Northwestern Art Review | Issue 21 by Northwestern Art Review

ISSUE NO 21

2021

2022

EXECUTIVE BOARD Faculty Advisor Alicia Caticha President Vitoria Faria ‘23 Journal Editor-In-Chief Quaid Childers ‘22 Journal Editor-In-Chief Eli Gordon ‘23 Treasurer Ellie Lyons ‘24 Online Editor-in-Chief Grace Wu ‘23 Director of Event Planning Lisa Vicini ‘23 Vice Director of Event Planning Juwon Park ‘25 Director of Social Media Rose Akcan ‘24 Director of Design Kelsey Carroll ‘24 1

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW

LETTER FROM THE

PRESIDENT

This has been a pivotal year for NAR. We have reshaped our structure and goals to align with our long standing position as the official Art History student organization at Northwestern. In addition, the return to campus and the end of the “Zoom Era” have enabled us to conduct more in-person events and expand our engagement within the Northwestern community. For the last 14 years, the NAR Undergraduate Journal of Art History has been a traditional publication on which we work for the entire academic year. This year is an exceptional one; we have received a record number of submissions from a number of different universities and fields of study. Similarly, on campus, we have significantly expanded our cohort. We have 30 undergraduate members studying a diverse array of subjects from Art History to Mathematics and from Journalism to Computer Science. It is so gratifying to see how NAR serves as a space where students with diverse backgrounds and interests can get together to work on Art History-related projects and talk about the art world. This year, I divided NAR into four committees: editorial, design, event planning, and social media. Thanks to the commitment and collaboration of each single director and member of NAR, we have truly excelled in our activities this year. The editorial committee has revamped the structure of our traditional Journal and increased the number and quality of online articles. The design committee has created a new website for NAR, featuring a platform intended to display high resolution images and a clean aesthetic for articles’ display. They also crafted a new logo and color palette for our organization. The event planning committee has tirelessly organized a diverse array of events. Throughout the year, there have been several coffee chats with Art History faculty, an exclusive visit to the Block Museum's Print Room, a career panel, and our annual student art show. The social media committee has also done a terrific job revamping our Instagram page and expanding our outreach by regularly producing interesting, original content. With regards to the process of compiling the Journal, I feel extremely grateful to have been a part of this year-long project. The peer-reviewed essays featured in this issue range from themes of French Romanticism to 20th-century photojournalism, encompassing NAR’s mission of fostering exploration of the Fine Arts through a diverse and multicultural lens. I would like to express my gratitude to all NAR Members who collaborated on the making of this Journal. In addition, I am extremely grateful for Professor Alicia Caticha, our faculty advisor, who was a crucial guiding resource for our team as well as of Professor Jesús Escobar, the Director of Undergraduate Studies in Art History, who has given NAR essential support when organizing events on campus such as the Career Panel. I would also like to thank the Art History and the Art, Theory and Practice departments for their financial support. Sincerely, Vitoria Monteiro de Carvalho Faria President, Northwestern Art Review

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW

LETTER FROM THE

EDITOR

In many ways, this year's edition of the Northwestern Art Review (NAR) represents the manifestation of a new normal for our organization. Having successfully survived the pandemic, the Art Review has expanded its membership and its focus, as well as its presence in the art historical life of the University both online and in person. As one of the longest-running American undergraduate journals of art history, NAR has grown from its beginning fourteen years ago to today encompass a variety of topics and perspectives. This year's journal does not revolve around a set theme but instead prioritizes presenting a panoply of pieces that reflects the multifacetedness of both our membership at Northwestern and our network of contributors around the country. Our authors present a variety of art-historical interventions on subjects including but not limited to Soviet Futurism, Gericault's Romanticism, and the roles of women in India during the British Raj. In addition to these art-historical analyses, articles such as "A Day in the Life of the Block Museum's Curatorial Intern" (Madie Giaconia) and "Highlighting the Frame: Scholarship on European Painting Frames, Circa 1890 to Present" (Grace Wu) equip this issue with a variety of conduits for readers to engage with art and its history. The 2022 edition of the Northwestern Art Review would not have been possible without the tireless work of the journal's entire editorial team, namely Reyna Patel, Catarina Peixoto, Raya Bryant Young, and NAR's online editor-in-chief, Grace Wu. Vitoria, Eli and I would be entirely lost without their continued support in this process. I would also like to thank Professor Alicia Caticha, the Northwestern Art Review's faculty advisor, for her guidance throughout the production of this year's journal and her continued support of NAR. Happy reading! Sincerely, Quaid Childers Editor-in-Chief, Northwestern Art Review

