion of this pattern to our attention. Initially overpowered by the gridded circles and squares, suddenly the subtle diagonals move our eyes in a completely new direction, aided by Goodrich’s choice to weave them in dark blue. This is the skill and artistry of coverlet weav ers; they wove quiet complexities into the simplest patterns. The more color used, the more di cult a work was to cre

Figure 07 | Doris Ullman, Mrs. Leah Adams Dougherty, 193334, photograph.

ate. Sun, Moon, and Stars Variation by Mast (ﬁg. 12) uses an exceptional eight colors, which was unheard of for most home weavers. The e ect is visually exciting, the vibrant pink strands grab the eye and draw us into the rest of the piece.

These examples show how fibers and colors are actors that combine to create unique agency with the mobility of tex tile. Imbued with the artist’s intention, they form an engaging sensory landscape. As we see Mast’s movements indexed by the threads, we come to question why she chose this non-traditional color combination. The cloth invites almost all of the senses to interact with the colors, rhythms, tex tures, and modalities we’ve discussed. Looking at the fringe combined with the exuberant colors, we feel a playfulness from Mast. Despite the vast amount of work that went into this, the visual experience nods to her artistic ability which al lowed Josephine Mast to have fun with her designs. Cover lets were a creative outlet, and this identifier is crucial in their artistic consideration because they hold the artist’s internali ty. Everything we see in a coverlet was a choice or a mistake, and both came from the same woman creator. In capturing a woman’s artistic agency, coverlets hold the culture which shaped her and the dreams she held in weaving it. They hold her artistic aspirations, accomplishments, and growth. This is the foundational component of how coverlets gain agency. Their agency also changes over time with new cultural con texts. For instance, Josephine Mast’s American Beauty (fig. 11) takes on a new meaning in America’s partisan political landscape. Associating purple with Americanness invokes ideas of bipartisanship since it combines liberal blue and conservative red. On the other hand, the Whig Rose pattern (fig. 16) has less of a political association in modern America since the Whigs are not a relevant political party in the states. Therefore, the name brings ideas of old gardens and topiar ies instead of battles in Congress. As seen in these examples, the names of patterns influence our reception of coverlets.

Coverlets also have stand-alone agency created by aes thetic choices. Looking at this variation on the popular Gov ernor’s Garden pattern by Mary Elam Cuthbertson (ﬁg. 13), Curtis-Wilson notes that this pattern is “easily altered by the weaver’s use of color and the width of the horizontal and vertical stripes.”85 Cuthbertson does just this by dye ing her warp threads a dark blue, which by showing through the weft, give the traditional diamond shapes the appear ance of being circles.86 The circularity contrasts the rec tilinear grid structure of the weaving and helps create the illusion of two layers, with the thick horizontal and vertical lines overlaying the pattern of circles. Constructing depth in a two-dimensional, non-ﬁgural medium requires skill and imagination as seen here. This is a testament to the creative in novations which took place in Appalachian coverlet weaving. In this vein of tactility, textiles do not evoke the same feel

Figure 08 | Josephine Mast, untitled, overshot coverlet. Figure 09 | Josephine Mast, untitled, overshot coverlet.

ing of restraint as with painting or sculpture which we fear ruining or breaking. While this may originally come from its lower artistic status, I see it as an incredibly useful attribute since we have to interact with cloth in order to fully grasp its artistic qualities. This is especially relevant with cover lets, since they were made to be used and seen in various modes. Textile interacts with di erent light sources and surfaces to create new textural identities. In this instance, we are looking at images of them through a screen, therefore experiencing coverlets in a limited manner. However, if we picked up Sarah Murrell’s Orange Peel Variation cov erlet (ﬁg. 14) and placed it over a sleeping person, the cir cles and diamonds would emphasize di erent diagonals and curves than they do laid ﬂat. Textiles and their visuali ty are inextricably linked to their surroundings in this way.

Now that I have established a useful guide for artistical ly considering coverlets, I will apply coverlet weavings to a review of well-established textile art. The ﬁrst artist who comes to mind is Anni Albers, who actually worked in Southern Appalachia from 1933-1950, but was not as sociated with local weaving.87 Albers is undeniably in stitutionally accepted and has a legacy beyond her life time as cemented by the major 2018 show at the Tate London. Now, I want to consider this description of her work:

There is an odd paradox between the perfectly linear grid of warp and weft that underlies textiles as a kind of lodestar for the designer, and the non-linear surfaces of Albers’s complex weavings. Her work captures her determination—through a developed understanding of the myriad complexities of inter lacing vertical and horizontal—to undermine the grid, to make it virtually disappear by twisting and looping its threads.88

Though they did not come from prestigious European insti tutions, Appalachian weavers created aesthetically valuable works which fit this exact description, such as Cat Tracks and Snail Trail with Border (fig. 15). Characterized by the snaking lines across the pieces, this work moves the eye diagonally along the “snail trail;” and circularly on the “cat tracks.” This ability to create motion beyond the grid shows incredible attention to detail and meticulous thread counting alongside creative design. Being o count by one line shows in the fin ished pattern. McLin wove three directionalities and main tained precision in the di cult, curving snail trail throughout the work so that it not only moves from corner to corner, but also creates vertical and horizontal columns. Another exam ple is the Whig Rose pattern (fig. 16), which is visually defined by the overlapping ovals framing small roses. Instead of out right rejecting the grid, this weaver maximizes its potential. By keeping the color palette simple and just using white weft and brown warp, the focus stays primarily on the geometry. The ovals overlap to create diamonds and almond shapes.

Figure 10 | Josephine Mast, untitled, overshot coverlet. Figure 11 | Josephine Mast, American Beauty (detail), 1913, coverlet weaving.

Each oval contains four small roses surrounding one large one in the center. Inside each diamond is a small ornament, perhaps a rosebud. The idea of undermining the grid is not the only goal of textile art; embracing the rectilinear qual ities of weaving also creates fascinating visual play. Grids hold deceptive freedom. We’re looking at grids every time we use computers or phones. We engage with complex images on grids every day, so it is unfounded to use them to aesthetically diminish weaving. In fact, it warrants greater praise for non-linear forms created by hand on grids.

Finally, taking the titles into consideration, coverlet weav ings like Whig Rose are representative geometric abstrac tions and repetitions. This is no di erent from Albers’ Mon te Albán (ﬁg. 17), a weaving which geometrically dissects and reconﬁgures a famous ziggurat in Mexico. Her title and treatment of her subject are theoretically and stylistical ly similar to coverlets of Governor’s Garden, Whig Rose, or Cat Tracks and Snail Trails. All take literal objects and artis tically transform them into woven abstractions. They imbue them with the material a ordances of textile. They apply color theory and textural complexity to accomplish visu al innovation and interest. All are works created by wom en who found weaving as an unexpected creative outlet which blossomed into an artistic pursuit. Why then is Monte Albán in an art museum while these coverlets remain in artistic obscurity? This is the question I hope you too are asking after reading this brief advocation for the coverlet.

While coverlets now evoke ideas of a rural past, their artis tic ethos is still present in the contemporary world. When ever it seems that industrialization has ﬁnally gained su premacy, small revolutions like the Craft Revival arise. In our present day, the pandemic spurred a massive renewal of interest in creating clothing and goods at home. People took up handicrafts with a new fervor. Even though much of that enthusiasm has waned with the reopening of the world, the interest in handmade goods gained a strong foot hold against the environmental negligence of fast fashion. Craft guilds and weaving groups have taken new forms in social media and e-commerce platforms where artists can sell directly to consumers. There is a clearly sustained de mand for handmade goods and appreciation of their artistry.

On the artistic side, textile art has only grown in populari ty with dedicated museum shows, market popularity, and increased innovation. In recent years, the Tate89, the Art In stitute of Chicago90, and MoMA91 have dedicated shows to textiles. The art world is growing, and Appalachian cov erlets with their feminist, economic, and artistic impor tance deserve recognition in this frontier of textile art.

Figure 12 | Josephine Mast, Sun, Moon and Stars Variation, 1918, coverlet weaving. Figure 15 | Rachel McLin, Cat Tracks and Snail Trail with Border, 19th c., coverlet weaving.

Figure 16 | Mrs. Rhyne, Whig Rose, 1895-1920, coverlet weaving. Figure 13 | Mary Ellam Cuthbertson, Original Governor’s Garden, 1885, coverlet weaving. Figure 17 | Anni Albers, Monte Albán, 1936, silk, linen, and wool, Harvard Art Museum. Figure 14 | Sarah Murrell, Orange Peel Variation, 1850, coverlet weaving.

Endnotes

1. Eaton, Allen H. Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands: With an Account of the Rural Handicraft Movement in the United States and Suggestions for the Wider Use of Handicrafts in Adult Education and in Recreation. (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1937), 29.

2. Shapiro, Henry D. Appalachia on Our Mind: The Southern Mountains and Mountaineers in the American Consciousness, 18701920. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978), 115.

3. Eaton, Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands, 30.

4. Shapiro, Appalachia on Our Mind, 244-265.

5. Eaton, 30.

6. Eaton, 30.

7. Hassler, Warren H. “American Civil War,” in Encyclopedia Britannica. Last edited April 21, 2021. https://www.britannica.com/event/ American-Civil-War

8. Hassler, Warren H. “American Civil War.”

9. Alvic, Philis. Weavers of the Southern Highlands. (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2015), 3.

10. Alvic, Philis. Weavers of the Southern Highlands, 3.

11. Alvic, 3.

12. Eaton, 59.

13. Eaton, 60.

14. Alvic, 77.

15. Alvic, 17-18.

16. Goodrich, Frances L. “Mountain Homespun” ed. Jan Davidson. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2010), 6. 17. Eaton, 64.

18. Fariello, M. Anna. “Frances Goodrich” Craft Revival: Shaping Western North Carolina Past and Present (Western Carolina University, 2006). https://www.wcu.edu/library/DigitalCollections/ CraftRevival/people/franceslgoodrich.html. 19. Eaton, 65.

20. Shapiro, 225. 21. Eaton, 66. 22. Eaton, 63. 23. Eaton, 60. 24. Alvic, 36. 25. Eaton, 64. 26. Eaton, 60. 27. Eaton, 69-91. 28. Alvic, 16-17. 29. Alvic, 17. 30. Alvic, 18. 31. Alvic, 21. 32. Goodrich, “Mountain Homespun,” 4. 33. Eaton, 116. 34. Eaton, 118. 35. Eaton, 97. 36. Goodrich, 13. 37. Goodrich, 13-16. 38. Wilson, Kathleen Curtis. Textile Art from Southern Appalachia:

The Quiet Work of Women. (Lowell: American Textile History Museum. 2001-2002), 84.

39. Curtis Wilson, Textile Art from Southern Appalachia, 84.

40. Smithsonian, “Josie Mast: American Beauty Coverlet; overshot; c. 1913, North Carolina” National Museum of American History, 1208-2021. https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/ nmah_620388.

41. Eaton, 35. 42. Eaton, 35. 43. Goodrich, 7. 44. Alvic, 8. 45. Eaton, 25. 46. Eaton, 36.

47. Parker, Rozsika. The Subversive Stitch (London: Bloomsbury, 2010), xiii.

48. Parker, Rozsika. The Subversive Stitch, xii.

49. Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher, and Cairns Collection of American Women Writers. The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth. (New York: Knopf, 2001), 17.

50. Ulrich, The Age of Homespun, 17. 51. Ulrich, 17.

52. Robertson and Vinebaum, “Feminist Histories” in “Crafting Community” in Cloth and Culture 14, no. 1 (2016).

53. Albers, Anni, Gene Baro, and Brooklyn Museum. Anni Albers. (Brooklyn: Brooklyn Museum, 1977), 10. 54. Alvic, 137. 55. Alvic, 137. 56. Alvic, 138. 57. Ulrich, 17. 58. Alvic, 142. 59. Alvic, 141. 60. Alvic, 136. 61. Alvic, 7. 62. Alvic, 9. 63. Becker, Jane S. Selling Tradition: Appalachia and the Construction of an American Folk, 1930- 1940. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 8. 64. Goodrich, 3. 65. Becker, Selling Tradition, 5. 66. Becker, 7. 67. Becker, 7. 68. Becker, 8. 69. Becker, 6. 70. Becker, 7. 71. Je eries, 43. 72. Parker, Rozsika and Griselda Pollock, 2020. Old Mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology. (London: Bloomsbury, 2020), 55.

73. Smith, T’ai Lin. Bauhaus Weaving Theory: From Feminine Craft to Mode of Design. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014), 1.

74. “Textile Art from Southern Appalachia,” The McClung Museum, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. 2001 75. Smith, Bauhaus Weaving Theory, 44. 76. Smith, 97. 77. Albers, “Interrelation of Fiber and Construction” in On Weaving, 42. 78. Albers, “Tactile Sensibility” in On Weaving, 44.

79. Goodrich, 15.

80. Goodrich, 14-15.

81. Goodrich, 13.

82. Goodrich, 14.

83. Goodrich, 4.

84. Je eries, Janis. “Textile Identity,” in Textile Sismographs, Symposium Fibres et Textiles- Texts from the Colloquium, Montreal: Conseil des arts textiles du Quebec, 1995, pp 20-28. In Contemporary Textiles: The Fabric of Fine Art. ed. Nadine Käthe Monem. (London: Black Dog Publishers, 2008), 23.

85. Curtis-Wilson, 20.

86. Curtis-Wilson, 20.

87. Coxon, Ann, Briony Fer and Maria Müller–Schareck. Anni Albers. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018), 15-16.

88. Coxon, Ann, Briony Fer and Maria Müller–Schareck, Anni Albers. 87.

89. Tate Museum, “Anni Albers” Exhibitions and Events, 2018. https:// www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/anni-albers.

90. Art Institute of Chicago, “Bisa Butler: Portraits” Exhibitions and Events, 2020. https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/9324/bisa-butler-portraits.

91. Museum of Modern Art, “Taking a Thread for a Walk” What’s On, 2019. https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5101.

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Skelly, Julia. Radical Decadence: Excess in Contemporary Feminist Textiles and Craft. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.

Smith, T’ai Lin. Bauhaus Weaving Theory: From Feminine Craft to Mode of Design. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014.

Smithsonian, “Josie Mast: American Beauty Coverlet; overshot; c. 1913, North Carolina” National Museum of American History, 12-08-2021. https:// americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_620388.

Tate Museum, “Anni Albers” Exhibitions and Events, 2018. https://www.tate. org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/anni-albers.

Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher, and Cairns Collection of American Women Writers. The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth. New York: Knopf, 2001.

Washell, Kathryn F. “The Handweavers of Modern-Day Southern Appalachia: Ethnographic Case Study.” Eastern Tennessee State University. 2016

Wilson, Kathleen Curtis. Textile Art from Southern Appalachia: The Quiet Work of Women. Lowell: American Textile History Museum. 2001-2002

Wilson, Kathleen Curtis. “Textile Art from Southern Appalachia: The Quiet Work of Women” McClung Museum, 2001. https://mcclungmuseum.utk. edu/exhibitions/textile-art-from-southern-appalachia-the-quiet-work-ofwomen/.

Figure 01 | Mitchell F. Chan, Digital Zone of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility (Series 0, Edition 10), 2017, NFT, hosted at Natively Digital 1.2, Sotheby’s Metaverse.

Above is a blank computer screen. Below is a blank piece of paper. You might be surprised to learn that the above is currently valued at $1.5 million, and the below is in the Vic toria and Albert museum under lock and key, and is quote “not available for issue to the public... due to light sensitivi ty”.1 Both are considered and valued as works of art. Why and how this could be true, shall be the subject of this essay.

Preface Introduction

The world is indeed shrinking. In some ways, the advent of the digital age is the natural conclusion of over ﬁve hundred years of colonial imperialism, and its successor, industrial ism. Throughout this period, crises of cultural ownership and artistic ontology have been representative of underly ing sociological and economic paradigm shifts. The relative newness of NFTs on the art market has caused some to cel ebrate a radical renovation of understandings of art and val ue, while others have lamented the strange detached-ness of this confusing and impersonal technology.2 NFTs are not a new concept, but rather a maturation of the “problemat ics” of art in the digital age. The creation of NFTs and NFT trading platforms are an apparatus that is indicative of these recurring themes in global art history. In order to illustrate what I mean, I will examine the invention of photography and the similar way in which it disrupted its contemporaries.

I am trying to reconcile the fact that we are undergoing a similarly radical shift in our understanding of art to that which was experienced in the mid-nineteenth-century through the invention of photography. The act of securing light on paper has echoes in today’s attempts at securitizing ownership of digital art through the blockchain. In terms of codifying authenticity, I believe that the photographic neg ative instigated by William Henry Fox Talbot’s creation of the calotype method has similarities with the NFTs in block chain technologies. My paper will be divided into three ach ronological periods, and I will attempt to mark clearly where they meet, mainly through Walter Benjamin’s conception of the “Aura”. My argument being that, the negative of a photo graph operates in the same way as the string of code in an NFT. Both have been conceptualized as windows or portals, for the consumer/viewer to touch an idea or piece of history.

Figure 02 | William Henry Fox Talbot, The Ancient Vestry, Calvert Jones in the Cloisters at Lacock Abbey, c. 1845, Paper Calotype Negative, Victoria and Albert Museum.

In October of 2021, Sotheby’s launched its NFT platform, entitled “MetaVerse”. They kickstarted the platform with an auction called “Natively Digital 1.2”, featuring works from the caches of NFT collectors like Paris Hilton and Qinwen Wang, among a plethora of other collectors hidden behind pixelated profile pictures and meme-worthy usernames. The auction house’s move to open up this new platform demonstrates an underlying force driving the confusing rise of the NFT market: the desire of the mainstream art market to solidify the meaning of ownership of digital con tent, which until this point, has been a controversial and di cult task. Sotheby’s was established in 1744 when the international art market was starting to find its footing. The auction house is representative of the ‘old-world’ art mar ket, and their choice to become involved in NFT sales is a shocking and unprecedented move, demonstrating that NFTs, despite their apparent weirdness, are fundamentally changing what the art market will look like in the future. The auction, whose marketing strategy relied on the reputation of these enigmatic collectors, was the first of its kind by a blue-chip auction house. NFTs have garnered a sort of no toriety, which content creators and news agencies from all corners of the internet have capitalized on. Precisely what an NFT is, relies on the evolving understanding of ‘authentic ity’ that has been central to the art market since its inception.

What is an NFT?

This complex digital component of the art market can often feel like a fringe movement, only available to the wealth iest connoisseurs. It also, via its crypto logic, makes the understandings of NFTs nearly inaccessible to the aver age consumer. Therefore, before diving into how NFTs work in relation to ownership, I must explain their ontolog ical status. Understanding fungibility is essential to un derstanding this type of blockchain technology. Fungi bility is the quality of a product or good that can be traded with another identical good, for the same exchange value.

For instance, one copy of a mass-produced paperback novel at Indigo is going to be worth exactly the same amount as an other copy in another Indigo, given that they are the same in quality and have not been used (which would then decrease their value). Once one copy is signed by the author, however, that copy is given a special quality, despite the written con tent of the novel being exactly the same as every other of its type. Imagine this signed copy as an NFT. NFT stands for ‘Non-Fungible Token,’ which essentially translates its lack of exchange value. It is one of a kind, and its economic val ue might increase by double or more, depending on a given context. It is the signature of the artist or author who minted the NFT, which adds this special quality to the digital content.

Applying this logic to the digital realm has historically been impossible. Of course, digital work is often subject to copy right in its capacity for sale and resale, but that does not mean that the artwork cannot be screenshotted or down loaded on anyone’s computer. Digital image storage has, pretty much since the internet came about in the 90s, been widely accessible. For the average person with a com puter, this is a good thing. However, many NFT advocates state that because of this accessibility, digital art loses its proﬁtability.3 This decouples digital artists from their art’s true value and deprives them of making an income on their art, which equally-talented traditional artists working with physical media like paint and clay can make from gallery sales or auctions. According to the Harvard Business Re view, NFTs make “buying and selling products that could never be sold before, or enabling transactions to happen in innovative ways that are more e cient and valuable”.4 NFTs are e ectively attaching that value-signal inherent in traditional art to a digital space which exists only in code.