ISSUE NO 21

LETTER FROM THE

EDITOR

My first Fall in Evanston, I remember desperately searching for places outside of the classroom in which to engage my passions. This search led me to join and later drop half a dozen organizations. One of the very few groups that made it past my freshman panic was the Northwestern Art Review (NAR). The inclusive, warm atmosphere of our Monday night meetings was an oasis in the otherwise malaise landscape of impersonal, strictly pre-professional spaces that surrounded me. In NAR, I found a community of friends eager to discuss and critically consider the visual arts, in both a contemporary and historical context. I never felt like these discussions, or my participation in them, were transactional. They came from an intention to nurture passion and build community. The opportunity to edit our journal alongside Quaid this year has been a special chance to not just involve myself in our mission but to drive it forward. It is a refreshing task to facilitate the appreciation of beauty, to consider how we consider beauty, and to examine how these considerations affect our culture and ourselves. This is how I’ve seen my work in editing our journal. It has been a joy to gather, review, and present our annual journal to the public. Collecting a range of scholarship on the arts for this year's journal has also been a fruitful exercise in expanding my own index of art-historical knowledge. Friends unfamiliar with art historical discourses have often expressed a paranoia around their misunderstanding of the field. I have been confronted with the sentiment that the art world, and academic interrogation of the arts, is an exclusive vortex of insider thought. I have never encountered this exclusivity in NAR, and I am proud to have been a part of creating the uniquely welcoming environment that characterizes our organization. Go NAR! Eli Gordon Editor-in-Chief, Northwestern Art Review

ISSUE NO 21

LETTER FROM OUR

ADVISOR Dear Reader,

It was my sincerest pleasure to work with the Northwestern Art Review (NAR) in the capacity of their faculty advisor this academic year, 2021-2022. I arrived at Northwestern at the height of the Covid-19 global pandemic. Classes were online and the majority of all student organizations were inactive. Like the majority of NAR’s members, I had never experienced Northwestern “in-person.” How does one regroup as an organization, when one never participated in it to begin with? That was the issue students faced as they re-launched NAR as an active student organization. It has been incredible to witness NAR members re-build their organization from the ground out. In addition to the publication of NAR’s twenty-first issue, NAR curated a student art show, a career panel, and multiple coffee chats with Art History faculty. One of the few student organizations based in a department, NAR has become an integral means through which Art History majors and minors create community in our department—something so needed during the Covid-19 era. It has been a pleasure to serve as the faculty of advisor, and I wish to thank all the members of NAR for all their hard work and commitment to our department, art history, and the arts more broadly. Congratulations on all you have achieved! Alicia Caticha Assistant Professor Art History Department

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW

TABLE OF CONTENTS A Day in the Life as the Block Museum’s Curatorial Inter n ······· 7 Not a Proper Place For British Women: An Exploration of Lady Im pey’s Role in Colonial India ······································ 9 Aligned in T hought, Opposed in Execution: Malevich and Tatlin Redefining Of For m, Movement, and Surface ·············· 15 A Tor tured Ar tist’s Haunt: W. Eug ene Smith And T he Jazz Loft · 20 Immersions And T he Liquid Inter rog ation Of Traditional Catholic Symbolism ·················································· 24 Nautch Women In and Out of Context: Multiple Mediums and Im ag e Types to Per petuate the Female Cour tesan Visual Categ or y ······························································ 29 Nicole Eisenman’s Pr ocession ········································· 38 Highlighting T he Frame: Scholarship on European Painting Frames, Circa 1890s to the Present· ································ 42 Goya’s Romantic Comedy: T he Serious And T he Satirical in Francisco Goya’s Friar Pedr o Shoots El Maragato As His Horse R uns Of f, 1806 ······························································ 51 Head Of A Guillotined Man And Gericault’s Romanticism ······· 57 Ar t Museums and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs): T he Innovative Potential, L ong-Ter m Risks, and Financial Oppor tunities ········ 65