Another quality of the NFT is that it relies on blockchain technology. The ﬁrst and foremost platform to host NFT is the Ethereum blockchain, which di ers from other types like Bitcoin, in that it can embed this non-fungible quality into a token. One bitcoin token, for example, is worth the same as any other. The monitored existence of the NFT is hosted on a network of servers that are constantly running and open to anyone, which maintains that the NFT trade value is constant ly publicly viewable.5 Despite not having any art purchasing power of my own, I can be made privy to the sale prices of ev ery single NFT, including the case study I will soon mention. This documentation is hosted on servers like OpenSea.6 It also tells you who purchased it, and when. Albeit, many NFT collectors are hidden behind screen names. Despite the fact that many NFTs, like most of the contemporary art mar ket, are only available for purchase to the uber-wealthy, they disentangle certain elements of secrecy from art market lo gistics. All NFT blockchain exchanges are publicly viewable, whereas the sale price of art traded at auction is frequently conﬁdential. The fact that Sotheby’s is now taking part in this NFT frenzy might be responsive to a trend in the art market that is worrying its traditional stakeholders. In the introduc tion to DeLoitte’s 2019 Art & Finance report, it states that:

“Challenges regarding the valuation of art and collectibles, coupled with the perceived threat of price manipulation, have been highlighted as key areas of concern by the ma jority of the stakeholders in the art and finance industry... The findings from this year’s survey also show that there is a significant lack of trust when it comes to art market data. This is a serious problem, as decision-making tools for val uation and risk models depend heavily on this data and the trust we place in it. Blockchain technology and the cre ation of data provenance models might help in this regard.”7

To art sellers, the waning trust in the market paired with high lighted instances of corruption pose a serious threat to their business. They hope that by opening up sale records through veriﬁable, public means, trust will be re-established. Accord ing to Rachel O’Dwyer, one of the few academics of visual culture studying the NFT phenomenon, “value accrues less from how much the asset is actually worth and more from the information and conﬁdence that circulates around the good”.8

Digital Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility

The lot sold at the “Natively Digital 2.1” auction which best captures the logic of NFTs is “Digital Zone of Immateri al Pictorial Sensibility (series 0, edition 10)”, by Mitchell F. Chan. Chan is a digital, sculptural, and installation artist who examines notions of space, physicality, and owner ship in his work. “Digital Zone of Immaterial Pictorial Sen sibility”, ﬁrst minted as an NFT in 2017 at Toronto’s Inter access, references Yves Klein’s 1958 Paris exhibition of invisible artwork titled the same (minus the “digital”, of course). It is one of the ﬁrst works to be intended and cre ated as an NFT—not originally a digital artwork or oth er byte of digital media subsequently minted into an NFT.

On the Sotheby’s display page, a picture of a certif icate is displayed. The bottom right-hand corner of Chan’s certificate reads “This is a certified IKB wrap per. Unwrapped IKB has no display value.” (fig. 3) IKB is Chan’s code referencing “International Klein Blue”.

Yves Klein was a French conceptual artist whose short career played on themes of self and spirit. He is most wellknown for patenting a shade of blue which came to be known as International Klein Blue (ﬁg. 4). It is a deep ultra marine colour, which, according to author Rebecca Sol nit, “represents the spirit, the sky, and water, the immate rial and the remote, so that however tactile and close-up it is, it is always about distance and disembodiment”.10

At Klein’s 1958 exhibition entitled “the Void”, visitors entered a room that was entirely empty, with white walls and bare flooring (fig. 5). Not a single physical artwork was exhibited. Klein allowed exhibition viewers to purchase the “immate rial” artworks. He actually sold two of these immaterial art works, which had to be paid for in gold in exchange for a re ceipt of the purchase—the only formalized existence of the work. The payment would then be thrown into a river, in a sort of performance in and of itself (fig. 6). Interestingly, this had to be done within the presence of some sort of art-in dustry expert, to authenticate the transaction. Then, the receipt would be burned.11 By destroying the material repre sentation of the transaction, the artwork was assumed to be completely removed from possession by any one person.

According to Chan, “Klein came to the conclusion that “Solving the problematics of art” meant transcending the practical and sensorial limitations of the physical form. Creating a “pure visuality” meant creating works without any visual aspect.”12 When owners of various editions of Digital Zones access the digital asset they purchased, they are presented with a blank webpage screen—note the memo: “no display value” (ﬁg. 1). Chan writes in his attached 33-page statement that

Figure 03 | Mitchell F. Chan, Digital Zone of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility (Series 0, Edition 10), 2017, NFT, hosted at Natively Digital 1.2, Sotheby’s Metaverse.

Figure 04 | Yves Klein, Untitled Blue Monochrome (IKB 100), 1956, Dry pigment and synthetic resin on gauze mounted on panel, 31 x 22 inch, Estate of Yves Klein.

“This webpage is impregnated by the artist with the pictori al sensibility of the colour blue. This creative act transcends the coding of any visual features or colour information. It is through the sheer creative will of the artist that the virtual space transmits a visual experience.”13 IKB can therefore be seen as a cumulative interrogation of traditional understand ings of art and value. It links an exhibition from sixty years ago to our contemporary ontological crisis of the digital age.

I would like to push back slightly on Klein’s avowal of a complete removal from the material in his works. Although the certificate was destroyed, the evidence of the trans action was not. He documented his work and transac tions through photographs (figs. 4 and 6). This reinforces my point that photography has always negotiated itself into our desire to document—the photographic image is the residual touch with that which was. Even the most conceptual art continually falls back on this process of touch, of referent and index. Now photos of Klein’s pro cess are their own material objects, imbued with the value of having witnessed his works of nothingness in the flesh.

Figure 05 | “View of Yves Klein’s exhibition “The Void”, at Galerie Iris Clert, 1958”, Photograph, Galerie Iris Clert, Paris, France, The Estate of Yves Klein. Figure 06 | Giancarlo Botti, Transfer of a “Zone of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility” to Michael Blankfort, Pont au Double, Paris, February 10th 1962, photograph, Estate of Yves Klein.

Digital Zones: Crisis and Consumption

Art straddles the line between commodity and cultural ob ject. Despite the ritual placement of art in the cultural psy che, it has always been tied to its reliance on wealth; artists accrue their means of living from the discerning pockets of wealthy clients and patrons.14 The value of any single art work is determined, therefore, wholly by the social perspec tive of that piece in a cultural context. Art’s monetary value is completely social because people decide if it is valuable or not. When the wealthy sit down to trade money for art and vice versa, they must agree on a speciﬁed exchange value.

Money is deﬁned as “any generally accepted medium of ex change which enables a society to trade goods without the need for barter; any objects or tokens regarded as a store of value and used as a medium of exchange.”15 Medium thus becomes a foundational aspect of currency. Whether this medium is material or immaterial makes little di erence. Monetary value is ascribed to works of art mostly as sepa rate from their material value, instead the cultural or hedon ic value they generate for the viewer. Ascribing a concrete monetary value to the work of art, therefore, seems para doxical, because the creative value of art is inherently sub jective. When an artwork is entirely conceptual, as in the IKB series, and does not rely on any form of physical existence, an attachment of monetary value seems even more absurd.

The conception of NFTs argues that currency, itself, is also subjective. “Markets are not rational,” explains Sotheby’s pho tography expert Juliet Hacking, “this is true whether we are speaking of gold, derivatives or carpets. You should not look for an empirical scale of values in a system that serves to iden tify one image (painting, print or photograph) as worth £1 mil lion and another, equally pleasing to the eye, as worth £200.”16

The crypto-world relies on block-chain technology that turns transactions into publicly-viewable bits of code stored on a chain of servers. The objective of this is to operate a form of value trading that exists outside of

state-sanctioned banking. Crypto is a logical result of a digi tal age where wealth is increasingly attached to ten charac ter account numbers rather than physical assets, like cash. Cash itself is merely a paper certiﬁcate that indexes value.

Although Chan is a founding member of Fingerprint DAO, one of the ﬁrst NFT (and therefore crypto) artwork collectives, he acknowledges that, “skeptics rightly point out that bitcoin is backed by nothing at all. Its value is secured only in the eye of the beholder, and even this perception is hindered by the complete immateriality of the asset. Bitcoin has no physical form to keep in your pocket. Bitcoin has no intrinsic value.”17 If we understand bitcoin here to signify crypto technologies, we must ask ourselves then that crucial question: Why do people pay millions of dollars for these intangible assets?

Vox reporter Terry Nguyen examines this in a conversation with behavioural economist Matt Stephenson at Columbia University. Nguyen writes that “NFTs seem almost counterintuitive to the digital media age; the technology codiﬁes and enforces a metric of scarcity on a digital ﬁle that is at odds with the idea of an open internet...For most digital things, like money, this intrinsic, hedonic value wouldn’t make sense. With NFTs,

things that were once treated as interchangeable on the digital space...are allowed to exist with this added value that is appealing to a buyer or owner.”18 What is important to note here is the condition of scarcity that this technology creates for digital art interrupts the sense of ﬂuidity largely associat ed with a digital environment. In the digital age, information and culture is exchanged pretty much freely. Major content sites like Wikipedia and Youtube demonstrate this open ex change concept. Because digital art exists as a visual rep resentation of code, it has no material quality, so it resists the arresting nature of traditional art furnished by the phys ical aspects of its medium, like paint, fabric, clay, or marble.

O’Dwyer states that “the art [of an NFT] purchased has no physical manifestation. In these cases, controversially, the buyer is essentially purchasing a 256-character string that signifies ownership...Buyers not only have no rights over the future uses of the image, they don’t even have any rights to possess a lasting reproduction.”19 NFT is not a copyright, nor is it a quantifiable thing. “Thing theory” is a philosophical concept that emerged in the 1990s, and was initially postu lated by Bill Brown. One element of the concept proposes that material objects hold value based on our perceptions of their usefulness or beneficial qualities, rather than their inherent physicality. Brown distinguishes between objects and things, explaining that objects are the material qualities that retain this use value, whereas things become reduced to their mere material status once they are broken or have lost that use value. He states that “as they circulate through our lives, we look through objects (to see what they dis close about history, society, nature, or culture—above all, what they disclose about us) but we only catch a glimpse of things. We look through objects because there are codes by which our interpretive attention makes them meaningful, because there is a discourse of objectivity that allows us to use them as facts.” What is of use here to this discussion of NFT logic, is Brown’s proposal that our relationship to val ue is inherently based on perception rather than materiality. In relating this to the NFT concept, we can create a dialec tic for attaching value to the ultimately immaterial object.

We could attach these understandings of hedonic value, cul tural value, et cetera under one conceptual framework. Es sentially, NFT buyers are purchasing something called “cult value” that has, until now, been ontologically separated from visual culture since the creation of print. O’Dwyer formaliz es this signiﬁed ownership as a sort of “DNA” that allows for reproduction, operating as a source code that has its own, original, discrete qualities.20 Perhaps more accurately, we can think of the NFT as the lab-engineered zygote for the sociologically democratic and regenerative life of digital art.

Walter Benjamin’s Aura and the NFT

In order to understand “cult value”, we must examine an im portant essay by Walter Benjamin entitled “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility,” written in 1936, which ﬁrst labelled this concept. Benjamin was a cultural phi losopher who identiﬁed the changing nature of art when it is able to be reproduced by technological means. For my pur poses, it is important to note that Benjamin labels photogra phy as the instigator of this issue, but I shall return to that later.

According to Benjamin, an original artwork is imbued with a sense of authenticity or originality that is connected to the uniquely tangible nature of that artwork. He defines this au thenticity as the “aura,” and stipulates that, with the reproduc tion of art via printmaking and other methods in the modern period, artwork has lost that sense of aura. This is because aura cannot exist without a substantial (in the sense of sub stance) connection to the original. Benjamin defines the aura as “A strange tissue of space and time: the unique appear ance of a distance, however near it maybe.”21 In other words, it is an immaterial sensation that cannot exist without its ma terial foothold. Note too, how aura is defined in terms of dis tance and time—cultivators of value in cultural perspective.

Referring to Hollywood ﬁlms and print culture, Benjamin ex plains that, “Every day, the urge grows stronger to get hold of an object at close range in an image [Bild], or, better, in a facsimile [Abbild], in reproduction.”22 In the present day, this rings true more than ever. The digital world provides a means of destabilizing and encoding images that are avail able at the touch of a button, or increasingly, at the swipe of a ﬁnger. In two seconds, you can view the Mona Lisa on an iphone. But you can’t stand in front of her, holding within your own experience a sense of having witnessed the real thing.

Digital culture, therefore, is a complete remov al from the aura, making art and content available to the masses. Natively digital art relies on this discon nect; it is embedded within an intangible universe. NFTs disrupt this understanding of digital by re-at taching the aura through an enforcement of scarcity.

NFTs often feel like this radical concept that is completely disconnected from logic, but they arguably only formalize the artistic ontological crisis that has been ongoing since the industrial era. As I stated earlier, Benjamin points to photography as the instigator for the “Technological re producibility” of art. I believe that by tracing this artistic di alogue back to the invention of photography in the Victori an era, we can formalize a theoretical relationship for art’s paradoxical nature as commodity and object of devotion.

Figure 06 | Portable Camera Obscura, Courtesy George Eastman House, JSTOR. Figure 07 | Front Cover, William Henry Fox Talbot’s “The Pencil of Nature”, 1844.

The Calotype Process

One of the first successful attempts at securing light on paper was performed by William Henry Fox Talbot, an English polymath, who became frustrated with the art ist’s inability to perfectly portray nature, even when us ing tools like the Camera Obscura: a box with a pinhole that allows for light to be reflected from an object onto the back of the box, and then to be traced over (fig. 6). In his frustration, Talbot said to himself, “How charming it would be if it were possible to cause these images to imprint themselves durably, and remain fixed upon the paper!”22

What I ﬁnd interesting here is that Talbot does not refer to his own artistic will when creating the images, but en visions the photograph as an automatic process: “to im print themselves.” The photograph was imagined as the traces of a personiﬁcation of light—it reached out and touched the paper, as if it had an independent will.

Although Talbot was not the ﬁrst to dabble in the secur ing of light on paper, his method became a central tenet to our fundamental understanding of photographic devel opment. His method, was known as the calotype, which comes from the greek words kalos, meaning “beautiful,” and typis meaning “impression.” These beautiful impres sions were the result of a laborious, time-intensive process.

In order to create a calotype, a piece of paper must first be washed with a salt solution, and then brushed over with a solution of silver nitrate. The paper is then exposed to an im age through the camera obscura. The light refracted from that image will embed itself in the paper, which will then be “fixed”, as Talbot states, by a subsequent wash with alkaline iodide.23 In a way, the chemical wash acts as a net, trapping the fingers of light brushing across its surface. The areas of the white paper that were touched by light became dark, and so the result was a reversed image of the exposure. The darkness became a fingerprint for light. In his own de scription of his photographic invention, Talbot writes that “The picture, divested of the ideas which accompany it, and considered only in its ultimate nature, is but a succession or variety of stronger lights thrown upon one part of the paper, and of deeper shadows on another. Now Light, where it ex ists, can exert an action, and, in certain circumstances, does exert one su cient to cause changes in material bodies.”24

Figure 08 | Benjamin Brecknell Turner, Hawkhurst Church, Kent: A Photographic Truth, 1852-4, alotype negative. Figure 09 | Benjamin Brecknell Turner, Hawkhurst Church, Kent: A Photographic Truth, 1852-4, Albumen print.

You can see in Figures 8 and 9 an example of a remarkably well-preserved negative and positive image, done in Tal bots’ Calotype method. Both are images taken of Hawkhurst Church, in Kent, by photographer Benjamin Brecknell Turner.

The lighter image is an albumen print made from its neg ative adjacent. The V&A states that Turner would not have intended for the audience to view the negative. The print was exhibited in Turner’s 1852 catalogue en titled “Photographic Views from nature,” accompa nied by a variety of other prints that show the pasto ral whimsy for a pre-industrialized English countryside.

An added title for the image is “A Photographic Truth.” Through this title, I believe Turner endeavoured to ac knowledge the aim of photography to artiﬁcially imitate natural forms. These two images contain microcosms of the negative/positive logic within themselves. Notice how the image is of a church over a body of water. The steeple, the grass, the windows—all of it—is perfectly reﬂected in the glass-like water in the bottom half of the image. The water acts as a mirror, capturing the essence of the image and reprojecting it. What you are seeing is not the church itself, but a representation of it. The compounding of this philosophical enquiry in the title stipulates that Turner and his contemporaries were vividly aware of the implications photography could have on the precedence of truth-mak ing and knowing. Truth must be related to the original.

Thomas Sutton, an early photographer and producer of waxed calotype negatives, stipulates that the positive print is the end goal of the process in his manual for amateur pho tographers. He vaults the merits of the calotype process in that it becomes more readily accessible for print-making, as opposed to the daguerreotype, whose end product is a positive print that is not serviceable to printing copies. He breaks down the process of acquiring a calotype neg ative as such: “The negative, therefore, must first be taken, and that by means of apparatus conveyed to the spot. In it the lights and shadows are all reversed... the position, also of the objects, as regards right and left, is reversed; and to judge of the merits of a negative it becomes necessary to view it by transparency, and with its back to the eye.”25 Here again we see that essential quality of the negative. Neg atives are viewed as portals, reflecting pools. By their na ture, they act as a transparent film, imprinted with the touch of the image. They are windows to the soul of the past.

Fading

When you go on to the website of the Victoria and Al bert museum, and type in “calotype” in their archive re cord search box, you are presented with a vast num ber of white pieces of paper, some only containing the faintest delible traces of a building’s horizon.26

These pieces of paper at one time contained some of the ear liest photographs ever taken, but are now reduced to trimmed blank spaces that frame what once was. Although some calotype images survived the last two centuries, it is these nearly-faded photographs that signify something much more interesting about human value creation and perception.

The calotype is the ﬁrst type of photography to produce a negative, which di erentiates it from more popu lar methods like the daguerreotype. “A major problem in the ﬁrst two decades of negative/positive photography was that of fading, and it has become the fate of the calo type to be considered today the medium most plagued by it. Countless calotype images have, in fact, been lost to us.”27 Most of the calotypes held by the Victoria and Albert museum are the negatives. The number of posi tive prints in existence of each negative is rarely known.

Photographic art historian Geo rey Batchen distinguish es the relationship between negatives and prints rather succinctly when he writes that “The negative is an index ical trace of light, with any tonal variations a chemical, and thus directly physical, response to that light. Photograph ic prints are one step removed from this tracing; they are an indexical impression of the negative rather than of the subject they portray. These prints are made when light is allowed to travel through the negative and fall onto a piece of light-sensitive paper, thereby re-reversing the tones created in the initial exposure.”28 In photography, there is only one negative. I believe that Batchen’s implication of indexicality is vital to its connection to the NFT. Like the NFT, the negative has the irreplaceable touch of the “real”.

In the Sotheby’s “Natively Digital 1.2” auction’s promotional video, a distorted white phrase rests against a grey back ground. “The best curator is time,” it reads. Art auctions rely on provenance as an indicator for value. Like a good vintage wine; the older—the better. The fame of previous owners of a piece adds value to it, because of the cultur al perspective of those owners and their roles in society. A work of art’s illustrious history of ownership becomes central to its value. Museums also rely on the work of art’s history to make it worthwhile to keep it in their collections.

Figure 10 | William Henry Fox Talbot, Side of Lacock Abbey with Sharington’s Tower’, 1839, Calotype Paper Negative, Victoria and Albert Museum. Figure 11 | William Henry Fox Talbot, Lacock Abbey entrance arch, 1839, Calotype Paper Negative, Victoria and Albert Museum.

What is art?

Painting, Photography, Digital

Categorizing photography has always proven a di cult thing. I prefer to look at it as a tool that can go far be yond the scope of what was initially imagined for it. Talbot insists in his essay “The Pencil of Nature,” that the art is only at its beginning at the time of his writing.

Although Talbot first envisioned photography as a measure of nature’s ‘pencil’, a sure belief in its artistic capacities, pho tography was, at first, not really viewed as an art form by the consumer public. Art, to the early Victorians, had to be more directly connected to the artists’ hand. It could not be me chanical. The Pre-Raphaelites best encompassed this in their e orts to achieve “maximum realism,” through poetic forms.29 It was not merely the end-product that fascinated them, but the artist’s painstaking labour and profound ge nius that was poured into the artistic object. Paintings were valued in terms of their ability to represent the lifelikeness of the natural world. The most adept painters in the Ba roque and Renaissance could fashion soft human flesh out of marble, trace the lineaments of the face in flecks of paint, draw out the intransience of light in glass, or mold a sense of depth in the artificial space. To recreate reality in per fect form was the goal of art. But, in the nineteenth century, photography created a disturbance in the artistic psyche. With the camera, artistic realism became anachronistic.

Figure 12 | Frame from Promotional Video for Sotheby’s Natively Digital 1.2 NFT Auction.

Categorizing photography has always proven a di cult thing. I prefer to look at it as a tool that can go far beyond the scope of what was initially imagined for it. Talbot insists in his essay “The Pencil of Nature,” that the art is only at its beginning at the time of his writing.