ISSUE NO 21

A DAY IN THE LIFE AS THE BLOCK MUSEUM’S CURAT ORIAL INTERN

MADIE GIACONIA, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY ‘24

HREE days a week, I leave class and venture across campus to the Block Museum. After the usual trek up the flight of glass stairs, past a wall of sculpture, and into the galleries, I reach the Block offices, where I start my day as the Block’s Undergraduate Curatorial Intern. I came to this internship through a series of happy accidents. In January of my freshman year, I sat down in Fisk Hall for my first Intro to Modernism lecture. I was a baffled pandemic freshman, and a film major dubiously pursuing screenwriting. But I did know I loved making art, and I loved history—ergo, art history! Ten weeks later, I was babbling to my friends about Impressionism, the Bauhaus, and Constructivism. I imagine I

became incredibly irritating to be around. But I didn’t want to shut up—I had, quite accidentally, discovered a new life passion. I declared an art history double major in May, and around the same time, I saw a posting for the 2021-22 curatorial internship at the Block Museum. Especially the Block Cinema tied directly to the museum, the Block seemed to be the perfect place for me to explore my newfound love for art history and learn about museum work. I applied for the internship, and to my immense surprise and elation, I was selected for the position. It’s hard to outline a single day in my life at the Block. My projects and meetings change weekly. Academic Curator Corinne Granof is my guiding light, always there to advise and facilitate new opportu-

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW nities for me. My consistent, long-running project is researching the Block’s extensive collection of photographs by prolific American photojournalist W. Eugene Smith. In the mid-1900’s, Smith was a photographer at Life Magazine, so many of the Block’s holdings were from one of Life’s photojournalism series. I scoured the magazine’s online archive to understand each series Smith worked on, and identify which of the Block’s photographs were ones that made it to publication. I log all of my findings (i.e. caption, publication date) in a massive spreadsheet, which is still ongoing. We are now working on correcting historical errors in the Smith collection online, and potentially retitling some of the works. Every week, I also do a session helping the Collections staff inventory the collection ahead of the Block’s re-accreditation. Early in my internship, I was trained in both art handling and TMS (The Museum System, one of the industry standards for collections databases) to assist with this project. Working with Collections and Exhibitions Coordinator Joe Scott, and Lead Preparator Mark Leonhart, we pull boxes of artwork and carefully check each work. We match it against its record in TMS and make sure everything is a) correctly logged and b) marked with its proper location in the database. Doing inventory has allowed me to get an up-close look at the collection, and learn from the experts (as well as engaging in occasional discussions with Mark and Joe about the modes of martyrdom, or the illustrious career of Justin Bieber). Outside of research and inventory (my two long-running jobs), I am always busy with additional projects and meetings. Most recently, I wrote a justification for a new acquisition under the mentorship of the Associate Curator of Collections, Essi Rönkkö. Essi was incredibly generous in analyzing the artwork with me, and

giving me valuable feedback on my writing and verbal presentation. I also get to talk one-on-one with staff members in all departments, learning about their journeys to museum work and what they do in a day at the Block. I cannot express how rewarding this internship has been. I have gotten to witness the exhibition development process up close, and learned about every department. The Block staff have made a concentrated effort to involve in meaningful, lasting ways at the museum–whether it’s asking for my opinion at staff meetings, allowing me to handle artwork, or entrusting me with researching a new acquisition. I now know I thrive in research and the museum environment, and my career aspirations have shifted to art history. Sometimes I still feel like the confused freshman who (quite literally) got lost on her way to her first art history class at Fisk. But I now know what my passion is, and I cannot wait to see where it takes me. Until the end of the year, though, that’s up the stairs and into the Block gallery.