Although Talbot first envisioned photography as a measure of nature’s ‘pencil’, a sure belief in its artistic capacities, pho tography was, at first, not really viewed as an art form by the consumer public. Art, to the early Victorians, had to be more directly connected to the artists’ hand. It could not be me chanical. The Pre-Raphaelites best encompassed this in their e orts to achieve “maximum realism,” through poetic forms.29 It was not merely the end-product that fascinated them, but the artist’s painstaking labour and profound ge nius that was poured into the artistic object. Paintings were valued in terms of their ability to represent the lifelikeness of the natural world. The most adept painters in the Baroque and Renaissance could fashion soft human flesh out of marble, trace the lineaments of the face in flecks of paint, draw out the intransience of light in glass, or mold a sense of depth in the artificial space. To recreate reality in per fect form was the goal of art. But, in the nineteenth century, photography created a disturbance in the artistic psyche. With the camera, artistic realism became anachronistic.

Initially, however, photography was only viewed as a paint er’s tool, one that could hold the ﬁner details of an image they would later paint, somewhere outside of the mind. It allevi ated the need for quick sketches in pencil and watercolour that might misconstrue the true nature of a scene. In order to be considered art, it was believed that art had to hold some sort of conceptual practice, some type of higher spirit. This would then create its aura. The dictionary deﬁnition of art stipulates that art is “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated pri marily for their beauty or emotional power.”30 It is, therefore, creativity and imagination—spirit—applied or expressed.

Our goal is not to define art, but to figure out what aspect of it creates cult value, and thus financial value. Is it the spir it? Or the application? Thus we have another paradox, in the triangulation between material, content, and aura. Is the aura, which defines value, more intrinsically connected to its materiality or its content? If art must have a material el ement to be considered art, then how can purely concep tual art, like Immaterial Zones, lack any material quality?

Today this is the same thing that troubles the average consumer in relation to NFTs, especially in examples like Chan’s. With only form, and without imagery, it is di cult to consider NFTs as art. After all, why would anyone pay

for a blank computer screen? I would argue that it is aura that determines value, and aura is inherently both tied to the substantive nature of an object and the social/histor ical/ideological concept which that object symbolizes.

It wasn’t truly until a few decades after Talbot completed his experiments that photography would come to be viewed as an art form. Initially, it fell under the realm of chemists, botanists, and law enforcement, as a tool for pure docu mentation.31 Photography was believed to be objective in its self-moving nature. Remember that, to them, the photo graph created itself, and did not rely on an artist’s hand. Lat er photographic societies, like the Linked Ring and the Pho to-Secessionists, were among the first to promote the idea that the photographer’s hand did influence the camera, and thus the final picture. The photographer was not a passive bystander to the object, but articulated its every detail, from the framing of the image to the positioning of subjects to the edited blurs, shades, and colours added directly to the film in post-production. Proto-art photographers like Julia Marga ret Cameron tried to imbue portraits with a poetic sensibil ity, like contemporary Pre-Raphaelite paintings. She would allow brief movements in her photographs, which would ef face the strict detailing of the paintings and wash the photographic subjects with an ethereal glow.32 She also chose not merely to document faces, but to place them within lit erary contexts, setting up theatrical scenes and turning her maid-servants into the characters of nymphs and angels. Cameron’s work was among the first to be exhibited as art. 33 By the 1860s, nearly anyone, no matter their rank or sta tus, could have access to a perfect likeness of them selves or a family member in the form of a photograph ic portrait, with the increasing popularity of the ‘Carte de Visite’.35 Until that point, only the wealthy could af ford to have their portraits painted. The mechanical, relatively inexpensive process allowed for images to not only become more automatic, but more attainable.

Benjamin discusses the Victorian photographic paradigm shift in his aforementioned essay. He writes that, “The nine teenth-century dispute over the relative artistic merits of painting and photography seems misguided and confused today. But this does not diminish its importance, and may even underscore it. The dispute was in fact an expression of a world-historical upheaval whose true nature was concealed from both parties. Insofar as the age of technological repro ducibility separated art from its basis in cult, all semblance of art’s autonomy disappeared forever. But the resulting change in the function of art lay beyond the horizon of the nineteenth century.”35 In this, Benjamin refers to the rise of avant-gard ism, in movements like expressionism, dada, cubism, and the continued abstraction of art. This abstraction would even tually culminate in entirely conceptual works like Klein’s Im material Zones of Pictorial Sensibility, or his trademark blue.

For the Collector

In practice, collecting photography is something altogeth er di erent from collecting NFTs. Juliet Hacking takes pains to explain the di erence between the positive and the negative; while the negative has a closer tie to the object it represents, it is not intended as the end product. “What appears illogical is perhaps straightforward: collecting neg atives would be like collecting the sculptor’s mould rather than the sculpture.”36 Turner, indeed, did not intend for any of his negatives to be displayed as they are by the Victoria and Albert museum.37 Especially when considering the fact that many old negatives, like Talbot’s calotypes, are subject to fading with time, it becomes increasingly obvious that these old photographs don’t meet the mark for saleable material. But, we must not forget that these archival photographs, despite being void of content, still have perceivable value. Otherwise, why would the museum hold onto them?

Andre Bazin quite perfectly articulated the reason we cher ish photographs regardless of their pictorial content in 1958, when he stated that, “Only a photographic lens can give us the kind of image of the object that is capable of satisfying the deep need man has to substitute for it something more than a mere approximation, a kind of decal or transfer. The photographic image is the object itself, the object freed from the conditions of time and space that govern it. No matter how fuzzy, distorted, or discolored, no matter how lacking, in documentary value the image may be, it shares, by virtue of the very process of its becoming, the being of the model of which it is the reproduction; it is the model.”38

Negative/positive photographic methods were original ly patented by Talbot and were not allowed to be used for commercial purposes. Therefore, until the founding members of the London Photographic Society took him to court in the 1850s, Daguerrotypy was most common ly used by commercial photographers, especially for portraiture. Once Talbot’s patent was released and new methods based on his negative/positive concept were in troduced with more permanency, via the carbon printing process, for example, calotype-based photography took over the market, and daguerreotypes became antiquat ed. Even today, when analogue photographs are sold, they are sold in editions printed from the negative. Often, a se ries of prints is created, numbering only ten or twenty. It is not only the age of the prints, but the number of them, that informs their ﬁnancial value. The fewer becomes the rarer, which becomes the more-prized. By doing this, analogue photographers and their estate holders can continually re-create scarcity by making more prints.39 Although the digital art object might exist on thousands of computers, there is only one codiﬁed right to ownership - the NFT. The photographic negative, therefore, is the value-contain er that all the other objects that emanate from it—in this case, positive prints—rely on to imbue them with value.

Conclusion

The content of this foray into value and art could have applications in many realms outside of the purely the oretical. Chan’s sale of “Pictorial Sensibility” is only one example of its kind. Millions upon millions of dollars are funneled through cryptocurrency’s massive servers. If we are to become increasingly reliant on NFTs for as certaining art market value, as predicted by Deloitte’s re port, we will have to create ways that maintain the aspect of public accessibility while mitigating climate change.

Although I have thus far drawn an analogy between the role of negatives in photography and NFTs in digital art, I must confess that there is one key di erence between the two; whether or not the ‘aura’ of either is organic or artiﬁcial.

In truth, photographic negatives are not entirely the same thing as the NFTs, in that they are not traded in exactly the same terms. The negative is the blueprint for a print, whereas the NFT is the saleable product. Both, however, are alike in their connection with originality. I would perhaps even go as far as arguing that the perceived ‘illogic’ of collecting negatives also surrounds the same confusion surrounding NFT collection. The thing is, NFT-aura is encoded, rather than native. Digital art is essentially, irrevocably reproducible, so the NFT con cept is not a new thing, but rather an old reaction to the new.

The enforcement of scarcity is capital’s e ort to re-imag ine itself in the digital age. Scarce digitality, however, is an oxymoron. We are seeing this increasingly in the art world; attempts to make the once attainable, unattainable.

Endnotes

1. “Ancient Vestry, Calvert Jones in the Cloisters at Lacock Abbey: Fox Talbot, William Henry: V&A Explore the Collections,” Collections: Victoria and Albert Museum, accessed December 7th 2021, https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1387871/the-ancient-vestrycalvert-jones-photograph-fox-talbot-william.

2. M.H. Miller, “Art World Returns to a New Normal,” New York Times, June 14, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/t-magazine/ art-issue-new-normal.html?smid=url-share.

3. Steve Kaczynski and Scott Duke Kominers, “How Nfts Create Value,” Harvard Business Review, November 19, 2021, https://hbr. org/2021/11/how-nfts-create-value.

4. Kaczynski, “How Nfts Create Value,” 2021.

5. Kaczynski, “How Nfts Create Value,” 2021.

6. https://opensea.io.

7. “Introduction,” in Deloitte Art & Finance Report 2019 - 6th edition, (Luxembourg: Deloitte, 2019), accessed December 7th, 2021, https://www2.deloitte.com/lu/en/pages/art-ﬁnance/articles/art-ﬁnance-report.html.

8. Rachel O’Dwyer, “A Celestial Cyberdimension: Art Tokens and the Artwork as Derivative,” (Circa, December 2018), 10.

9. Rebecca Solnit, “Yves Klein and the Blue of Distance,” New England Review (1990-) 26, no. 2, (2005), 178, accessed December 7th, 2021, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40240721.

10. Solnit, “Yves Klein and the Blue of Distance,” 179.

11. Mitchell F Chan, “Digital Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility: Blue Paper,” (Self-Published, Inter-Planetary File System, August 2017), 6, https://ipfs.io/ipfs/ QmcdKPjcJgYX2k7weqZLoKjHqB9tWxEV5oKBcPV6L8b5dD.

12. Chan, “Digital Zones…”, 21.

13. Carol Duncan, Civilizing Rituals : Inside Public Art Museums, London: Routledge, 1995.

14. “money, n.”, Oxford English Dictionary Online, December 2021, Oxford University Press, https://www-oed-com.proxy3.library. mcgill.ca/view/Entry/121171?rskey=ZSwBOF&result=1&isAdvanced=false.

15. Juliet Hacking, “Buyer Aware,” in Photography and the Art Market, (London: Lund Humphries in association with Sotheby’s Institute of Art, 2018), 44.

16. Chan, “Digital Zones…”, 11.

17. Terry Nguyen, “Value of Nfts, Explained by an Expert,” Vox, March 31, 2021, https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22358262/value-of-nfts-behavioral-expert.

18. O’Dwyer, “A Celestial Cyberdimension…”, 5.

19. O’Dwyer,“A Celestial Cyberdimension…”, 5.

20. Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility [First Version],” Trans.Michael W. Jennings, Grey Room, no. 39 (2010), 15. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27809424.

21. Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility [First Version],” 16.

22. William Henry Fox Talbot, The Pencil of Nature (London: Longman, Brown, Green, & Longman, 1844), 12.

23. Talbot, The Pencil of Nature, 21.

24. Talbot, The Pencil of Nature, 12.

25. Thomas Sutton, “Introduction,” in The Calotype Process : A Hand Book to Photography on Paper, (London: J. Cundall and by S. Low, 1855), 2.

26. https://collections.vam.ac.uk.

27. Richard Brettell, et al, Paper and Light: Calotype in France and Great Britain, 1839-70, (Boston: David R. Godine, 1984), 12.

28. Geo rey Batchen, Negative/Positive: A History of Photography, (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2021), 3.

29. Tate, “Pre-Raphaelite – Art Term,” Tate, https://www.tate.org.uk/ art/art-terms/p/pre-raphaelite.

30. “art, n.1”, Oxford English Dictionary Online, December 2021, Oxford University Press, https://www-oed-com.proxy3.library.mcgill. ca/view/Entry/11125?rskey=eGMMyN&result=1&isAdvanced=false.

31. Allan Sekula, “The Body and the Archive,” October 39 (1986): 3–64. https://doi.org/10.2307/778312.

32. Robin Kelsey, “Julia Margaret Cameron Transﬁgures the Glitch,” in Photography and the Art of Chance, (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 20150, https://doi. org/10.4159/9780674426177.

33. Julian Cox, Julia Margaret Cameron : The Complete Photographs, (Los Angeles, CA: Getty Publications, 2003).

34. Ronald S. Coddington, “Cardomania!: How the carte de Visite Became the Facebook of the 1860s,” Military Images 34, no. 3 (2016), 12–17. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24865727.

35. Benjamin, “The Work of Art…”, 20.

36. Hacking, “Buyer’s Aware,” 34.

37. “A Photographic Truth: Benjamin Brecknell Turner: V&A Explore the Collections.” Victoria and Albert Museum, https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1430925/a-photographic-truth-photograph-benjamin-brecknell-turner.

38. André Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” Trans. Hugh Gray, in Film Quarterly 13, no. 4 (1960), 8, https://doi. org/10.2307/1210183.

39. Hacking, “Frequently Asked Questions about the Art-Photography Market” in Photography and the Art Market, 25-28.

Bibiliography

“Ancient Vestry, Calvert Jones in the Cloisters at Lacock Abbey: Fox Talbot, William Henry: V&A Explore the Collections.” Collections: Victoria and Albert Museum. Accessed December 7th 2021. https://collections.vam. ac.uk/item/O1387871/the-ancient-vestry-calvert-jones-photograph-foxtalbot-william.

“A Photographic Truth: Benjamin Brecknell Turner: V&A Explore the Collections.” Victoria and Albert Museum. Accessed December 7th 2021. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1430925/a-photographic-truth-photograph-benjamin-brecknell-turner.

“art, n.1”. Oxford English Dictionary Online. December 2021. Oxford University Press. https://www-oed-com.proxy3.library.mcgill.ca/view/Entry/11125?rskey=eGMMyN&result=1&isAdvanced=false.

Batchen, Geo rey. “Introduction.” in Negative/Positive : A History of Photography. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2021.

Bazin, André. “The Ontology of the Photographic Image.” Translated by Hugh Gray. Film Quarterly 13, no. 4 (1960): 4–9. https://doi. org/10.2307/1210183.

Benjamin, Walter, and Michael W. Jennings. “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility [First Version].” Translated by Michael W. Jennings. Grey Room, no. 39 (2010): 11–38. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27809424.

Brettell, Richard, and Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and Art Institute of Chicago. Paper and Light: Calotype in France and Great Britain, 1839-70. Boston, MA: David R. Godine, 1984.

Chan, Mitchell F. “Digital Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility: Blue Paper.” Self-Published, Inter-Planetary File System, August 2017. https://ipfs. io/ipfs/QmcdKPjcJgYX2k7 weqZLoKjHqB9tWxEV5oKBcPV6L8b5dD.

Coddington, Ronald S. “Cardomania!: How the Carte de Visite Became the Facebook of the 1860s.” Military Images 34, no. 3 (2016): 12–17. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/24865727.

Cox, Julian, Julia Margaret Cameron, and Colin Ford. Julia Margaret Cameron : The Complete Photographs. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Publications, 2003.

Duncan, Carol. Civilizing Rituals : Inside Public Art Museums. London: Routledge, 1995.

“Digital Zone of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility.” Sotheby’s Metaverse. Accessed December 7th 2021. https://metaverse.sothebys.com/natively-digital/lots/digital_zone_of_immaterial_ pictorial_ sensibility.

Hacking, Juliet. Photography and the Art Market. London: Lund Humphries in association with Sotheby’s Institute of Art, 2018.

“Introduction,” Deloitte Art & Finance Report 2019 6th edition Luxembourg: Deloitte, 2019. Accessed December 7th, 2021. https://www2.deloitte.com/

lu/en/pages/art-ﬁnance/ articles/art-ﬁnance-report.html.

Kaczynski, Steve, and Scott Duke Kominers.“How Nfts Create Value.” Harvard Business Review, November 19, 2021. https://hbr.org/2021/11/how-nftscreate-value.

Kelsey, Robin. Photography and the Art of Chance. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2015. https://doi. org/10.4159/9780674426177.

Lambert, Nick. “Beyond Nfts: A Possible Future for Digital Art.” Itnow 63, no. 3 (2021): 8–10. https://doi.org/10.1093/itnow/bwab066.

Longman, Brown, Green, & Longman, 1844. Nineteenth Century Collections Online, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/BLMZME536800518/NCCO?u=crepuq_mcgill&sid=bookmark-NCCO&xid=9392a85a&pg=1.

Miller, M. H. “Art World Returns to a New Normal.” New York Times, June 14, 2021. https:// www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/t-magazine/art-issue-newnormal.html?smid=url-share.

“money, n.”. Oxford English Dictionary Online. December 2021. Oxford University Press. https://www-oed-com.proxy3.library.mcgill.ca/view/Entry/121171?rskey=ZSwBOF&result=1&isAdvanced=false.

Nguyen, Terry. “Value of Nfts, Explained by an Expert.” Vox, March 31, 2021. https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22358262/value-of-nfts-behavioral-expert.

O’Dwyer, Rachel. “A Celestial Cyberdimension: Art Tokens and the Artwork as Derivative.” Circa, December 2018. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27029628.

Sekula, Allan. “The Body and the Archive.” October 39 (1986): 3–64. https:// doi.org/10.2307/778312.

Solnit, Rebecca. “Yves Klein and the Blue of Distance.” New England Review (1990-) 26, no. 2 (2005): 176–82. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40240721.

Sutton, Thomas. The Calotype Process : A Hand Book to Photography on Paper. London: J. Cundall and S. Low, 1855. Nineteenth Century Collections Online, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/BAEDZO767072329/ NCCO?u=crepuq_mcgill&sid=bookmark-NCCO&xid=8fce638b&pg=1. Accessed 13 Dec. 2021.

Talbot, William Henry Fox. The Pencil of Nature. London: Longman, Brown, Greens, and Longmans. 1844-46, Nineteenth Century Collections Online, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/BLMZME536800518/NCCO?u=crepuq_ mcgill&sid=bookmark-NCCO&xid=9392a85a&pg=1.

Tate. “Pre-Raphaelite – Art Term.” Tate. Accessed December 7th 2021. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/pre-raphaelite.

“Transfer of A Zone of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility...” Yves Klein. Accessed December 7th 2021. http://www.yvesklein.com/en/oeuvres/view/640/ transfer-of-a-zone-of-yyimmaterial-pictorial-sensibility-to-m-blankfort-pont-au-double-paris.

Turner, Benjamin Brecknell. Photographic Views from Nature. Publisher Unknown, 1852. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/BLNEDC611337463/NCCO?u=crepuq_mcgill&sid=bookmark-NCCO&xid=3fc16f15&pg=58.

My name is Sam Lirette. I am a twenty-two-year-old, white, queer, Québécois art historian. I state this firmly, as I argue for the radical personalization of the field of art history—for the active acknowledgement of the self. I believe recognizing the limits of objectivity is paramount, and so is understanding one’s biases. As a result, considering the highly personal motivations behind this research paper, it is necessary to underline my own subjective position as a scholar. Specifically, I wish to note how my lived experiences as a queer individual have shaped my research in tremendous ways. During the formative years of my youth, I quickly noticed the ways in which my gender ex pression and sexuality deviated from the norm. Naturally, as a mode of survival, I gravitated towards images which made me feel empowered and not only legitimized but celebrated my queer existence. My research represents an intense desire to understand this on an academic level. Hence, I embark on this personal quest—one which I firmly believe can benefit both the field of art history on a broader scale, as well as queer read ers who have been marginalized by narrow-minded narratives.

PrefaceIntroduction Acknowledgements

I want to thank Professor Angela Vanhaelen and my class mates for their continuous encouragement during the development of this research paper. I would also like to thank my family and closest friends for their unwavering sup port throughout the years. It all means the world to me.

PrefaceIntroduction

The art historical canon, as a constructed body, is defined by the context in which it was created. Most notably, the canon has long been framed by heteronormative and thus often ex clusionary narratives. This has consequently resulted in the erasure of any possible queer interpretations of well-known artworks. In this research paper, I aim to deconstruct the canon and broaden the ways in which canonical artworks may signify by performing a queer analysis of the figure of Ve nus in Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus of c. 1485 (fig. 1).

An important rediscovery and fascination with Botticelli’s art occurred in the late nineteenth century. Although consider able research has been conducted on Botticelli’s life and alle gorical works of art, most of this research has followed a tradi tional art historical narrative and fails to answer some crucial questions: How may the artwork signify to queer viewers? And why are queer artists—or artists with signiﬁcantly queer audiences—appropriating his canonical works? By building upon this preliminary research on both the history and alle gorical meanings of Botticelli’s oeuvres, I shall acknowledge the held consensus on his masterpieces, while simultane ously providing new and non-normative interpretations.

Methodologically, my research is concerned with conduct ing a temporal examination of the figure of Venus. This, how ever, is performed through a queer lens. My first priority is thus to provide an understanding of the word ‘queer,’ while deconstructing traditional notions of gender. My analysis of the artwork itself begins far before the advent of the Re naissance, as exploring the origins of the cult of Venus/Aph rodite in Ancient Rome and Greece proves crucial in devel oping a contextual understanding of the icon’s everlasting cultural presence. Subsequently, I examine Florentine life and sexuality, namely the evident homoeroticism present at the court of the Medici, which provides insight on the artistic use of Venus—goddess of love and sex. Furthermore, I observe the ambiguous visual qualities and complexities found in Botticelli’s masterpiece, which I argue, appeal to the queer eye in the sense that they allow for a wide range of non-nor mative interpretations. This involves an in-depth analysis of the a ect of shame, specifically concerning the pose of the Venus Pudica. These key objectives are achieved through the application of queer theories and culminates in understanding the impact of Botticelli’s Venus on con temporary queer artists and popular culture. In this regard, I conclude my research by conducting a case study of Lady Gaga’s infamous ARTPOP (2013), in which the pop icon makes significant lyrical and visual use of the icon of Venus.

In brief, I argue that Botticelli’s Venus exhibits a dual, seem ingly paradoxical nature: she is both shamed into modesty yet empowered by her sexual agency. Consequently, she may be understood as a symbol of sexual— and thus societal emancipation for oppressed and marginalized individuals.

Figure 01 | Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, c. 1485, Tempera on Canvas, 172.5 x 278.5 cm, U zi Gallery, Florence.

Queer: A Gender as a Performance: Venus as the Quintessence of Femininity / As the Queen of Camp

The word ‘queer’ originally meant ‘strange’ or ‘peculiar,’ and by the late nineteenth century—precisely when paint ings like The Birth of Venus entered the art historical canon—it began to be used as a pejorative term against those who expressed same-sex desires.1 However, in the late twentieth century, the word was reclaimed by queer ac tivists. Today, it acts as an umbrella term for anyone who is not strictly heterosexual or cisgender, and the term con tinues to be associated with “authors, artists, themes or representations” pertaining to the LGBTQ community.2

‘Queer,’ in its very essence, resists a clear definition and instead signifies anything or anyone deviating from the norm. As defined in the ground-breaking work of queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, the word may be em ployed in multiple ways. Most notably, it is defined as the encompassing range of possible meanings which exist when gender or sexuality is impossible to define.3 There fore, performing a queer analysis involves going beyond heteronormative assumptions—about the context, the art ist, and the viewers of a particular artwork. In other words, employing queer theory involves taking a deliberate po sition against normative or dominant modes of thought.4

In this research paper, I perform a queer reading of The Birth of Venus. I’m not concerned with deciphering the sexual iden tity of Botticelli, but instead want to develop a non-norma tive understanding of his Venus and her legacy as an icon for queer artists and audiences. This revolves around two crucial questions: How can the ﬁgure Venus be read through some thing other than the heterosexual, male gaze? And what can the goddess symbolize for viewers who identify as queer?

Gender theorist Judith Butler stresses how gender is not a static identity deriving from an innate place; rather, it is an iden tity positioned within time which is constructed from a series of repeated acts.5 Masculinity and femininity are learned behaviours. Gender may thus be understood as a performative act, which audiences and actors themselves come to believe and uphold as reality.6 In terms of the gender binary, Butler considers whether the notion of ‘woman’ is socially construct ed in a way to speciﬁcally position it as the oppressed gen der.7 This becomes an important consideration, as I argue Venus (ﬁg. 2) may be understood as the epitome of classical femininity and beauty. This is made evident by her physique, long blond hair, and alabaster skin. Is her construction into the ideal female a sign of oppression? And is her position in dicative of shame? These questions shall be explored further on. Although the goddess does not explicitly subvert notions of gender, I argue she may signify di erently to queer view ers by displaying notions of shame in an ambiguous manner.

The gender binary, I would argue, serves to control members of society and their behaviour. After all, performing one’s gen

der in an ‘incorrect’ manner may result in societal punish ment.8 One who fails to uphold the illusion of gender often causes anxiety within those who do. For instance, Butler notes how the sight of a crossdresser on stage may elic it laughter and pleasure within an audience, yet the site of the same crossdresser in real life may cause severe dis tress and fear, and result in violence.9 When the transgres sion of gender norms is obviously stated as an act, it has the potential to be funny. When it is part of the larger ‘stage’ of everyday life, which ostensibly is also an act, it becomes a threat. In The Birth of Venus, I would argue that Venus suc cessfully performs femininity. Consequently, she does not elicit anxiety within viewers. She is clearly female. Venus, as the goddess of love and sex, is the epitome of femininity. However, by being a hyperbolic representation of femininity, I argue she may be read as a camp iteration of the feminine construct. In other words, she may even be read as some what of a drag queen. This is precisely where queer view ership comes into play. This representation of the goddess may signify di erently to di erent viewers; she may appear as an ideal, modest, and pleasing female figure to the het erosexual male viewer, but as an overtly camp, over-the-top, extravagant representation of femininity to queer audienc es. Camp, as described by Susan Sontag, involves an ad miration of the unnatural, of “artifice and exaggeration,” and it is somewhat of a “private code among small cliques.”10 Thus, camping the canonical figure may be read as a form of subversion by queer viewers; it reverts the notion of ex clusivity and empowers the queer viewer. Camp involves pointing out the absurdities of societal constructs by play ing into them, and here, the notions of gender and its styl izations can be made fun of. Sontag puts it perfectly: “Camp sees everything in quotation marks. It is…not a woman, but a ‘woman.’ To perceive Camp in objects and persons is to understand Being-as-Playing-a-Role. It is the farthest ex tension, in sensibility, of the metaphor of life as theater.”11 Moreover, camp is distinctly queer and involves the active acknowledgement of gender constructs. Viewing the figure of Venus as camp thus calls attention to such marginalizing conceptions and ultimately dismantles them. This notion not only provides a non-normative perception of The Birth of Venus but proves crucial in developing an understanding of the goddess as inspiration for queer artists and viewers.

Figure 02 | Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus (detail), c. 1485, tempera on canvas, 172.5 x 278.5 cm, U zi Gallery, Florence.

Gender and Sexuality in FifteenthCentury Florence: Understanding the One-Sex Model

Now that contemporary gender constructs have been discussed at length, it becomes important to under stand how gender and non-normative sexuality were per ceived in ﬁfteenth-century Florence (precisely when and where The Birth of Venus was created) as well as when the painting entered the art historical canon in the nine teenth century. Historian and sexologist Thomas Laqueur argues that a radical change in attitudes concerning hu man sexual anatomy occurred in eighteenth- and nine teenth-century Europe. Most signiﬁcantly, Laqueur notes:

“The record on which I have relied bears witness to the fun damental incoherence of stable, ﬁxed categories of sex ual dimorphism, of male and/or female. The notion, so powerful after the eighteenth century, that there had to be something outside, inside, and throughout the body which deﬁnes male as opposed to female and which pro vides the foundation for an attraction of opposites is en tirely absent from classical or Renaissance medicine.”12

Evidently, such dichotomous ideas on sex and gender were created at the time that artworks such as Botticelli’s were rediscovered and became part of the canon. Therefore, at tempting to understand artworks like The Birth of Venus sole ly through this anachronistic model is fallible, as the master piece predates such conceptions. Laqueur states that during the Renaissance, there existed no clearly juxtaposed sexes; instead, there was the idea of a single sex, of which there were more perfect (male) and less perfect (female) exemplars.13 It was over three and a half centuries after Botticelli painted The Birth of Venus that such categories of ‘male’ and ‘female’ were clearly defined as opposites, which served not only to segregate individuals into two distinct classifications, but to propel heteronormative models and arguably further posi tion ‘woman’ as the oppressed sex (as Judith Butler denotes). This more fluid understanding of both sex and gender, which existed during the creation of the artwork, aids in understand ing the The Birth of Venus through a queer lens. Significantly, Laqueur notes: “So-called biological sex does not provide a solid foundation for the cultural category of gender, but con stantly threatens to subvert it.”14 Thus, observing the fluidity of both gender and sexuality present in fifteenth-century Flor ence becomes important in understanding the context with in which The Birth of Venus was created, and furthermore, the ways in which it may signify to queer viewers of today.

Sodomy in FifteenthCentury Florence

In the same vein as Laqueur, Italian Renaissance specialist Michael Rocke argues: “Simply to project current Western conceptions of homosexuality—which are dominated by the notion of a permanently deviant and distinct minority— onto same-sex erotic relations in past or other societies in evitably tends to misrepresent their historical and cultural specificity.”15 Rocke performs an in-depth analysis of sod omy—specifically sex between men—and its persecution in Florence from the years 1478 to 1502. In brief, he notes how same-sex sodomy in late-fifteenth-century Florence usually involved an adult male who took the ‘active,’ domi nant role with a ‘passive’ adolescent.16 This custom, known as pederasty, dates to Ancient Greece and Rome, thus out lining a broad revival of Greco-Roman customs which ap peared to go beyond art and philosophy. Furthermore, the custom underscores the conventions behind sexual rela tions between males, which Rocke argues operated within a precise “framework of cultural premises about masculinity, status, honor, and shame.”17 This notion of shame will prove important when further analyzing Botticelli’s painting. This structure outlines a certain rite-of-passage into manhood, and consequently played an important role in the construc tion of masculinity.18 Significantly, the custom was bound by strict conventions; the older man had to take the active role, while the younger boy took the passive role. Also, once teens reached a certain age, they were deemed men and it was no longer appropriate for them to take that passive role.19 However, there were indeed outliers: There were boys who aged and continued to play the passive role, and there were elderly men who took on the passive role, too.20 The custom took on the complex position of being somewhat normative, but still persecuted and bound by strict rules. If this custom was so prevalent in fifteenth-century Florence, it seems as if it cannot fit our definition of ‘queer.’ However,

again, it is important to note historical speciﬁcity. And so, al though it is anachronistic to use the term queer, I argue that the di ering, considerably more ﬂuid way of understanding sexuality at the time that The Birth of Venus was painted allows us to understand exactly how the artwork can sig nify a range of possibilities for viewers. For queer viewers of today who feel bound by contemporary constructs, that could mean a certain freedom to express their sexuality.

Furthermore, it is impossible to perfectly outline the sexuality of the men of the ﬁfteenth century who engaged in sodomy, as many did in fact marry women and have children. In this sense, we are reminded of Sedgwick’s deﬁnition of queer. When it is impossible to pinpoint sexuality, there exists much more room for interpretation. And after all, the term homosexuality itself was only coined in 1869.21 The freedom from labels here allows us to read paintings like The Birth of Venus against the grain—to read it beyond heteronormative standards.

Homoeroticism at the Court of Medici: Donatello’s David

Nearly all Florentine men were incriminated for engaging in sodomy at some point or another during this time; yet, it was rather accepted in Florentine society, especially during Lorenzo ‘the Magnificent’ de’ Medici’s reign from 1469 to 1492.22 Specifically, Lorenzo’s fostering of humanistic and neo-Platonic ideals created a much more tolerant en vironment for sodomy in Florence for all citizens, not just the elite.23 Notably, Rocke remarks how the active perse cution of sodomy “relaxed significantly, if not completely, during the mid-1480s to the early 1490s.”24 Therefore, I ar gue that the rise in tolerance (and ostensibly active cele bration) of sexual fluidity which occurred during Lorenzo’s reign emphasizes a time of relative sexual freedom. Conse quently, this allowed for works such as The Birth of Venus to be produced. Fascinatingly, openly homoerotic works were also being created, even decades prior to Lorenzo’s rule. Donatello’s David is a prime example of this (fig. 3).

Created approximately forty-ﬁve years prior to The Birth of Venus, Donatello’s David gives us an important look at how gender and sexuality were perceived—and how di erent ly they were perceived from today. I argue this perception, if viewed through today’s lens, can be interpreted as dis tinctly queer; it does not follow the strict heteronormative model which we follow today. The David, by at least 1466 and until 1495, was positioned in the middle of the courtyard of the Medici palace.25 David here is a rather androgynous adolescent boy, depicted in the nude. Notably, scholars have struggled to deﬁne the homoeroticism present in the work, and art historian Adrian Randolph states: “Political explanations attempting to cover up the brazen nudity and youthfulness of the boy by piling on contextual data have not succeeded in taming the object.”26 Randolph, instead, focuses on Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s concept of ‘homo social desire’ to shed light on the sculpture. By drawing together “two seemingly incompatible phenomena,” i.e., homosexual sex and the social bonding of (heterosexual) men, he notes how Sedgwick positions them as existing hand in hand, demonstrating how these supposedly “op

posing visions of masculinity are, in fact, mutually support ing.”27 This helps us understand not only the custom of ped erasty, but also modes of viewership in fifteenth-century Florence: The cultural gazes which existed at the time do not conform to the “assumed heterosexual male gaze upon which so much art historical analysis is based.”28 Thus, an alyzing artworks which predate our modern conceptions of sex and gender may aid modern viewers in developing a more fluid understanding of gender and of canonical works. Additionally, as we’ve examined, constructions of gender themselves were also much more fluid during the Renais sance. This is demonstrated here by the David’s androg ynous attributes, which defy contemporary static notions of gender distinctions through its apparent ambivalence.29

From the front, Randolph notes how the figure is “readily sexed” with the aid of his visible genitalia which positions him within the category of ‘male.’30 However, when viewing the David from behind (fig. 4), this rigidity unravels. There are no clear identifying features for viewers to categorize the figure with. Instead, Randolph underlines how it is “the feathery caress of the wing that commands attention.”31 Scholars have often avoided addressing this notably erotic feature—a feature which suggests not only a sensual play of feather on skin but may even point to the boy’s penetra bility.32 I argue this overlook may suggest a certain level of discomfort within scholars—a certain anxiety which arises when visual evidence clearly transgresses heteronorma tivity. Moreover, I argue that this desire to gloss over homo erotic features not only fails to note the complex desires and cultural gazes of fifteenth-century Florentine men but results in a certain queer erasure. This is crucial historical information that has been deliberately omitted from the canon for its deviation from heteronormative standards. In fact, Randolph reiterates the words of Rocke, noting how same-sex sexual relations—which were often intertwined with homosocial bonds—were fundamental in the con struction of Florentine society and even allowed for the intermingling of individuals from di ering social classes.33

Furthermore, it is impossible to perfectly outline the sexuality of the men of the ﬁfteenth century who engaged in sodomy, as many did in fact marry women and have children. In this sense, we are reminded of Sedgwick’s deﬁnition of queer. When it is impossible to pinpoint sexuality, there exists much more room for interpretation. And after all, the term homosexuali ty itself was only coined in 1869.21 The freedom from labels here allows us to read paintings like The Birth of Venus against the grain—to read it beyond heteronormative standards.

Figure 03

Figure 04 | Back view of Donatello’s David, c. 1440s, bronze, 158 cm, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

| Donatello, David, c. 1440s, bronze, 158 cm, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

Representations of Venus: On the Origins of the Goddess

So far, I have explored notions of sexuality and gen der (both in the contemporary and ﬁfteenth-century Florentine contexts) to deconstruct heteronormative conceptions of the art historical canon and provide a basis for understanding how Botticelli’s Venus may sig nify to queer viewers. Now, I wish to examine the ori gins of the ﬁgure of Venus to further drive my argument.

Although deserving of greater attention, I wish to brieﬂy touch upon the work of Walter Benjamin on the notion of the aura. His essay supports my argument concerning the ways a single ﬁgure may signi fy di erently to di erent groups. Benjamin’s words ap pear remarkably relevant to my research, as he states:

An ancient statue of Venus, for instance, existed in a tradi tional context for the Greeks (who made it an object of wor ship) that was di erent from the context in which it exist ed for medieval clerics (who viewed it as a sinister idol). But what was equally evident to both was its uniqueness—that is, its aura. Originally, the embeddedness of an artwork in the context of tradition found expression in a cult. As we know, the earliest artworks originated in the service of rit uals…This ritualistic basis, however mediated it may be, is still recognizable as secularized ritual in even the most pro fane forms of the cult of beauty…which developed during the Renaissance and prevailed for three centuries.34

Coincidently, Benjamin employs the example of Venus to ex plain the notion of the aura. The same image of the goddess, through time and space, signiﬁes di erently to every group which encounters it. This is precisely where I wish to insert queer viewers into the mix. If a representation of Venus was an object of worship for the Ancient Greeks, or an idol for me dieval clerics, what can it be for contemporary queer view ers? How may its aura translate through time? If the goddess became part of a cult of beauty for Renaissance viewers, what is she to us today? These are complex questions that cannot be answered succinctly, though I argue simply pos ing them may shed light on the goddess’ malleable qualities.

We may begin to visualize the transfer of aura by under standing the origins of the goddess Venus. Firstly, she is

the Roman equivalent of the Greek Aphrodite. Aphrodite herself derives from a predecessor: the Ancient Mesopota mian warrior goddess Ishtar, known as the Queen of Heav en.35 Although early images of an armed Aphrodite are well documented in Sparta and Argos, the goddess appears to have slowly lost her associations with war over time.36 Aph rodite, and by extension Venus, appears to be rather mal leable; the goddess takes on a role relevant to a particular socio-political situation or cult. In the contemporary sense, may she not act as a cult figure for the marginalized—for those who feel oppressed by norms? Could she not become an inspiration for those struggling with their sexuality and/or gender? Moreover, the origin myth of Aphrodite fur ther propels this argument. The goddess was born from a violent act of emasculation; she rose from the foam which formed from her father’s genitals after the god Cronus had “cut them o and thrown them into the sea.” 37 If Aphrodite was born from an act of castration, what could that mean in broader terms? Could that be interpreted as the blossom ing of the underdog, which came from the literal castration of the oppressor? Clearly, I argue that the goddess may symbolize the feminine good which comes from the over throwing of masculine tyrannical power. It is significant that Aphrodite is known as “the first deity to be given clearly an thropomorphic characteristics,” or more importantly, “a de tailed female identity.”38 However, she is not portrayed as a maternal figure like Demeter, but instead takes the role of pre-maternal beauty as her aesthetic aspects are always emphasized.39 As Barbara Breitenberger makes evident, the goddess is frequently depicted as “an irresistible seduc tress” in literature and art.40 This is underlined in the Homeric Hymns, where she is put into contrast with warrior goddess es like Hera and Athena.41 Here, I would argue, her beauty is her weapon. In one particular story, Aphrodite uses her dif ferent modes of appearance to manipulate her lover. First, she appears as a prudish girl not to frighten him, then as a femme fatale to make him desire her, and finally as a threat ening goddess.42 In the hymn, it is Aphrodite who takes on an active role in her sexual pursuits. As Breitenberger puts it, “she transgresses mortal female nature by claiming active sexual desire, which is normally exclusively the prerogative of men.”43 Clearly, although stripped of her early warrior-like associations, Aphrodite remains completely in control. She

exhibits an astounding amount of sexual agency, which is precisely how I argue she may serve as an inspiration for modern queer viewers. On the same notion of subverting gender norms, Breitenberger notes how there were certain rituals in Ancient Greece where women took on the roles of men, such as with the festival of Hybristica in Argos.44 These details prove important in understanding Botticelli’s own inspirations for depictions of Venus, as the artist ap pears to have known at least parts of the Homeric Hymns.45

Venus and Mars

Before exploring my main object of analysis, The Birth of Venus, I wish to build upon the notion of powerful representations of Venus and the subversion of gen der norms by brieﬂy examining another well-known work by Botticelli: Venus and Mars of c. 1485 (ﬁg. 5).

Painted around the same time as The Birth of Venus, Venus and Mars depicts the two deities in a post-coital scene. The goddess of love and god of war are often associated with each other in classical, medieval and early modern texts, and Botticelli’s rendition is inspired by this literary tradition.46 The scene, however, does not praise the warrior qualities of Mars; here, he is subdued. Instead, the painting underlines his “volatility and cruelty,” which may only be tamed by his lover, Venus.47 The goddess neutralizes the threat of war, and she does this through her seductive nature, again underlin ing her power—a power which relies on love, seduction, and sex. In simple terms, if Venus tempers Mars, it is under stood that she has a certain power over this virile masculine figure. And so, I argue that Mars is the most vulnerable figure in the painting. He is unclothed and sleeps, while satyrs take hold of his weapon and armour. Meanwhile, Venus watch es attentively with full agency and a calm demeanor. She is in complete control, shaping her as an empowered figure. Most likely commissioned for the marriage of Lucrezia de’ Medici and Jacopo di Giovanni Salviati, the painting demon strates a certain hierarchical anomaly.48 The bride was a Medici—the most powerful family in Florence—while the groom belonged to a “family of lower social standing” which was “politically compromised” due to their involvement with the Pazzi conspiracy—a major plot aiming to overthrow

the Medici which resulted in the death of Lorenzo’s broth er, Giuliano de’ Medici.49 This socio-political aspect may help to explain the “complete reversal of the traditional gender roles” seen in the painting, where a clothed female ﬁg ure looms over a nude male ﬁgure.50 This unusual political move thus allowed for such an untraditional painting to be painted. Although the role reversal here may be explained by the social classes of the groom and bride, I argue the painting may nonetheless exhibit a queer nature—a sub version of norms—which is echoed through time and may resonate with future generations for di erent reasons.