ISSUE NO 21

NOT A PROPER PLACE FOR BRITIS H W OMEN: AN EXPLORATION OF LADY IMPEY’S ROLE IN COLONIAL INDIA

ELLIE LYONS, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY ‘24

O be a British woman in colonial India was to be an enigma. Though it was common for British men to make the journey abroad with the East India Company in search of opportunity, it was much less common for them to bring their wives. This lack of British women in this new mixed society created a vacuum in social norms. Thus, in early colonial India, the role of the British woman was unclear and undefined. The women who did make the journey had to form a new role for themselves, balancing the management of a distinctly Indian household with newfound British hesitancy toward a supposedly backward Indian society. Johann Zoffany’s group portrait The Impey Family Listening to Strolling Musicians (fig. 1) illustrates this balance, particularly for Lady Mary Impey, the wife of Sir Elijah Impey, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in India. Lady Impey’s role and position within this portrait reflect her attempt to reconcile the conflict of interest that was being a British woman in colonial India. Zoffany’s group portrait features a range of figures. On the right of the composition, there are two seated Indian women. One appears to be looking at Sir Impey while the other holds one of the Impey children. Behind them stand a group of Indian performers making music for the Impey family’s entertain-

ment. As the viewer’s eye moves left, we see Sir Elijah Impey clapping along to the music and gazing lovingly upon his daughter, who is also dancing to the music dressed in a traditional costume for an Indian dancing girl1. Finally, our eyes rest upon Lady Mary Impey, who sits at the far left of the group portrait. With one of her children resting upon her shoulder, she looks out upon the viewer. Dressed in a distinctly British outfit, she is removed from the scene around her, and she is disengaged from the Indian entertainers. Rather, she is engaged in direct eye contact with the viewer. Her gaze exits the realm of the painting and into the viewer’s space as if she is asking for our forgiveness for the rowdy Indian scene surrounding her2. Unlike her husband, she is not clapping along with the music. In fact, she does not acknowledge the commotion. Lady Mary Impey’s presence is a stark reminder of an unbridled cultural distance in how the two communities relate, those currently existing in the same space. Lady Impey acts as symbol of British civility. Her demurred disengagement with the Indian cultural scene around her expresses an apologetic tone for the space she currently resides, silently asking for the viewer’s understanding. She is both involved and uninvolved; she is a British woman in an Indian household. However, Lady Mary Impey was hardly uninovlved in Indian life. Upon

Ghosh, Durba ‘Colonial companions,’ in Sex and the Family in Colonial India: The Making of Empire Studies in Indian History and Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2006) 35 - 68.

Beth Fowkes Tobin, ‘Accommodating India: Domestic Arrangements in Anglo - Indian Family Portraiture’ Picturing Imperial Power: Colonial Subjects in Eighteenth - Century British Painting (Duke University Press, 1999) 82 - 110.

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW

Fig. 1, Johann Zoffany, The Impey Family Listening to Strolling Musicians, 1783-94, oil on canvas, Private collection. arriving in Calcutta, the Impeys found racy suggests that Lady Impey herself was themselves in a townrich with opportunidirectly involved in the style and creation ties for cultural and intellectual pursuits. of the drawings, reflecting her own interest Lady Impey herself used this opportunity and involvement in the artistic and intellecto explore her own artistic and scientific tual pursuits of Calcutta, and more broadinterests, specifically diving into a keen in- ly, colonial India. Therefore, Lady Mary terest in natural history. In the gardens of Impey certainly was not completely disthe Impey estate, she kept various species engaged from her Indian scenery, further 3 of bird and other various wild animals . complicating our understanding of her Beyond this, Lady Impey commissioned role in colonial India. a series of large drawings of the animals Beyond her artistic and scientific in her collection from three local Indian endeavors, Lady Mary Impey was deeply artists, Shaikh Zain al-Din, Bhavani Das, engaged in the management and mainte3 and Ram Das . These drawings, mostly of nance of her household. The painting Lady the birds in her collection, display these Impey with her servants in Calcutta, attributed animals in their natural Indian landscapes3. to Shaikh Zain al-Din (fig. 2) illustrates In their drawings, Shaikh Zain al-Din, her involvement with the Indian servants Bhavani Das, and Ram Das use a Mughal of her household. In this painting, Lady technique of “building up the bird feathImpey sits upon a stool in the center of a er by feather” while retaining scientific large room. She is surrounded by Indian accuracy3. This mix of artistry and accustaff who are either waiting upon her or 3

J. P. Losty. “Impey [née Reade], Mary, Lady Impey.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004.

ISSUE NO 21 are engaged by their household work.4 Through an opening on the right, we can get a glimpse of a bedroom, though the main focus is on the large drawing room. Indian homes often lacked the privacy and separation granted by British estates, as illustrated in this painting4. Rather, due to a practical interest in maintaining needed air circulation throughout the house, colonial homes often relinquished the defining of private spaces by “secondary channels of movement” commonly found in British estates -- British residents shared their space with their Indian counterparts.