Figure 03 | Sandro Botticelli, Venus and Mars, c. 1485, tempera and oil on poplar panel, 69 cm x 173 cm, National

The Birth of Venus

Also most likely commissioned as a wedding gift for a mem ber of the Medici family, Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus (ﬁg. 6) depicts the goddess Venus with long blond locks stand ing on a huge scallop shell as she approaches the shore. She is accompanied by secondary ﬁgures, who on her left, blow her onto the shore, and to the right, prepare to clothe her. For brevity, I wish to focus my analysis on Venus herself.

Venus, as the central ﬁgure, commands the attention of viewers. She stands in a classical contrapposto pose, bal ancing on one leg.51 She attempts to cover her breasts with her right hand, and with a handful of her hair in her left, conceals her pubis. The composition is most likely in spired by the writings of Pliny, though the details of the painting are heavily inspired by the Ancient Greek Ho meric Hymns in which Aphrodite’s debarkation onto land is described.52 Botticelli likely knew of passages from the Hymns through Angelo Poliziano, the Medici court poet, whose own writings also inspired the artist.53 For example, the gestures and positioning of Venus are not mentioned in these Hymns, yet Botticelli’s painting is strongly remi niscent of Poliziano’s descriptions in Stanze per la giostra:

One could see arising from the waves, The goddess, clutching her tresses with her right hand, Her left hand covering her lovely breasts. 54 However, here, Botticelli digresses from his textual source. Poliziano clearly writes that Venus covers her breasts with her left hand, but in Botticelli’s painting she uses her right.55 This disparity may be explained by the fact that the art ist not only utilized literary sources, but also visual inspira tions, most likely a copy of a classical Venus Pudica (as the one seen in ﬁg. 7), which were well known in Tuscany from the fourteenth century onwards.56 It is precisely this in triguing pose on which I wish to further focus my analysis.

Figure 06 | Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, c. 1485, Tempera on Canvas, 172.5 x 278.5 cm, U zi Gallery, Flor-

Figure 07 | Unknown artist, Venus de’ Medici, 1st Century BCE, marble (Hellenistic copy of original bronze), 1.53 m, U zi Gallery, Florence.

Venus Podia: Onthe Origins of the Pose

Art historian George L. Hersey calls the Venus Pudica pose “perhaps the most celebrated bodily stance for female self-presentation in Western art.”57 He notes the implication that goddess has been noticed by the viewer and how she at tempts to cover herself yet is “hardly panicked,” shaping her as “paradoxically both chaste and inviting.”58 The Venus in this pose, seen through the eyes of a mammalogist, may be un derstood as a form of ‘presenting,’ i.e. the act of calling atten tion to potential mates.59 In fact, Hersey notes the historical origins of this pose, stating it originates from ancient Cypri ote ﬁgures and refers to images of Ancient Greek hetairai, or prostitutes, where they massage their sexual organs (ﬁg. 8).60

At some point, there appears to have been a switch from outwardly massaging to simply shielding, which seems to have occurred when the pose slowly became associated with the goddess Aphrodite rather than with sex workers. Hersey wonders whether this switch may be interpreted as “a subtler way of continuing to focus on her reproductive system,” creating a “paradox of modest immodesty.”62 It is precisely this focus on (im)modesty which appears to have made the Venus Pudica a useful pose in Christian imagery.

In the Christian Context

Although an ancient trope, the Venus Pudica appears to have been appropriated by Christian artists at least by the early fourteenth century. Utilizing the pose within the late medieval and early Renaissance Christian context perhaps served to emphasize values of chastity and modesty, as seen in Giovan ni Pisano’s c. 1311 rendition in the Cathedral of Pisa (ﬁg. 9).

As Jacqueline Jung makes evident in her research on me dieval choir screens, the act of concealing and reveal ing was of great importance in the Christian church.63 I argue this notion of simultaneous veiling and exposing is echoed in the Venus Pudica, perhaps demonstrat ing its Christian appeal, and providing additional reasons as to why it found its way into Christian imagery. In any case, it is clear that the pose’s connection to shame pro pelled its use in Christian art, as seen in Masaccio’s The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden of c. 1427 (ﬁg. 10). Masaccio uses the pose to connote shame. After all, the a ect of shame is characterized by the turning of the face or closing of the eyes as a way of halting eye contact with others.64 Notably, it is also characterized by the general ized desire to cover the body from the gaze of the other.65

As she leaves the garden in shame, Eve covers herself in the same way that Venus does (ﬁg 11). However, Eve’s face is drastically di erent from that of Venus. The former clear ly demonstrates an intense feeling of shame. In this sense,

Figure 08 | Bronze age Paphiote goddess, Copenhagen, Nationalmuseet.(61)ence.lery, London.

we begin to notice precisely how the pose has been used to express very di erent feelings. With Masaccio’s work, there’s a biblical emphasis on sin. This underlines how the pose has precedents deeply rooted in the a ect of shame. In fact, the name Pudica itself comes from the Latin ‘pu dendus,’ which can mean both external genitals and “that which is to be ashamed of.”66 It’s also fascinating how only Eve employs this pose; Adam simply covers his face. I would argue there is a clear connection between female sexuality and shame. It is this a ect of shame and its associations with female sexuality that may give us insight into the modes in which the Venus Pudica may signify for queer viewers.

Figure

Figure 10 | Masaccio, The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, c. 1427, fresco, 208 x 88 cm, Brancacci Chapel, Church of Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence.

Figure 11 | Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus (detail), c. 1485, tempera on canvas, 172.5 x 278.5 cm, U zi Gallery, Florence.

09 | Giovanni Pisano, pulpit of the Cathedral of Pisa (detail of Venus Pudica type), c. 1311, marble, Cathedral of Pisa, Pisa.ence.lery, London.

Queering of Shame

Botticelli created several, nearly identical iterations of the Venus Pudica (fig. 12 & 13). As we’ve seen, he gath ered inspiration both from classical texts and visual examples. However, he must have surely been exposed to medieval and early Renaissance renditions, as seen in Masaccio’s The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden in Florence or Pisano’s pulpit in nearby Pisa. And yet, it ap pears that his most significant influence derived from the classical tradition. His Venuses resemble those of antiquity much more than those seen in Christian art.

What can be said about Venus in The Birth of Venus? Does she look like she’s expressing shame? Not exact ly. It does seem as if she is attempting to be modest by covering herself with her hands, yet this can also be in terpreted as tantalizing gestures (ﬁg. 14 & 15). Addition ally, if we think of the heterosexual male viewer, it is re alistic to think that there is a voyeuristic notion at play. But what if we view it through a queer lens? What could her pose signify? I wish to draw upon Sedgwick’s schol arship once again to provide some possible answers.

Sedgwick describes the a ect of shame extensively, and she notes that “shame is the a ect of indignity, of defeat, of transgression, and of alienation.”67 I argue these particular words resonate intensely with queer lived experiences. It is common for queer individuals to face intense rejection, ridicule and even trauma—especially in childhood. And so, there’s often intense shame which comes with being marginalized. It’s a biological response, and as we’ve seen, there are physical manifestations that come from feeling shame. Venus here exhibits some of that, but she does not exhibit a clear feeling of shame. She does indeed attempt to cover herself, but there seems to be more than shame at play here. However, it is just as di cult to read a full sense of agency from her. She’s been made an object of desire, and her gaze does not challenge us. But clearly, the goddess does not embody the a ect of shame in the same way that Eve does in Masaccio’s work. If we look at her face (ﬁg. 16),

she does not exhibit any particular emotion. She possesses a rather blank expression, which is not indicative of shame. Instead, it suggests a range of possible interpretations, which interestingly recalls Sedgwick’s deﬁnition of queer.

The goddess’ blank expression leaves room for a multitude of readings—even a subtle smile could be read. She could be seen as resisting shame, since shame innately involves the lowering of the head and/or eyes. And if she is indeed smiling, can it be said that she enjoys her position? Regard less of how she is read, she exhibits a certain ambivalence. Sedgwick compares this ambivalence to a child who both hides from a stranger yet peeks through his ﬁngers to see; “In shame I wish to continue to look and to be looked at, but I also do not wish to do so.”68 In connection to her analogy of the child, Sedgwick underlines the intrinsic ties that ex ist between shame and sexuality, especially during early stages of development.69 It is no coincidence that such a pose became associated with the goddess of love and sex.

Through her ambiguous disposition, I argue that Venus may be read as subverting the notion of shame. She is somewhat of a paradox. She is enigmatic. She is not as distinctly shamed into modesty as her Christian counterparts. The previously examined story of Venus and her lover in the Homeric Hymns perfectly flesh out her dual nature; she inhabits a position be tween mortal and deity, and between modesty and immod esty. Furthermore, having arrived on land, Venus awaits to be clothed, and clothing itself is speculated to have originated partly to cover up the body from shame.70 Becoming some what human rather than simply divine, there becomes a need to cover her human-like flesh. There is thus a straddling of the heavenly and earthly in Botticelli’s oeuvre. Her position outlines a certain malleability or transformation, which I feel is distinctly queer as Venus, here, refuses to be bound by a fixed binary. Through this notion, the goddess may take the role of icon for sexually oppressed people. She can be an inspiration by promoting sexual liberation. After all, shame is directly opposed to pride. And shame has tremendous po litical potential as it may push oppressed individuals to strive to legitimize their identity and gain rights and protection.71

On the other hand, it can easily be said that by positioning Ve nus in the Pudica pose—a pose intrinsically tied to shame— Botticelli easily shapes the goddess into an object of con sumption for viewers; her shame stands in direct opposition to the act of looking. Instead of gathering agency through her gaze, she is the object to be looked at. Additionally, she ap pears to avoid the gaze of viewers and instead looks aside. Yet even this is ambiguous. As discussed, Botticelli’s allegor ical works are known for being full of ambiguity—for allowing a plethora of di erent interpretations. And so, perhaps the im age of Venus allows for two crucial things. It allows heterosex

ual male viewers, especially of the nineteenth century, to feel secure about their sexuality and masculinity; they may read her as modest and as a voyeuristic o ering. For queer view ers of today, however, she may be read as a symbol of resis tance—as a sexually empowered and unapologetic sex icon.

When speaking of viewership, it becomes crucial to view the counterpart of shame, which Sedgwick calls the con tempt-disgust a ect.72 Notably, the relationship between the two is hierarchical. Shame inhabits the oppressed, and con tempt-disgust marks the oppressor.73 If one permits them selves to feel shame—and aspires to please or become like the oppressor—then the hierarchical relationship is main tained.74 I argue that this oppressor/oppressed scheme may be applied to notions of the normative and non-nor mative, respectively. Transgressing societal norms inher ently means risking ostracization, subsequently resulting in shame. Shame, as outlined by Sedgwick, is internalized as a child. What does this mean, then, for a child who, as they grow, progressively transgresses more norms? Although anec dotal, I wish to note my own personal experiences as I deem them highly relevant in the context of shame and the gaze.

As a queer individual, I have become hyperaware of the shame I have internalized as a child. Today, as I walk by men in the street who glare without shame, I purposely question my destined role as object to be gazed at—as a shamed individual, as Venus Pudica, both concealing and revealing my sexuality. Instead of showing such signs of shame—the lowering of the gaze and head—I look direct ly at these men. I gaze into their eyes. I do not look away. I refuse to. It is a reappropriation of power; if one refuses to be subjugated by the male heteronormative gaze, then its power instantly disintegrates. I have noticed that by rep licating their intense gaze, men often react in one of three ways, which may be reduced to notions of 1) disgust, 2) shame, or, most interestingly, 3) increased fascination.

Disgust: They shout slurs and act aggressively, resisting embarrassment by exhibiting the contempt-disgust a ect.

Shame: My gaze outlasts theirs, and they cower in shame. Often, however, they attempt to gaze again lat er, as if to read my expression—to see whether I have be come the oppressor or am open to communion. They take on the role of a child peeking through their ﬁngers.

Increased fascination: As with the image of Venus, shame and sexual suggestion may be intertwined. These men interpret my solid gaze as a sexual invitation.

It is perhaps in this last sense that, although being looked

at, Venus may gain power over viewers. She may be in viting, yet it is an invitation on her own terms. Although suggestive, she remains in charge of her body. It is in this sense that she may inspire queer viewers and contem porary artists; she demonstrates not only how to navi gate shame and other seemingly oppressing positions but empowers the sexually marginalized, and subse quently has become a pop-cultural icon for this reason.

Figure 12 | Sandro Botticelli, Venus (of Turin), c. 1485, 176 cm x 77.2 cm, Sabauda Gallery, Turin.

Figure 13 | Sandro Botticelli, Venus (of Berlin), c. 1490, 158.1 cm x 68.5 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.

Figure 14 & 15 | Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus (details), c. 1485, tempera on canvas, 172.5 x 278.5 cm, U zi Gallery, Florence.

Figure 16 | Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus (detail), c. 1485, tempera on canvas, 172.5 x 278.5 cm, U zi Gallery, Florence.

Contemporary Adaptations: Cult of Venus / Cult of Celebrity Lady Gaga as Venus: A Case Study

Art historian and curator Gabriel Montua has described Botticelli’s ﬁgures not only as icons, but as “quintessences of Western art.” 75 In her very essence, the ﬁgure of Venus has always been part of a cult. In Ancient Greece and Rome, she played the role of deity. In the Renaissance, she took on a key role in a cult of beauty. It is even thought that Botticelli instilled within his Venus the image of Simonetta Vespucci—a beau tiful Florentine woman who died tragically young.76 Quoted as being even more beautiful in death, Vespucci achieved celebrity status in her day—one which may be equated, in certain senses, to modern celebrities such as Marilyn Mon roe. Today, the aura of Venus—having inhabited countless sexually empowered women—lives on in appropriations by contemporary artists. It is thus from these two aforemen tioned blonde icons that I wish to examine a third: Lady Gaga.

Before exploring her appropriations of the image of Ve nus, I wish to lay out the foundations as to why Lady Gaga became an icon for young queer individuals. Hav ing received twelve Grammy Awards, Gaga is undoubt edly a successful mainstream artist. However, she has always engaged in underground themes of sexual em powerment and has been a leading ﬁgure in LGBT advo cacy. She is, and will always be, the queen of the queers.

Gaga as Queen of the Queers

In the early stages of her career, Lady Gaga was met with the rumor that she was a “hermaphrodite.” 77 However, when asked countless times in interviews whether she pos sesses male genitalia, Gaga does not cower in shame; she makes fun of the rumours, allowing herself to take power over the situation. By refusing to give a straight and serious answer, she does not grant satisfaction to the interviewer and to the public at large. These instances may have been deﬁning moments in shaping her as a gay icon, as sociolo gist Mathieu Deﬂem states: “Lady Gaga ultimately rejects conventional sex appeal. Toying with rumors about her sex and sexual orientation, she both understands the gendered dynamics of the world of popular music and uses them to her advantage.” 78 In this sense, Gaga may be understood as camping femininity and traditional sex appeal; she utilizes humour and theatricality to question cultural conceptions of gender and sex and thus “opens up mainstream cultural production to queer readings.” 79 Lady Gaga’s Camp aes thetics—from her outrageous costumes to her more sub tle tongue-in-cheek comments—allows room for queer humour, and thus queer pleasure, while also allowing for a “serious critique of hegemonic discourses that oppress al ternative models of meaning-making.”80 For instance, Gaga parodies femininity; she points out its oppressive aspects and the male gaze, ridiculing the heteronormative con structs of gender and sexuality.81 In particular, I argue that her self-fashioning into the goddess Venus—the epitome of constructed femininity—communicates exactly that.

“Judas”: “In the most biblical sense, I am beyond repentance”

Gaga makes her first allusions to Venus in her 2011 music video for “Judas,” which she pairs with a plethora of bib lical references. Most notably, she puts Venus into con trast with Mary Magdalene, calling attention to the bina ries of the sacred and profane. I wish to briefly examine key frames to further support my argument. Gaga ap pears as Mary Magdalene, washing the feet of Jesus and Judas (fig. 17). However, within a split second, the shot immediately switches to a scene of Gaga standing on a rocky shore, with waves threatening to strike her (fig. 18).

The latter image is undoubtedly a reference to Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus.82 However, Botticelli’s rendition—from its pale colours to its streaks of gold leaf—is put into stark con trast with Gaga’s interpretation in cold and dark colours.83 Additionally, Gaga is positioned on a dangerous rocky cli , “which threatens to collapse under a forceful rush of water,” whereas Venus is perched on a giant seashell, “in classical antiquity a metaphor for the female vulva.”84 The reference, but also the critique of classical femininity, is made evident. The shot then continues to switch back and forth between the two scenes—between Gaga as Mary Magdalene and Gaga as Venus—and the two begin to merge. Even as in the scene of Mary Magdalene, the frame’s composition points to The Birth of Venus (ﬁg. 19 & 20). Venus is positioned between other mythological ﬁgures and rests on a seashell, whereas Gaga—with her similar long blond locks—inhabits the space between Jesus and Judas and rests within a tub of water.

In brief, Gaga plays not only with traditional femininity, but with notions of purity and modesty so often associated with

Figure 17 & 18 | Stills from: Lady Gaga, Judas, directed by Lady Gaga (USA: Interscope Records, 2011

ideal women. She takes the role of femme fatale and makes “genderplay her boldest intention” by subversively teasing the male viewer.85 In other words, by parodying femininity through hyperbole, Gaga portrays two iconic female ﬁgures and destabilizes their classical conceptions.86 Notably by embodying the ﬁgure of Venus, Gaga becomes a sex object, but she does so on her own terms; she utilizes the idea of becoming a sex object to challenge exactly what that could mean.87 And, two years after the release of “Judas,” from her empowering album Born This Way, Gaga continues her self-fashioning into Venus for her 2013 album ARTPOP.

ARTPOP: SelfFashioning Into The Goddess of Love

Comparatively speaking to her previous album, ARTPOP was poorly received. However, having been described as being ahead of its time, the album has recently gained atten tion once again. Being fourteen years old at the time of its re lease, the album was crucial in the development of my own identity, and as my most listened to album by far, it is clear that ARTPOP shaped my queer persona. In this era, Gaga makes extensive references to Antiquity and the Renaissance, of ten speciﬁcally to Venus and Aphrodite. She even changed her name on twitter to “Goddess of Love” during this time— clearly outlining her self-fashioning into Venus. Additionally, her empowering twitter bio read: “You are a legend. Make a sculpture of you. Self-invention matters. You are the art

ist of your own life. Hashtag Artpop.”88 Appropriately, Gaga fashioned all aspects of her life as if she was the goddess herself, arriving at airports in the Venus Pudica pose (ﬁg. 21).

.Gaga’s intentions here are clear. Without a doubt, she fashions herself into Venus. And so, what exactly could it mean for the ‘queen of the queers’ to self-fashion into the goddess of love and sex? This question may reveal precisely how the aura of Venus, perpetuated through the pop icon, may symbolize an important form of sexual emancipation for queer audiences. The album cover itself helps shed light on this notion (ﬁg. 22).

Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, paired with Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne, is used as the background for the cover, under lining the artist’s connections with Venus. The figure of Gaga, here, is a sculpture by contemporary artist Je Koons. I sug gest the sculpture may be read as a variation of the Venus Pudica pose, as Gaga’s breasts and pubis are covered. How ever, she grasps both of her breasts firmly and gazes into the eyes of the viewer. Her legs are spread open in a sexually in viting manner. However, her pubis is covered by a shiny blue sphere, which reflects back at us and calls attention to our viewership. Gaga and Koons appear to directly reference the push and pull dynamics of The Birth of Venus; Gaga, too, is both sexually suggestive yet protective of herself. There thus exists an even deeper level of subversion at play here.

Furthermore, throughout the aesthetics of ARTPOP, Gaga positions herself as what Nathalie Weidhase and Poppy Wil de call “the posthuman.” They describe the concept in depth:

The posthuman is not a singular, static, autonomous individu al, but a subjectivity that is emergent…Posthuman theory con sequently troubles dualistic binaries, such as those between male/female, self/other, subject/object, and human/machine/ animal. This allows for a critique [of] anthropocentric hier archies, instead arguing for a rhizomatic acknowledgement of the di erent entities in the subjectivities that emerge.89

By fashioning herself into artworks, objects and even an imals in ARTPOP, Gaga embodies the posthuman.90 The posthuman, I argue, may be understood as distinctly queer. It resists binaries and questions hegemonic concep tions of identity: “Queer studies and posthumanism there fore both question the ideological roots behind many of our taken for granted assumptions.”91 Gaga further com ments on notions of the binary in scientiﬁc terms, stating:

tems… you are standing on the brink of breaking the cycle... this reality has been recycling itself... remixing over and over the same timelines with varying yet identical outcomes. ART POP, then, is the uniﬁcation of the back-and-forth dialogue formed as a result of a voice talking to its own entity... unit ed across time and space to express a singular message.92

Therefore, Gaga explicitly implores us to forget our pre conceived notions about the binary—about every thing once taken as fact. She takes us on an audio-vi sual journey of self-discovery—one which I want to deconstruct, focusing on a few key songs in the album.