In this scene, Lady Impey is not so clearly British. Rather here, she fits into a recognizably Indian scene. Unlike Zoffany’s portrait, she does not act as a tie back to England. Rather, she is portrayed as the manager of an Indian household, suggesting a sort of integration into Indian society. Such integration was not always well received. As British women in India were trying to figure out their role in colonial society, so were their counterparts back in England. For many British citizens, the mixing of British and Indian society was a mistake. One

Fig 2, possibly Shaikh Zain al-Din, Lady Impey with her servants in Calcutta, c.1775-1778, Private collection. Shaikh Zain al-Din’s painting captures reason for this hesitancy was a complete this idea of interconnectedness while misrepresentation of the South Asia maintaining a focus on Lady Impey. woman. The practices and traditions of 4 Chattopadhyay, Swati, ‘Blurring Boundaries: The Limits of "White Town" in Colonial Calcutta’ Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians Vol. 59, No. 2 (Jun., 2000) 154 - 179.

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW South Asia were completely foreign to the British, so such customs were often taken as ‘backward’ and looked down upon. The practice of concubinage, for example, became relatively common between British men and native women in India. This practice left a disruptive impression on the British population, both for the men and the women. For Indian women, the negative reputation of the practice allowed it to serve as an example of the supposedly lax moral codes by which these women lived5. Back in England, South Asian women associated with this practice they were often stereotyped as obsessed with physical pleasure and on a mission to “seduce the most sensible of men”5. This perception of the South Asian Woman led to her stereotyping as the seductress and the temptress.. British women who did adopt the clothing and culture of India were often shamed, regardless of how they felt. For a British woman trying to find her place in colonial India, such as Lady Mary Impey, such prejudices would be difficult to navigate While Indian women were looked down upon for their sexuality, they were also seen as victims of a backward, misogynistic society -- a society in which British women should not participate. As trade and exploration grew in South Asia, British women in England began to realize their role and involvement in this new developing world. One specific group to rise out of this movement was the Bluestockings, led by Elizabeth Montagu. This group of British women came to “recognize themselves as a transnational network” as they championed women’s rights and social progress both at home and 5

abroad6. This feminist group serves as one example of a changing view toward women and women’s rights in Europe, a view that was often used to justify imperialism abroad. In his History of British India, James Mill argues that it is the right and responsibility of European nations to go and civilize their colonies abroad -- an emphatically paternalistic opinion7. Mill and others often turn to the status of South Asian women as an example of the supposed backwardness of Indian society, citing cultural practices such as sati and child marriage as examples of the lack of women’s rights in South Asia7. If a society treats its women as they do in South Asia, the colonizers argued, it cannot be civilized. Thus, the English people took it upon themselves to “civilize” India7. These shifting ideas toward the status of women both at home and abroad only added more pressure onto Lady Mary Impey. If she chose to participate in Indian society, she would be choosing to participate in the subjugation of women and align herself with the supposedly backward South Asia. Thus, it was clearly difficult for Lady Mary Impey to define her own role as a British woman in early colonial India. Her personal interests conflicted with ideas of what a woman should be, so she had to be careful and intentional with her actions. As an intellectual and creative being, Lady Mary Impey acted upon her interests, crafting her menagerie and commissioning illustrations of her collections. In this way, she was an academic and a patron of the arts. As a wife, Lady Impey managed her household and closely interacted with her Indian servants, almost integrating

Nechtman, Tillman W. “Nabobinas: Luxury, Gender, and the Sexual Politics of British Imperialism

in India in the Late Eighteenth Century.” Journal of Women’s History 18, no. 4 (2006): 8–30.

Johns, Alessa. “Bluestocking Studies 2011-2017: The Transnational Turn.” Literature Compass. 14, no. 11 (2017).

López, Nuria. “British Women versus Indian Women: the Victorian Myth of European Superiority.” Essay. In Myths of Europe. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007.