Figure 19 & 20 | Stills from: Lady Gaga, Judas, directed by Lady Gaga (USA: Interscope Records, 2011). Figure 22 | Lady Gaga, ARTPOP, Streamline and Interscope Records, 2013. Figure 21 | Lady Gaga arriving in Athens, 2014.

“ARTPOP”: “My artpop could mean anything”

The title track of the album, positioned precisely in its mid dle, brings together the main message of the work. Gaga, in lyrical form, expresses notions of queer, stating: “My ART POP could mean anything.” In a strikingly similar fashion to Botticelli’s allegorical works, Gaga’s album, as she stresses, is up for a multitude of interpretations. Her work is not de ﬁned by any binary; it is not one thing or another, but rath er exists within a spectrum of meaning. Again, in a manner similar to Botticelli, this is precisely how an artist manages to fascinate, shock and inspire the masses. The similarities do not end there, as Gaga begins the song with these lyrics:

Come to me

In all your glamour and cruelty

Just do that thing that you do And I’ll undress you.94

These lines immediately bring to mind Botticelli’s Mars and Venus. Gaga, as Venus, seduces her male counterpart in his glamour (regalia) and cruelty (war), and she undresses him. The parallels are unmistakably clear, and by making such allu sions, Gaga shapes herself as a sexually empowered female ﬁgure and allows her fans to do the same. In fact, she directly points out her cult status, which she equates with that of Venus. .Gaga’s intentions here are clear. Without a doubt, she fashions herself into Venus. And so, what exactly could it mean for the ‘queen of the queers’ to self-fashion into the goddess of love and sex? This question may reveal precisely how the aura of Venus, perpetuated through the pop icon, may symbolize an important form of sexual emancipation for queer audiences. The album cover itself helps shed light on this notion (ﬁg. 22).

Furthermore, throughout the aesthetics of ARTPOP, Gaga positions herself as what Nathalie Weidhase and Poppy Wil de call “the posthuman.” They describe the concept in depth:

By fashioning herself into artworks, objects and even an imals in ARTPOP, Gaga embodies the posthuman.90 The posthuman, I argue, may be understood as distinctly queer. It resists binaries and questions hegemonic con ceptions of identity: “Queer studies and posthumanism therefore both question the ideological roots behind many of our taken for granted assumptions.”91 Gaga further com ments on notions of the binary in scientiﬁc terms, stating:

Know only that you must acknowledge the di erence be tween the two and disregard it. In essence your brain must re learn the concept of ‘three’: Not one or the other (two) but both and neither.… [I]solate binary and all quantitative processing as incorrect and harmful to any advanced operational systems… you are standing on the brink of breaking the cycle... this reality has been recycling itself... remixing over and over the same timelines with varying yet identical outcomes. ART POP, then, is the uniﬁcation of the back-and-forth dialogue formed as a result of a voice talking to its own entity... unit ed across time and space to express a singular message.92

“Applause” & “Aura”: Calling Attention to the Construction of the Self

In the opener, “Aura,” Gaga calls attention to her enigmat ic status: “Do you wanna see the girl who lives behind the aura?”95 Intentionally or not, she makes connections to Benjamin’s understanding of the aura, which he appro priately uses the ﬁgure of Venus to describe. In an overthe-top, camp fashion, Gaga points out her position. She becomes self-referential. And, in “Applause,” this notion continues: “One second I’m a Koons, then suddenly the Koons is me. Pop culture was in art, now art’s in pop culture, in me.”96 Gaga bridges the gap between art and pop-culture, between self and other, and in a reverse-Warholian manner, deconstructs it all. She is both pop-culture and art, and she is also neither. She is posthuman. Venus is no lon ger just art. She is also a pop-cultural icon. Further connec tions to the goddess are made in the music video for “Ap plause.” Gaga makes direct allusions to The Birth of Venus, as made evident by her seashell bra and earrings (ﬁg. 23).

Here, Gaga becomes a postmodern rendition of the god dess. However, she positions her arms as if she were an ath lete, or a bodybuilder. She further subverts femininity as there exists a certain traditional masculinity associated with such a pose. And so, by fashioning herself as Aphrodite, Gaga ac knowledges her celebrity status and her cult following, stat ing: “Give me that thing that I love. Put your hands up, make ‘em touch.” She calls attention to her fame, positioning herself as the Greco-Roman goddess and positioning her fans as wor shippers, thus creating a quasi-religion for the marginalized.

Figure 21 | Still from: Lady Gaga, Applause, directed by Inez and Vinoodh (USA: Interscope Records, 2013).

“G.U.Y.”: The Girl Under You Has More Power Than You Think

To elaborate on her role as inspiration for the sexually op pressed, I wish to lastly examine Gaga’s song “G.U.Y.” and its accompanying short film. In the film, the song “ARTPOP” first plays as Gaga portrays a fallen angel, with an arrow pierced through her chest. She’s transported to a lavish castle, and takes the role of martyr, alluding to the crucifix ion (fig. 24). Then, the song “Venus” begins as Gaga is given new life; she is submerged in water and is reborn (fig. 25).

Suddenly, “G.U.Y.” comes on and Gaga becomes an in credibly powerful figure—an unapologetic sex icon. She not only references cupid’s bow to underline her seductive powers (fig. 26) but again, she positions her self with images of seashells and utilizes her long plat inum blonde hair to become this sort of postmodern Venus—caught between pop culture and art (fig. 27).

The song’s lyrics push the message of sexual emancipation even further. It begins with the lines, “Greetings Himeros, God of sexual desire, son of Aphrodite, lay back, and feast as this audio guides you through new and exciting positions.”98 Immediately, she lays out the premise. Just like in the myth of Aphrodite in the Homeric Hymns, Gaga takes on the active sexual role. She pursues. She pleases—on her own terms. There is a certain power in being submissive that is taking shape here, as Gaga sings: “I don’t need to be on top to know I’m worth it, ‘cause I’m strong enough to know the truth.”99 The truth is, she is in power, even in her submissive role. “G.U.Y.” itself stands for “Girl Under You.” Gaga subverts tra ditional notions of sex as again, she sings: “I’m gonna wear the tie, want the power to leave you. I’m aiming for full con

trol of this love. I wanna be that GUY, the girl under you.”100

In this short film, Gaga takes us on a ride filled with refer ences to pop-culture and art, and it is a journey that empha sizes revival, strength, and sexual freedom. She takes on a performative and theatrical role throughout—a role which may remind queer viewers of their own journey. Gaga first portrays a vulnerable, martyrized character. However, she is reborn as a goddess—one in complete control of her sexuality. She refuses to be shamed, instead making her desires and submissive powers explicitly clear. The con nections to queer lived experiences are evident, and if it wasn’t clear enough, she gazes into the eyes of viewers, both seducing the heterosexual male and overpowering his gaze, while also reminding the queer viewer of the ex clusive Camp clique that they are a part of (fig. 28 & 29).

And so, by employing the image of Venus, which she com bines with lyrics about sexual subversion and empower ment, I think Gaga makes one thing clear: The image of Venus is incredibly powerful and rich with meaning, and it may be used to empower the sexually marginalized.

24-29

Throughout this research paper, I have performed sever al things. I have deconstructed gender and sexuality as we know it today. Also, I have observed exactly how gen der and sexuality were viewed at the time that Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus was painted, bridging a gap and o er ing an alternative model of understanding. I have examined both the visual and literary development of the goddess of love and sex, as well as her representations in Botti celli’s works. Specifically, I analyzed the a ect of shame, which proved crucial in creating parallels with queer lived experiences. Lastly, by exploring contemporary appro priations by Lady Gaga, I solidified my argument: The fig ure of Venus, as paradoxical icon, may be understood as

a symbol of sexual—and thus societal emancipation for oppressed individuals. Venus and Gaga (through her em bodiment of the goddess) may be understood as pop-cul tural icons playing a crucial role in empowering the mar ginalized through shameless demonstrations of sexuality.

And so, where does this all leave us? And what does this all mean for someone like me—a little queer kid from a small town? Gaga, through her appropriation of Venus, al lowed me to shape my own identity. This self-fashioning has allowed me to overcome the shame that developed in my early years, and as Sally Munt puts it perfectly, “Think ing about shame over the past 15 years was not so much an intellectual choice as a survival strategy.”101 And again, shame, sex, love, and the gaze remain intrinsically tied: We may then not look too closely at each other, because we cannot be sure how we might feel if we were to do so. Indeed, many of us fall in love with those into whose eyes we have permitted ourselves to look and by whose eyes we have let ourselves be seen. This love is romantic be cause it is continuous with the period before the individ ual lovers knew shame. They not only return to baby talk, but even more important they return to baby looking.102

ConclusionIn the end, this is a quest for love and self-acceptance. It is empowering to look, and it may also be empowering to be looked at. Giving into the gaze can be an incredibly cathartic experience, reminding ourselves what love feels like. It can mean both reclaiming the power to look—the refusal to be shamed—and can signify a redeﬁning of what it means to be looked at. It is thus no wonder that the goddess of love and sex signiﬁes so intensely for queer individuals. Botticel li’s Venus, in this sense, allows herself to be seen. However, through her gestures, she takes the necessary steps to sig nal that she possesses agency over her body. At a distance, we may thus fall in love with her. In this way, by subsequent ly looking within, may we not fall in love with ourselves?

I have looked within, and “I wonder if this could be love.”103

Figure | Still from: Lady Gaga, G.U.Y. (An ARTPOP Film), directed by Lady Gaga (USA: Interscope Records,

Endnotes

1. Karl Whittington, “QUEER,” Studies in Iconography 33 (2012): 157.

2. Whittington, “QUEER,” 157.

3. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Tendencies (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993), 8.

4. Whittington, “QUEER,” 157.

5. Judith Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” in Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology, ed. Donald Preziosi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 356.

6. Butler, 362.

7. Butler, 360.

8. Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution,” 364.

9. Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution,” 363.

10. Susan Sontag, Notes on Camp (London, England: Penguin Classics, 2018), 1.

11. Sontag, 4.

12. Thomas Walter Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1992), 22.

13. Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud, 124.

14. Laqueur, Making Sex, 124.

15. Michael Rocke, Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 87.

16. Rocke, 88.

17. Rocke, Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence, 88.

18. Rocke, 88-89.

19. Rocke, 102.

20. Rocke, 102.

21. From the Oxford English Dictionary.

22. Rocke, Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence, 198.

23. Rocke, 200.

24. Rocke, 201.

25. Adrian W. B. Randolph, Engaging Symbols: Gender, Politics, and Public Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 140.

26. Randolph, Engaging Symbols: Gender, Politics, and Public Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence, 141.

27. Randolph, 142.

28. Randolph, 169. 29. Randolph, 170.

30. Randolph, Engaging Symbols: Gender, Politics, and Public Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence, 171.

31. Randolph, 171-172.

32. Randolph, Engaging Symbols: Gender, Politics, and Public Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence, 172.

33. Randolph, 183-84.

34. Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological

Reproducibility,” in The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology, ed. Donald Preziosi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 439.

35. Barbara M. Breitenberger, Aphrodite and Eros: The Development of Erotic Mythology in Early Greek Poetry and Cult (New York: Routledge, 2007), 7-8.

36. Breitenberger, 8. 37. Breitenberger, Aphrodite and Eros, 12. 38. Breitenberger, 12. 39. Breitenberger, 15. 40. Breitenberger, 21. 41. Breitenberger, 23. 42. Breitenberger, Aphrodite and Eros, 47. 43. Breitenberger, 51. 44. Breitenberger, 26. 45. Frank Zöllner, Botticelli (Munich: Prestel, 2005), 135.

46. Frank Zöllner, Botticelli (Munich: Prestel, 2005), 125.

47. Zöllner, 125. 48. Frank Zöllner, Botticelli (Munich: Prestel, 2005), 130. 49. Zöllner, 130. 50. Zöllner, 130. 51. Frank Zöllner, Botticelli (Munich: Prestel, 2005), 135. 52. Zöllner, 135. 53. Zöllner, 135-36. 54. 1.101.1-3 as found in Frank Zöllner, Botticelli (Munich: Prestel, 2005), 136.

55. Zöllner, 136. 56. Zöllner, 136.

57. George L. Hersey, The Evolution of Allure: Sexual Selection from the Medici Venus to the Incredible Hulk (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1996), XII.

58. Hersey, XII. 59. Hersey, XII. 60. Hersey, XIII-XIV.

61. As seen in Hersey, XIII-XIV. Date unknown. 62. Hersey, XIII-XIV.

63. Jacqueline E. Jung, “The Choir Screen as Partition,” in The Gothic Screen: Space, Sculpture, and Community in the Cathedrals of France and Germany, ca. 1200-1400 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 18.

64. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Adam Frank, and Irving E. Alexander, Shame and Its Sisters: A Silvan Tomkins Reader (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995), 134.

65. Sedgwick, Frank, and Alexander, 134.

66. Oxford English Dictionary.

67. Sedgwick, Frank, and Alexander, Shame and Its Sisters, 133.

68. Sedgwick, Frank, and Alexander, Shame and Its Sisters, 137.

69. Sedgwick, Frank, and Alexander, 173.

70. Sedgwick, Frank, and Alexander, Shame and Its Sisters, 134.

71. Sally Munt, Queer Attachments: The Cultural Politics of Shame (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2008), 4.

72. Sedgwick, Frank, and Alexander, Shame and Its Sisters, 139.

73. Sedgwick, Frank, and Alexander, 139.

74. Sedgwick, Frank, and Alexander, 139.

75. Gabriel Montua, “Giving an Edge to the Beautiful Line: Botticelli Referenced in the Works of Contemporary Artists to Address Issues of Gender and Global Politics,” in Botticelli Past and Pres-

ent, ed. Ana Debenedetti and Caroline Elam (London, UCL Press, 2019), 290.

76. Hans Körner, “Simonetta Vespucci: The Construction, Deconstruction, and Reconstruction of a Myth,” in Botticelli: Likeness, Myth, Devotion, ed. Andreas Schumacher (Ostﬁldern, Germany: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2009), 61.

77. Mathieu Deﬂem, “The Sex of Lady Gaga,” in The Performance Identities of Lady Gaga: Critical Essays, ed. Richard J. Gray (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2012), 25.

78. Deﬂem, “The Sex of Lady Gaga,” 32.

79. Katrin Horn, “Follow the Glitter Way: Lady Gaga and Camp,” in The Performance Identities of Lady Gaga: Critical Essays, ed. Richard J. Gray (Je erson, N.C.: McFarland, 2012), 87.

80. Horn, 104.

81. Stan Hawkins, “‘I’ll Bring You Down, Down, Down’ Lady Gaga’s Performance in ‘Judas,” in Lady Gaga and Popular Music: Performing Gender, Fashion, and Culture, ed. Martin Iddon and Melanie L Marshall (New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014), 16.

82. Hawkins, “‘I’ll Bring You Down, Down, Down’ Lady Gaga’s Performance in ‘Judas,” 14.

83. Hawkins, 14.

84. Hawkins, 14.

85. Hawkins, “‘I’ll Bring You Down, Down, Down’ Lady Gaga’s Performance in ‘Judas,” 16.

86. Gray, and Anusha Rutnam, “Her Own Real Thing: Lady Gaga and the Haus of Fashion,” in Lady Gaga and Popular Music: Performing Gender, Fashion, and Culture, ed. Martin Iddon and Melanie L Marshall (New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014), 52.

87. Paul Hegarty, “Lady Gaga and the Drop: Eroticism High and Low,”

in Lady Gaga and Popular Music: Performing Gender, Fashion, and Culture, ed. Martin Iddon and Melanie L Marshall (New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014), 84.

88. From Twitter archives.

89. Nathalie Weidhase and Poppy Wilde, “‘Art’s in Pop Culture in Me’: Posthuman Performance and Authorship in Lady Gaga’s Artpop (2013),” Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture 5, no. 2-3 (2020): 239.

90. Weidhase and Wilde, 239.

91. Weidhase and Wilde, 241.

92. Lady Gaga, Thoughtrave: An Interdimensional Conversation with Lady Gaga, interview by Robert Craig Baum (Brooklyn, New York: Punctum Books, 2016), 32.

93. Lady Gaga, “ARTPOP,” track 8 on ARTPOP, Streamline and Interscope Records, 2013.

94. Lady Gaga, “ARTPOP.”

95. Lady Gaga, “Aura,” track 1 on ARTPOP, Streamline and Interscope Records, 2013.

96. Lady Gaga, “Applause,” track 15 on ARTPOP, Streamline and Interscope Records, 2013.

97. Lady Gaga, “Applause.”

98. Lady Gaga, “G.U.Y.,” track 3 on ARTPOP, Streamline and Interscope Records, 2013.

99. Lady Gaga, “G.U.Y.”

100. Lady Gaga, “G.U.Y.”

101. Munt, Queer Attachments, 1.

102. Sedgwick, Frank, and Alexander, Shame and Its Sisters, 147.

103. Lady Gaga, “Venus,” track 2 on ARTPOP. Streamline and Interscope Records, 2013.

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Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Tendencies. Durham: Duke University Press, 1993.

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, Adam Frank, and Irving E Alexander. Shame and Its Sisters: A Silvan Tomkins Reader. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995.

Sontag, Susan. Notes on Camp. London, England: Penguin Classics, 2018.

Weidhase, Nathalie, and Poppy Wilde. “‘Art’s in Pop Culture in Me’: Posthuman Performance and Authorship in Lady Gaga’s Artpop (2013).” Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture 5, no. 2-3 (2020): 239–57.

Whittington, Karl. “QUEER.” Studies in Iconography 33 (2012): 157-68. Zöllner, Frank. Botticelli. Munich: Prestel, 2005.

Introduction

A review of Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s 1893 piece Uncon scious Rivals (fig. 1) in the London-based magazine The Spectator notes dismissively that “Mr. Tadema sends a picture which, as usual, is full of pleasant things.” 1 These things include: two Classical marble statues in front of a marble balustrade carved in relief, a brightly-painted vaulted ceiling, an oleander tree with vibrant pink flowers, and two women draped in Roman dress. Our reviewer’s grievance is not with Alma-Tadema’s skill but with a perceived disjointedness in the scene, noting that it appears more as a “catalogue of precious objects” than a “poet’s description;” it might have been a “pretty bit of still-life” if the figures had not been added “like little chim ney-piece ornaments.”2 This review from a widely-read news paper reveals a trend in the popular reception of Alma-Ta dema’s genre scenes: his work is defined by the obsessive rendering of locations and artefacts from Classical antiquity, either as proof of his creative erudition or a dry antiquarian ism. Most scholarship has similarly focussed on Alma-Tade ma’s antiquarian style, and the relationship of Alma-Tadema’s work to the context of academic Victorian classicism. In these discussions, as in the above review, the female figures remain tangential to the focus on Alma-Tadema’s adaptation of an tiquity. Yet, discourses on gender were particularly fraught in the late Victorian era, dominating the same publications in which Alma-Tadema’s works were reviewed and published.3 These discourses, I will argue, were closely related to and of ten mediated by the dominant culture of classicism in this era.

Using Unconscious Rivals and other Roman genre scenes as a case study, I will examine the use of Roman literature and his tory as a language for discourse about gender, sexuality, and urbanity in late-nineteenth century London. First, I will attend to the paintings themselves, using both visual evidence from the pieces as well as evidence of their reception to argue that the antique references contribute to an eroticization of the female subjects. I will next explore Alma-Tadema’s involvement in the theatre, particularly in classically-inspired “toga-plays,” as a parallel phenomenon in London culture: on both stage and canvas, the female figure against an ancient backdrop becomes an ambiguously available object of desire. Finally, drawing on contemporary discourses of the moral dangers of urban life, I will propose a connection between Alma-Ta dema’s female figures in his imagined Rome and those in the Rome of the Roman poet Ovid. In both, the city becomes a space of erotic wonder through the placement of female fig ures throughout. These three parallel examinations of classi cal reception and gendered discourse reveal that in Uncon scious Rivals and similar pieces, the Roman background and the women within combine together to create an imaginary, erotic geography for its nineteenth century (male) viewer.

Surroundings; or, “I painted that picture in order to use that ceiling!”

Before following these three lines of investigation, I will first highlight a few aspects of the painting which will be my pri mary focus. Unconscious Rivals is, as The Spectator’s review hinted, a characteristic example of Alma-Tadema’s work. A lit tle over half a metre wide, and slightly less-than-half in height, it is most striking for its colour palette: shining white marble on the balustrade and statues, bright pink flowers on a potted oleander-tree, and a ceiling covered in vibrant designs of or ange and teal. The location is uncertain, read either as a coun try villa, for the hint of the ocean visible in the background,4 or an urban street, due to the cavernous ceiling which recalls sites such as the Basilica Maxentius in the forum in Rome.5 At centre, there are two female figures, dressed opulently in co loured stole and several items of gold jewellery. One is seat ed, gazing thoughtfully towards, but not at, the viewer and the other, leaning against the balustrade, gazes down beyond it at something or someone hidden from our view. The seated woman’s hand reaches toward that of her companion—they seem to be grasping the same bouquet of pink oleanders which must have been plucked from the tree—but their fa miliarity is complicated by the title, which implies a rivalry, potentially romantic, as yet unknown to the pair, which will come between them. After this initial inspection, we arrive at a relatively innocuous tale of romance, longing, and jealousy. Such readings of romantic desire into Alma-Tadema’s female figures is common in their contemporary reception. In her bi ography of the artist, Helen Zimmern claims a viewer of Ex pectations (1885) “will see with pleasure the perfection of this maiden’s hands. Her figure is one of rare grace as she reposes here, the warm sunshine about her, watching eagerly the ski that is skimming over the water, and which we may venture think holds her lover.”6 Georg Ebers, likewise a friend and biographer of Alma-Tadema, consistently fills his descriptions of Al ma-Tadema’s genre pieces with imaginings of what the wom en are up to: reflecting on Hide-and-Seek (fig. 2), he muses:

“the wild little maid—perhaps the gardener’s daughter—has hidden behind the herma and is listening for the play mate who is seeking her and steals up so softly that he will sur prise the wilful elf with the thick locks of hair and the saucy eyes. The boy has won in the game of hide and seek; but will he not lose in the more serious one with this fairy lassie?”

Figure 02 | Leopold Löwenstam (after Lawrence Alma-Tadema), Hide and Seek, 1891, etching on tissue, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This picture, a reconstruction of the Villa Albiani in Rome, be comes a scene of childish courtship; the young girl, who gaz es out at the viewer and silences us with a finger to her mouth, becomes a sort of temptress-in-training, with her willfulness, wildness, and sauciness indications of the boy’s eventual de feat by her. His musings are no less imaginative in scenes with fewer clues: turning to a piece he calls the “Flower-Girl,” (fig. 3) he claims that, “with the gay children of the spring she o ers for sale, will probably remind every one of Dionysius’ graceful epigram: ‘Roses are blooming on thy cheek, with roses thy basket is laden, / Which dost thou sell? The flowers? Thy self? Or both, my pretty maiden?’”8 With no one else on the canvas, and nothing to indicate her activities but the flowers she surrounds herself with, Ebers’ mind—and, he presumes, the viewer’s as well—turns to an ancient quotation that im plies her sexual availability. When the contemporary viewer’s eyes are turned to the female figures, nearly without excep tion, the imaginations turn amatory, filling in an absent lover, a courtship to come, or a soliciting customer where the can vas gives us none. As this last example illustrates, however, these imaginings are not always innocent: based solely o the presence of flowers and her location on an empty street, details also present in Unconscious Rivals, her status slips from innocent maiden to prostitute. Thus, we can see emerg ing a relationship between the female figure and her surroundings which points to her erotic availability to the viewer.

This ambiguity of status and availability conferred on female subjects echoes what many scholars have argued about gender in late-Victorian painting; in particular, that respect ability and sexuality were always problems lurking below the surface. Kathy Psomiades notes the wealth of factors af fecting the conception of gender—and particularly, feminin ity—in the Victorian era, particularly related to domesticity, sexuality, and the ideology of “separate spheres”—where in, while men the woman is “private and domestic, spiritual yet sexualized, the irresistible object of desire and a certain kind of especially contemplative subject.”9 Pamela Gerrish Nunn cites an 1858 article in the Athenaeum which charac terises “division between men and women” as one which “occup[ies] the attention of our whole community and with no small e ect.”10 In this era of the “problem picture,”11 she ar gues, paintings are most “scrutized for their sexual politics,” their relation to the “woman question.”12 Joseph Kestner cites a series of reforms in the 1870s and 1880s to argue for it as a period of “sexual transition”13—including the introduction of the Married Women’s Property Act14 and the debates over the Contagious Diseases Act,15 in conjunction with increased medical interest in women’s sexuality as evidenced by sev eral treatises.16 The period of Alma-Tadema’s work is one in which the culture was obsessed with women’s sexuality: the erotic implications that Ebers and Zimmern read into Al

ma-Tadema’s female ﬁgures, then, is easily understandable when considered in relation to the sexual politics of the era.

Yet, Psomiades’ argument rests primarily on the work of Aesthetic painters, a movement to which Alma-Tadema was closely related but not one he belonged to, and whose female figures are are characterised by “their white flesh, sometimes marked with blue veins or bruises, their golden or midnight hair, their full lips, their soulful eyes, their heaving breasts.”17 The female nude, characteristic of classical-subject paint ings of the period, makes few appearances in Alma-Tadema’s corpus, and even less often as a stand-alone piece.18 While the gender discourses of moral debates and legal reform forms a common background to both Alma-Tadema and the more obviously erotic work of his colleagues, can we truly include Unconscious Rivals’ fully clothed, apparently unre markable maidens in this cultural obsession? Yes, I will argue, on the grounds of clues hidden within the canvas which sur round the female figure: within the seemingly dry antiquar ian details of the canvases, Alma-Tadema has hidden direct references to classical models of sexuality and eroticism.

By Alma-Tadema’s own description, Unconscious Rivals be gan as a painting about a ceiling.19 This focus, which might strike a contemporary reader as odd, is deeply rooted in Victorian Classicism. As Barrow explains, practically no deco rated ceilings from antiquity survive, and none so large—she lists the closest possible model to be the “vaulted ceilings from Nero’s Golden House in Rome which were discovered in the sixteenth century.”20 The Golden House is a particular ly evocative model to choose due to its legacy as a symbol of the extreme decadence of one of Rome’s most infamous emperors. As is the case for many Roman sites, including Pompeii and the Roman Forum, systematic excavations only began on this ancient palace in the 19th century, and a great deal of the site remained unearthed at the time of Alma-Ta dema’s work.21 Alma-Tadema’s ceiling indeed has many sim ilarities to the designs on the palace’s: both intersperse veg etal motifs and figured scenes in rectangular frames across the ceiling’s wide arch, predominantly using tones of orange and green (see fig. 4). Alma-Tadema’s ceiling is not an exact reconstruction. In particular, its colours are necessarily much more vibrant, fitting to his mission to erase the distance be tween his canvas and the Roman past. Yet, the elaborate decoration certainly points to a similar level of luxury and expense. This reconstruction is characteristic of Alma-Ta dema, on the level of both contemporary archaeological in terest and its likely reference if not directly particularly (in)fa mous site and emperor, at least to the culture of decadence which characterises imperial Rome through a Victorian gaze.

Indeed this image of decadent Rome is constantly present in receptions of Alma-Tadema. In an 1883 lecture on the current

styles of art in England and their proponents, art-critic and philosopher John Ruskin, who would have art judge almost solely on its moral value, criticises Alma-Tadema for making it his “heavenly mission to pourtray” Rome in its “last corrup tion [...] and its Bacchanalian frenzy.”22 The vast majority of Alma-Tadema’s historical scenes focus on the late-Imperial period of Rome. In 1871, he painted A Roman Emperor, de picting a member of the praetorian guard bowing to a cow ering Claudius, quite literally over the body of the assassi nated Caligula, his nephew and predecessor. The Roses of Heliogabalus from 1888 shows the short-lived emperor raining flower petals upon his dinner guests, resulting in many being smothered to death, or so the story goes.23 His 1907 canvas Caracalla and Geta depicts the two sons of the emperor Septimius Severus in a magnificently decorated box in the Colosseum; the brooding Caracalla stares at his triumphant younger, but favoured, brother, Geta, foreshad owing Geta’s murder and Caracalla’s coming reign. Accord ing to Edward Gibbon, Caracalla would surpass even Nero and Domitian in tyranny to become the “common enemy of mankind.”24 Gibbon’s famous view of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, wherein successive emperors’ hedo nism and cruelty brought about the decadence and decline of the once-great Rome, is clearly echoed in Alma-Tade ma’s canvases. Seldom focusing on the positively-viewed Republican or Augustan era, it is Rome’s worst rulers, and their eras of dissolution and cruelty, which characterise Alma-Tadema’s Roman world. Elizabeth Prettejohn notes that Alma-Tadema is not alone in this: the taking up of such ignominious episodes from Roman history by several art ists in the late 19th century was, she argues, a deliberate turn against the exempla virtutis, moralistic view of earlier history painting.25 Further, she notes that the movement to wards genre painting, to which Alma-Tadema in particular devotes the majority of his time, is the “final stage in the re pudiation,” of this earlier tradition.26 Forgoing the presenta

Figure 03 |Lawrence Alma-Tadema, On the Steps of the Capitoline or The Garland-Seller, 1872, Oil on Canvas, Private Collection. Figure 04 | Ceiling paintings from Nero’s Domus Aurea c. 65 CE, Rome.

tion of speciﬁc moments of immorality in Ancient Rome, the resulting decadence of Rome becomes a mere backdrop to scenes of everyday life, the e ects of which I will explore next.

Returning to a piece we have already seen, On the Steps of the Capitoline from 1874 (fig. 3)—likely the piece which Ebers named “the Flower-Seller,” or at least very similar to it. The majority of the picture is taken up by the plain white marble of the grand staircase, on which a garland-seller sits, with her flowers scattered around her. To the far right, above a busy pathway, the Arch of Septimius Severus is recognizable, pre dominantly from the two lines of inscription at the very edge of the canvas. This arch may have been chosen simply for its placement at the base of the Capitoline Hill, the setting of this piece, or due to the rising interest in the Roman forum due to an increase in excavations in this decade. 27 Howev er, this specific Arch, as the only recognizable site-marker in the canvas, is most remarkable for its relation to an infa mous moment in Imperial history. After Caracalla’s assassi nation of his brother Geta, the elder brother was complete ly scratched from this historical record, and the removal of his name from their father’s arch is still visible on the upper part of the inscription Alma-Tadema depicts here. Thus, just outside the frame lurks the betrayal and tyranny of Caracal la, adding another layer of immorality to the scene which, as mentioned above, was already read as one where the flower-seller might be selling herself as well as her flowers.

Later in his career, Alma-Tadema’s genre scenes become even more elaborate in their depiction of Roman sites. For ex ample, The Coliseum (fig. 5) completed in 1896 and Thermae Antoninianae (fig. 6) from 1899 both show the imaginative, yet meticulously researched, reconstruction of the city of Rome which is characteristic of Alma-Tadema’s work. In Thermae Antoninianae a bath scene, which was a common subject in Alma-Tadema’s corpus, reaches the height of detail. Again, we encounter the figure of Caracalla: the bath complex was started in the third century CE by Septimius Severus and finished by Caracalla, whose name the baths generally take in English. The Baths of Caracalla were situated on the out skirts of Rome and were the focus, like the forum, of many studies by travellers through the 19th century.28 Alma-Tade ma himself owned many photographs and drawings of the site, and Barrow notes in particular the studies of a Russian architect, S.A. Ivano , published with commentary in 1898, as a source of inspiration for this piece.29 Another influence is certainly the Baths of Diocletian, which through its trans formation into a church in the 16th century, and renovations in the 18th, provides an example of how the cavernous spac es, vaulted ceilings and granite columns of an ancient bath complex might be restored from its ruined state.30 Similarly, the 1896 painting The Coliseum, presents a restored vision of the most famous of Roman sites: the walls are restored,

Figure 05 | Lawrence Alma-Tadema, The Coliseum, 1896, Oil on canvas, Private collection; with details.

as are the velae—a contraption used to shade spectators, from the sun—and each niche is ﬁlled with carefully ren dered, recognizable marble statues, including the Discobolus and the Prima Porta Augustus (see details of ﬁg. 5). In both scenes, Rome is restored to perfection, complete with details which make use of recent scholarship and famous artefacts.

This restoration is in both cases an imaginative one. Focussing on particular details of the paintings reveals again Alma-Tadema’s particular perspective of Rome. In the backdrop of Ther mae Antoninianae, men and women are shown in the nude, bathing, though not in the same pools, in the same room. Al though Roman baths are, as Christopher Wood notes, a “fa vourite subject” of the Victorian painter and his audience—for the “pretty girls” to the same degree as the skillful rendering of “marble”31—these canvases typically show only women in the space of the public baths.32 Thus, to the already less-than-ex emplary reputation of Caracalla is added the scandalous de tail of nude men and women sharing space. Further, as Barrow notes, Alma-Tadema tucks a famous sculpture in the back ground, the Apoxyomenos, which depicts an athlete scrap ing oil from his body.33 This action is likewise alluded to in Al ma-Tadema’s particularly erotic depiction of a female nude in The Tepidarium.34 Its erotic implications are heightened by Pliny’s comment that it was so admired by the emperor Tiberius that he demanded it be removed to his own bedchamber.35

Likewise, in the foreground of The Coliseum, a large-scale sculpture of a satyr sits on the edge of the balcony on which the female figures sit, looking out at the many figures gathering, presumably, for the games at the amphitheatre. The satyr is a figure common to Classical art and literature; it is also a figure explicitly associated with illicit sexuality.36 As are gladiatorial games: Juvenal tells of a Roman matron who left her respect able life to be the mistress—or gladiatress—of a particular ly dreamy champion of the ring,37 while Ovid remarks on the possibilities of soliciting a sexual partner during the games.38 The erotic aspect of Gladiatorial games and its feminine fans had already gained celebrity in the form of Simeon Solomon’s 1865 piece Habet! which portrays the female spectators’ of the games, captivated to an extent which appears erotic— one flushes slightly, her mouth falling open; another has let her head fall back and eyes close, her hair coming undone and the veins on her neck popping.39 This detail brings us back to Unconscious Rivals where we find, to the right of the figures, a particularly famous statue of a Seated Gladiator. If this refer ence were not enough to imply a certain degree of eroticism, Alma-Tadema also includes, enlarged to ease our viewing, a figurine of Eros—the divine personification of desire—wear ing a mask of Silenus—a satyr god, connected not only the sa tyr’s wild sexuality but with Bacchus, god of wine and revelry.40

Unlike in history scenes, however, the ﬁgures do little to explain

Figure 06 | Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Thermae Antoninianae, 1899, Oil on canvas, Private collection.

this aspect of immorality. Where we can find historical records of Caracalla’s tyranny, Caligula’s sexual perversion, or Nero’s decadence, in these genres scenes, the actions, feelings, and characters of the groups of women are di cult to discern. The common, usually dismissive, description of Alma-Tade ma’s figures as “Victorians in togas” seems problematic when applied to his female figures in light of their surroundings; the placement of Victorian women in any public space, let alone one filled with allusions to sexuality, is a marked image in this era of separate spheres, where, if we recall Psomiades’ argu ment, women were intended to be private beings, and their presence in public was associated with courting (erotic) at tention.41 I have already discussed the reading of sexual avail ability onto the flower-seller in On the Steps of the Capito line, which is the most explicit example of the eroticization of these female figures, but it is perhaps even more prevalent in the other scenes. The three lounging women in Thermae An toninianae might, on their own, seem like three young Victori an women gossiping innocently, but the erotic backdrop of the baths places their status immediately in question. This ambi guity of status is perhaps increased by their lack of obvious participation in the bathing ritual: for what purpose are they lounging, elaborately dressed, in this space? Likewise, the two women and the young girl in the Coliseum appear to merely be watching the procession, safely from a balcony. Yet, when we draw in the figure of the satyr and recall the sexuality implied in the gladiatorial games, we begin to wonder about the wom an leaning over the edge—what is she looking at, and exactly what sort of fall the young girl is pulling her back from?42 The women in Unconscious Rivals are the most ambiguous: sur rounded by statues which allude to illicit sexuality and olean ders, a poisonous flower, in a location whose private or public nature is unclear, at least one who obviously yearns to cross over the barrier of the balustrade, the innocence of their rivalry is no longer certain: exactly what sort of attention are they vy ing against each other for? In short, in these genre scenes, the antique details, when read in connection to rather than sepa rated from the female figures, introduce subtle indications of eroticism to an audience well-versed in classical antiquity. To an educated audience, these genre scenes and their female figures take on an intriguing ambiguity, their implied erotic availability tied to both the exotic beauty of the ancient world and the intellectual stimulation of their classical references.

The Theatre; or, “The old Romans were …moved by the same passions.”

Expanding our focus beyond Alma-Tadema’s canvases, we can ﬁnd several other examples of the potential eroticism of classical antiquity. In particular, the theatre, where popular plays often drew on tales from Ancient Rome is an important parallel to Alma-Tadema’s canvases, and one which is easi ly draw, due to the artists’ own participation in the theatre as a set and costume designer. Peter Trippi notes the extreme popularity of theatre in late 19th century London, with “more than 300 amateur dramatics groups” in the city by the 1870s, with “original plays set in antiquity, revivals of Shakespeare’s plays set in the ancient world, and Aesthetic productions based on classical precedents.”44 On the stages of London, as in the canvases of the Royal Academy, the Ancient World was alive and breathing. The connections between the visual art world and the theatre were extremely close, with many artists designing sets and costumes for the stage. For most artists involved in the theatre, including Alma-Tadema, their involve ment with the ﬁrst two of Trippi’s categories: Shakespeare and original “toga plays.” The latter category, which drew pri marily on contemporary novels set in the ancient world, will be my focus. Alma-Tadema’s work on the stage is characterised by the same obsessive accuracy as his paintings: one jour nalist noted of his costumes for Hypatia, a modern play set in late-antique Roman Alexandria, that “every robe or toga [...] has a di erent embroidery, accurately copied from a model or

mosaic of the period.”45 The reception of this particular play is nearly identical to that of Alma-Tadema’s genre pieces: most praise focuses on Alma-Tadema’s accuracy in recre ating antiquity for the stage, while the story is hardly noted.

The connection between stage and canvas goes beyond Alma-Tadema’s involvement in both: there is also a clear par allel between the toga play and the Roman genre scene in terms of content and relationship to the classical past. The goal of both was unequivocally to present the ancient past as “not only a lived, but a living reality,” resurrected through archaeological detail onto the stage or canvas,46 which is the most obvious of Alma-Tadema’s tactics in both painting and set-design to create a living Rome. Yet there is a clear sense that the continuity goes beyond material objects: Alma-Tadema’s comment, which informs the title of this section, might also be used to characterise the impulse of the toga play: “The old Romans were…moved by the same passions,” as those of modern England.47 Simon Goldhill notes the prevalence of this sentiment in Victorian culture, noting that in popular media such as the classical novel and toga play, “Emotions are the bedrock of historical continui ty and of comprehension of the past.”48 Thus, the emotions inspired by the events of the melodramas on the stage are a key aspect to this resurrection-model of classical reception. In the case of Hypatia, as Goldhill notes, the emotion which the main character felt toward the eponymous heroine was sexual attraction, causing him a crisis of faith.49 In the original novel, her eventual death is described in what Goldhill deems “prurient terms”: “her quivering limbs were delivered to the flames.”50 The poster for the production which Alma-Tade ma designed shows Hypatia in the nude on a Christian altar, moments before her violent end.51 As Barrow notes, this de tail reveals a certain eroticization of female martyrdom and victimhood, present in many depictions of Hypatia as well as other female saints or tragic heroines.52 This element of sexuality in the (completely non-sexual) victimhood of a fe male figure recalls the focus on the fallen woman in Victorian painting,53 as well as the appropriation of all female victims from antiquity as icons of the widespread evil of prostitution, which Kestner examines.54 Barrow argues also that this eroticism often intersects with portrayals of decadence and immorality. For example, the figure of “Cleopatra, wearing a diaphanous dress and a leopard-skin cape, exud[ing] volup tuousness,”55 as well as dangerous sexuality, or the vain se ductress Berenice, who in The Sign of the Cross symbolis es the decadence of Rome under Nero and its danger to the play’s hero.56 The female figures in the toga play clearly fall into the “Madonna/Whore” dichotomy; regardless of which sign they fall to, however, they become objects of desire.57 Let us now reverse this parallel to focus once again on the female figures in our genre scenes. The set, props, and cos

tumes are rendered with the exact same attention to detail and accuracy with which Alma-Tadema dressed his stages and actresses. Their audience and cultural context, too, are shared, both falling in the liminal space between “popular” and “serious.”58 As I have already mentioned, much of their re ception with regards to accuracy and incorporation of classi cal details were remarkably similar as well. Thus, it is not much of a stretch to imagine that the female figures in this painting would be viewed in a similar light to the female characters of the classicizing theatre production. One major di erence aris es from reasons of medium: where the theatre can o er view ers a clear narrative and clear character labels, the stillness of a painting denies this clarity and increases the ambiguity of the female figures. Nonetheless, I will argue, as we trace this parallel between modern London and ancient Rome outside of the theatre, the ambiguity of our female figures’ sexual availability is heightened by the erotic intrigue of urban space.

The Streets of London, the Streets of Rome

This availability can be traced through both the reality of London outside of the theatre and the literary evidence from Rome. Beginning first in the literal, we can compare the status of the actual actresses from the theatre to that of the female figures we have been studying. Barrow notes the consistent view of actresses in the Victorian era as “morally dubious” fig ures.59 Tracy Davis likewise notes the consistent presence of actresses in pornography in the late Victorian period.60 Further, she argues, the theatres themselves became part of an “erotic neighborhood” within the city of London: Lon don’s West End became, as the population of the city grew, a site for many entertainment venues, from theatres to bur lesques and music halls.61 This last category was singled out for its questionable morality: an 1875 article on “London’s amusements” by an A. Marshall states that “No one ever got improvement from a music hall—happy they who only got headaches.”62 This headache is referred to as the “com panion” the patron had paid to accompany him to bed.63 As Laura Eastlake notes, this description is highly euphemistic; the other companions one might take to bed, and the illness other than headaches lurk in the background—in short, the shadow of prostitution and the fears present in Contagious Diseases Act are closely connected to the entertainment district.64 In actuality, the concentration of entertainment ven ues was complimented by the concentration of other forms of entertainment in the area: supper clubs, illegal gaming houses and shops for erotic prints lined the streets which became well-known as “prostitution markets.”65 Thus, the actresses who worked and moved through these so-called “thoroughfares of vice” became part of the “erotic market place.”66 The sexual possibilities of the theatre pour out into the surrounding neighborhoods and the label of sexuality follows the female figures from the stage into the city street. Through the analog of the actress, we might follow Alma-Ta dema’s female figures onto the streets of Rome as well.

Elizabeth Prettejohn reads Alma-Tadema’s reconstructions of Ancient Rome as directly related to the growing aware ness of the modern city in the late Victorian era.67 The “Roman building projects” explored through the detailed rendering of famous sites, parallel modern depictions of Haussman’s transformation of Paris while the urban entertainments of the modern city—“cafés, theatres and racetracks”—find an equivalent in Roman baths and amphitheatres.68 Above all, for the Roman women depicted in the public spaces of Rome “social and moral status is as ambiguous or problematic as many female figures in contemporary French painting.”69 While Prettejohn focuses on the parallel of Paris, the emblem atic modern city as defined by Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project (1940), Laura Eastlake notes the trend in late Victori an to mirror modern London with ancient Rome. This parallel rests upon the glory of both cities as an Imperial capital and the degeneration of both through decadence.70 In particular, she notes how the modern “metropolitan male” becomes as sociated with the decadence of ancient Rome: the value of the grand monuments of an Imperial city is supplanted by the urban entertainments of ancient Rome and of modern Lon don, leading to urban men becoming “degenerated.” 71 These entertainments are surely the same which I have discussed above, mixing theatre and music houses with explicitly erot ic endeavours and, of course, the women “of ambiguous or problematic status” which Prettejohn mentions. Moreover, the characterization of this degeneration as enfeebling and emasculating, using near pathological terms,72 makes an easy parallel to the discourses surrounding the dangers of prostitution and venereal disease encompassed by the Contagious Diseases Act.73 Rome as a stand in for modern Lon don is an explicitly, and often dangerously, erotic geography.

This view of the city as an eroticized space has Classical precedent as well. In the Satires of Horace, perhaps the most popular of Latin poets in the 19th century,74 Rome emerg es as a city of excess in every way, from violence to sexual ity.75 In contrast to his e usively optimistic Odes, the Satires o er an apt parallel to the di ering views of Rome and Lon don as cities; these two views from a single poet show that the glorious capital and the dissolute city exist as two sides of the same coin. As Paul Allen Miller argues, Horace’s tour through Rome swings from the discovery of a corpse on the street among the “orders of flute girls, quacks, panhandlers, actresses, and acrobats” to the figures of men chasing after women both “whose ankles are hidden by wife’s flounces”— that is respectable matrons—and those who are “standing in a stinking whorehouse.” 76 In this vision of Rome, all women are sexually available, and vice is unavoidable. It mirrors the moralistic writings cited by Eastlake and Kestner which fear a rampant and debilitating sexuality in the city. Horace’s model of ancient Rome, in short, can be read as a clear parallel to the conservative fear of decadent Rome in Victorian discourse.

This darkly moralistic and pessimistic view on Rome feels incongruous with Alma-Tadema’s bright canvases. Thus I will trace a possible counter narrative. As Eastlake argues, the image of decadent Rome is deliberately adopted by ﬁg ures such as Oscar Wilde and Walter Pater to defy the con servative associations of Roman excess with decline.77 The decadence of Rome becomes an aesthetic utopia; Nero be comes an aesthete, a musician, an artist rather than a mad tyrant.78 This transformation recalls a comment of Ebers’ on one of Alma-Tadema’s particularly elaborate interiors: why shouldn’t Alma-Tadema depict a golden room, if “Nero, with all his crimes a thorough artist in his nature, wanted to live in a golden palace?” 79 This quotation encapsulates the count er narrative taken up by Aesthetic artists, and brings us back to the elaborate ceiling of Unconscious Rivals, which, I have argued, likely recalled the luxurious decoration of Nero’s pal ace. This counter-narrative does not erase the sexual avail ability of the female ﬁgures which, I have argued, is created through several overlapping factors from contemporary dis courses and popular culture to archaeological references. To this, I would propose a potential Classical literary source as a celebratory counterpoint to the conservative narrative encapsulated by Horace to complete my exploration of the role of Roman models in creating eroticism in this painting.

In the Ars Amatoria, Ovid takes the reader on a tour through Rome; unlike the Satires, the Ars Amatoria takes a view that is unapologetically excited by the erotic possibilities of Rome. Ovid promises his reader, “‘Rome will give you so many and such lovely girls, / as many [...] as there are fishes in the sea, / as there are birds hidden in branches, as stars in the sky.”80 Moreover, he links “lovely girls” to specific sites of Rome, creating, as Miller notes, a parallel city to Augustus’ Res Ges tae—a listing, among other deeds, of the emperor’s impe rial building projects.81 In the Ars Amatoria, imperial capital and erotic wonderland are wed together, most explicitly in Ovid’s comment that, Venus, “Aeneas’ mother, lingers in his city.”82 From its founding, the poem claims, desire has been inherent to the city of Rome; love becomes a cultural fact of Rome.83 As Ovid advises his reader to look for women in the theatre, where “they come to see, they come that they might be seen as well,” in that place “fatal to chaste mod esty,”84 we are brought back to the Victorian London stage, and the perceived sexuality of the actresses who populate it. When Ovid places us among the crowd of the gladiatorial games, where one can “sit by your lady, with nothing forbid ding: press your thigh to hers as long as you can,”85 we recall the engrossed women in The Coliseum and the gladiator placed suggestively next to the Unconscious Rivals. Tak ing the Ars Amatoria as a model refigures the metropolitan male viewing these canvases, strolling, figuratively and liter ally, around the decadent cityscapes of Rome and London. Incorporating the reception of Ovid into our understanding

of Alma-Tadema presents an alternative perspective on the erotic geography created by the canvases: one of enjoyment, with a deliberately subversive, or at least tongue-in-cheek celebration of the sensuality of the ancient and modern city.

Conclusion

This paper, while necessarily preoccupied with unpack ing the male gaze, sought to explore the status of women in Alma-Tadema’s genre scenes. The depiction of women in Ovid’s text is just as ambiguous. As Sharon James argues, Ovid deliberately mixes the symbols of virtuous women with those of courtesans or prostitutes, making it unclear which sort of women the reader is going to find among the glorious streets of Rome.86 Either way, her role in the text is to be se duced—in short, to be a passive recipient of male desire. This role is likewise characteristic of the figures in Alma-Tadema’s genre scenes. We cannot completely and definitively under stand the characters and status of the female figures, but regardless, they are presented to the male viewer as ambig uously available. Like actresses on the Victorian stage, they might play any manner of role from the maiden pining for her sweetheart, to a prostitute awaiting a customer. This shift ing identity, hinted at through minute details in the canvas, is a key aspect of the paintings’ entertainment value. The gaze of the Upper-class Victorian man on these canvases is one of intellectual as well as sensual interest: through his clas sical education he is able to puzzle together the disparate pieces of evidence, taken from the most obscure of Classi cal sources and up-to-date scholarship to understand the erotic implications of the piece. Yet, popular culture also pro vides a gateway into these pieces for the middle-class man: through the theatre, through magazines and newspapers, or perhaps simply through the experience of a man in the urban spaces of London. The imagined world of Alma-Tade ma’s Rome, like Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, is full of girls which the artist, the traditions of literature both Classic and modern, as well as cultural discourses, define as sexually available.

Thus, Alma-Tadema’s Roman scenes portray an erotic geog raphy which is heightened by the ambiguity of their female fig ures. Visual analysis of the paintings themselves reveals many allusions to a decadent image of Ancient Rome, with specific references to sexuality and desire via the incorporation of an cient art as well as allusions to ancient texts. A strong connec tion between Alma-Tadema’s work in the theatre likewise con nects the female figures to the desiring and desirable women of the stage, as well as the sexualized actresses who played them. Finally, the creation of an urban space on the canvases reflects both contemporary and ancient discourses of urban ity in which the public appearance of a female figure is con nected to erotic encounters and often, illicit sexuality. We have passed far beyond the viewing of Unconscious Rivals and sim ilar pieces as mere “pleasant things. We now begin to under stand them as participating in a complex cultural dialogue on gender and sexuality; of history and its afterlife in the present.

Endnotes

1. “The New Gallery,” editorial, The Spectator, May 6 1893, http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/6th-may-1893/19/art.

2. “The New Gallery,” editorial, The Spectator, May 6 1893.

3. For example: the London-based literary magazine Athenaeum, cited below as the location of the essay “The Woman Question,” which singled out the division between men and women as the most important debate of the era, was also home to countless reviews of Alma-Tadema’s work from across his career. These discourses on gender, then, were often taking place in front of the same audience as Alma-Tadema’s work.

4. Elizabeth Prettejohn, “Lawrence Alma-Tadema and the Modern City of Ancient Rome,” The Art Bulletin 84, no. 1 (March 2002): 126. Prettejohn suggests the Bay of Naples, a known vacation site for the Roman elite with a reputation for licentiousness, as a possible setting.

5. Joseph A. Kestner, Mythology and Misogyny: The Social Discourse of Nineteenth Century British Classical-Subject Painting (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 273.

6. Helen Zimmern, L. Alma Tadema, Royal Academician: His Life and Work (London: 1888), 24.

7. Georg Ebers, Lorenz Alma-Tadema: His Life and Works, trans. Mary J. Sa ord (New York: William S. Gottsberger 1886), 76.

8. Ebers, Lorenz Alma-Tadema, 47–48.

9. Kathy Alexis Psomiades, Beauty’s Body: Femininity and Representation in British Aestheticism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 4.

10. Pamela Gerrish Nunn, Problem Pictures: Women and Men in Victorian Painting (Hants, UK: Scolar Press, 1995): 1.

11. Gerrrish Nunn posits the Victorian era as an era which developed a “problematic picture” as a “recognizable category, and further contends that “given the fundamental challenge Victorian society faced in the ‘woman question,’ any Victorian picture that involved women and men” can be read as one” (2).

12. Gerrish Nunn, Problem Pictures, 1.

13. Joseph A. Kestner, Mythology and Misogyny: The Social Discourse of Nineteenth Century British Classical-Subject Painting (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 36.

14. The 1870 act and its 1882 additions allowed women to maintain property rights after marriage, including the right to her earnings after marriage, as well as to inheritances and insurance policies. Kestner notes that “in establishing that women could have independent ownership of property, the act broadened the sphere of inﬂuence of women.” Mythology and Misogyny, 35.

15. The Act allowed for the arrest and inspection of women suspected of being prostitutes. Kestner discusses how it was tied to fears of venereal disease, believed to be spread only by women, who became “seductresses who turn men into beasts,” like the ﬁgure of Circe (90). Its repeal in 1886 heightened focus on the “hazardous and distressing situation of destitute women,” but, Kestner argues, likely increased the vision of women as “threatening and unnatural” (35).

16. Kestner notes (36–37), for example, William Acton’s claim in The Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs (1857) that while sexual desire was natural to men, “as a general rule, a modest woman seldom desires any sexual gratiﬁcation for herself;” lust was associated with only “a few of [female nature’s] worst examples.”

This was refuted by Elizabeth Blackwell, the ﬁrst woman doctor, in 1884, who argued in The Human Element in Sex that women “derived pleasure from their sexuality.”

17. Psomiades, Femininity and Representation, 1.

18. Goldhill, Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 69. He notes Alma-Tadema’s most infamous nude, The Sculptor’s Model, about which the Bishop of Carslisle commented, “For a living artist to exhibit a life-size, life-like, almost photographic representation of a beautiful naked woman strikes my inartistic mind as somewhat if not very mischievous.” This comment reveals the cultural anxiety over sexuality in art, and the resulting necessity for subtlety in depicting eroticism.

19. Lawrence Alma-Tadema, “Laurens Alma-Tadema, R.A,” in In the Days of My Youth, ed. T. P. O’Connor (London: 1901), 206. Alma-Tadema recalls he had originally designed the ceiling for another canvas but had scratched it out. On urging from a friend to reuse it, he chose to paint Rivals: “To express it more aptly, I painted that picture in order to use that ceiling!”

20. Rosemary Barrow, Lawrence Alma-Tadema (London: Phaidon Press, 2001), 150.

21. J. G. Winter brieﬂy reviews the excavations at the Domus Aurea from 1811 to 1914 in “The Golden House of Nero,” The Classical Weekly 7, no. 21 (March 28, 1914): 163–164. Several rooms were discovered as late as 1913.

22. John Ruskin, The Art of England: Lectures Given in Oxford (Kent: George Allen, 1884), 103.

23. Barrow, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 134. Barrow points out that Alma-Tadema employs the obscure text Scriptores Historiae Augustae, whose tale is more sensational that the more traditionally cited source on imperial history, Suetonius.

24. Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. D.M. Low (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1960), 69.

25. Elizabeth Prettejohn, “Recreating Rome in Victorian Painting: From History to Genre,” in Imagining Rome: British Artists in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Michael Liversidge and Catharine Edwards, 60–61. An example of this John William Waterhouse’s The Remorse of Nero after the murder of his mother (1878) whose casualness belies the “gruesome shock” a orded by the title.

26. Elizabeth Prettejohn, “Recreating Rome,” 68.

27. Jesse Benedict Carter, “A Decade of Forum Excavation and the Results for Roman History,” The Classical Journal 5, no. 5 (March 1910): 202-11, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3286845. Carter characterises the year 1870, the beginning of ﬁfteen years of intense excavation, as the beginning of a “New Rome.”

28. Timothy Webb, “‘City of the Soul’: English Travellers to Rome,” (23, 34) in Imagining Rome. He notes the inﬂuence of the bath complex in its ruined state on Romantic poets like Shelley, visible in Joseph Severn’s 1845 portrait of the same poet.

29. Barrow, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 177.

30. See Barrow, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 175 for an image of the Baths of Diocletian in the 19th century.

31. Christopher Wood, Olympian Dreamers; Victorian Classical Painters, 1860–1914 (London: Constable and Company Ltd., 1983): 124.

32. Examples include A Favourite Custom (1909) or The Apodyterium (1886).

33. Barrow, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 177.

34. Kestner, Mythology and Misogyny, 276. In particular, the strigil is noted for its phallic appearance, and placement near the woman’s genitalia.

35. Pliny, Natural History, 34.61-5.

36. Barrow, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 152. 37. Juvenal, Satires 6.

38. Ovid, Ars Amatoria 1.135-165. 39. Barrow, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 150.

40. Both the Seated Gladiator and the Eros ﬁgurine were unearthed in Rome. The former is now at the Palazzo Altemps and the latter in the Capitoline Museums.

41. Psomiades, Femininity and Representations, 4–5: “As the century progresses [...] femininity becomes less reliable as a sign of privacy and the enclosed woman [...] gives way to the woman who courts public display.”

42. For the “Fallen Woman” trope in Victorian art, see Susan P. Casteras, Images of Victorian Womanhood (London: Associated University Presses, 1987), 131–143.

43. Frederick Dolman, “Illustrated Interviews: LXVIII, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadmema,” Strand Magazine, Dec. 6 1899.

44. Peter Trippi, “All the World’s a Stage,” in Lawrence Alma-Tadema: At Home in Antiquity, ed. Peter Trippi and Elizabeth Prettejohn (Munich: Prestel, 2018), 174.

45. Trippi, “All the World’s a Stage,” 174.

46. Barrow, “Theatre and Painting,” 212.

47. Frederick Dolman, “Illustrated Interviews: LXVIII, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadmema,” Strand Magazine, Dec. 6 1899.

48. Goldhill, Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity, 201.

49. Goldhill, Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity, 203.

50. Goldhill, Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity, 203.

51. Barrow, “Theatre and Painting,” 214.

52. Barrow, “Theatre and Painting,” 214. Cf. Charles William Mitchell, Hypatia, 1885.

53. Casteras, Victorian Womanhood, 131. 54. Kestner, Mythology and Misogyny, 40.

55. Barrow, “Theatre and Painting,” 213.

56. Barrow, “Theatre and Painting,” 218.

57. Barrow, “Theatre and Painting,” 214.

58. Barrow, “Theatre and Painting,” 210.

59. Barrow, “Theatre and Painting,” 225.

60. Tracy C. Davis, Actresses as Working Women: Their Social Identity in Victorian Culture (London: Taylor and Francis Group, 1991), 137–138.

61. Davis, Actresses as Working Women, 139.

62. A. Marshall, “London Amusements,” Belgravia: A London Magazine 8 (December 1875), 197.

63. Marshall, “London Amusements,” 197.

64. Eastlake, Ancient Rome and Victorian Masculinities, 178.

65. Davis, Actresses as Working Women, 143.

66. Davis, Actresses as Working Women, 143.

67. Elizabeth Prettejohn, “Lawrence Alma-Tadema and the Modern City of Ancient Rome,” The Art Bulletin 84, no. 1 (March 2002): 115.

68. Prettejohn, “Modern City of Ancient Rome,” 115.

69. Prettejohn, “Modern City of Ancient Rome,” 115.

70. Eastlake, Ancient Rome and Victorian Masculinities, 171.

71. Eastlake, Ancient Rome and Victorian Masculinities, 173-4.

72. Eastlake, Ancient Rome and Victorian Masculinities, 173-4.

73. Kestner, Mythology and Misogyny, 90.

74. Alma-Tadema explicitly references Horace’s poetry many times, notably in A Favourite Poet (1889) and Loves Votaries (1891), both of which incorporate text from Horace’s Odes into the painting itself.

75. In Satires 1.2, Horace states outright that in Rome, nil medium est— “There is no medium” (1.2.28).

76. Paul Allen Miller, “‘I Get Around:” Sadism, Desire and Metonymy on the Streets of Rome with Horace, Ovid, and Juvenal,” in The Sites of Rome: Time, Space, Memory, ed. David H. J. Larmour and Diana Spencer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007): 139.

77. Eastlake, Ancient Rome and Victorian Masculinities, 188.

78. Eastlake, Ancient Rome and Victorian Masculinities, 190.

79. Ebers, Lorenz Alma-Tadema, 58.

80. Ovid, A.A., 1.55-59: tot tibi tamque dabiit formosas Roma puellas, [...] aequore quot pisces, fronde tegentur avesm, / quot caelum stellas.

81. Miller, “On the Streets of Rome,” 153–4.

82. Ovid, A.A., 1.60: mater in Aeneae constitit urbe sui.

83. Katharina Volk, “Ars Amatoria Roman: Ovid on Love as a Cultural Construct,” in The Art of Love: Bimillennial Essays on Ovid’s Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris, ed. Steven Green (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 239.

84. Ovid, A.A., 1.99-100: spectatum veniunt, veniunt spectentur ut ipsae / ille locus casri damna pudoris habet.

85. Ovid, A.A., 1.139-140: proximus a domina nullo prohibente sedet; / iunge tuum lateri qua potes usque latus.

86. Sharon L. James, “Women Reading Men: The Female Audience of the Ars Amatoria,” The Cambridge Classical Journal 54 (2008): 136.

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