ISSUE NO 21 herself into Indian society. In this way, she was the traditional British wife. As a woman, though, Lady Impey had to be careful about her choices to interact with Indian society. Should she don Indian clothing and participate in Indian traditions, she would be shamed for aligning herself with the sexual temptresses of India. Furthermore, she would be shamed for participating in a backward society that actively marginalized women (at least to the imperialists of Europe). All of these conflicting interests truly complicated Lady Mary Impey’s quest to define her role as a woman, a wife, and a mother in India. As one of the few and one of the first British women to move abroad, Lady Impey had no basis of knowledge and no established social standards to act upon -- she had to craft her own identity and hope that the way she acted was deemed proper. Therefore, how she presented herself was of utmost importance, particularly within the portraits that would outwardly display her status and role in colonial India, such as Zoffany’s The Impey Family Listening to Strolling Musicians. Lady Mary Impey’s role in Zoffany’s group portrait reveals a lot about her chosen role as a British woman in colonial India. In the portrait, she is both involved and uninvolved with the scene around her. Though she sits within the frame of the painting, her gaze breaks out into the viewer’s space. This dual existence within the group portrait reflects Lady Impey’s dual existence in colonial India. As she does in the portrait, Lady Impey existed as both an insider and outsider in colonial India. Though she was British and therefore a foreigner in India, she actively participated in Indian culture and took an interest in the natural world within South Asia; Lady Mary Impey toed the line between British and Indian. That being said, Lady Impey’s dress and disengagement within the portrait mark her as a link back to

Britain. Rather than dressing in traditional Indian attire and engaging with the Indian musician as her daughter and husband do, Lady Impey wears a European-style gown and sits quietly. In this way, Lady Impey acts as a distinctly British woman, as she actively chooses not to participate in the Indian scene around her. Finally, Lady Mary Impey’s gaze out toward the viewer acknowledges the scene she sits in-- she knows that she cannot participate for fear of risking her reputation in England. To a British audience, such an apology would be necessary, as Indian culture was seen as lesser. In acknowledging the scene and seemingly asking for our forgiveness, Lady Mary Impey characterizes herself as a ‘civilized’ British woman. Lady Impey presence attempts to exist both within and outside of India and Indian culture. Thus, as Zoffany’s portrait implies, Lady Mary Impey had a complicated experience in India. As a British woman abroad, she was forced to create a role for herself, balancing the different interests and opinions of what the ideal colonial wife would be. For herself, Lady Impey had to consider her personal artistic and intellectual interests. For her family, Lady Impey had to manage the home, closely interacting with her Indian servants and therefore somewhat integrating herself into Indian society. For the people of England, Lady Impey had to consider the reputation of Indian women and Indian society. If she integrated herself too much, she risked association with a supposedly backward society that devalues women; integrate herself too little and she risked failing and managing and maintaining her household. Lady Mary Impey had to consider and balance these varying conflicting interests to define her role as a British woman in colonial India. Johann Zoffany’s group portrait The Impey Family Listening to Strolling Musicians reflects this idea of inclusion and exclusion.

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW BIBLIOGRAPHY Beth Fowkes Tobin, ‘Accommodating India: Domestic Arrangements in Anglo - Indian Family Portraiture’ Picturing Imperial Power: Colonial Subjects in Eighteenth Century British Painting (Duke University Press, 1999) 82 - 110. Chattopadhyay, Swati, ‘Blurring Boundaries: The Limits of "White Town" in Colonial Calcutta’ Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians Vol. 59, No. 2 (Jun., 2000) 154 - 179. Ghosh, Durba ‘Colonial companions,’ in Sex and the Family in Colonial India: The Making of Empire Studies in Indian History and Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2006) 35 - 68. Johns, Alessa. “Bluestocking Studies 2011-2017: The Transnational Turn.” Literature Compass. 14, no. 11 (2017). J. P. Losty. “Impey [née Reade], Mary, Lady Impey.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004. López, Nuria. “British Women versus Indian Women: the Victorian Myth of European Superiority.” Essay. In Myths of Europe. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007. Nechtman, Tillman W. “Nabobinas: Luxury, Gender, and the Sexual Politics of British Imperialism in India in the Late Eighteenth Century.” Journal of Women’s History 18, no. 4 (2006): 8–30.

ISSUE NO 21

ALIGNED IN THOUGHT, OPPOSED IN EXECUTION: MALEVICH AND TATLIN REDEFINING OF FORM, MOVEMENT, AND SURFACE

KELSEY CARROLL, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY ‘24

T the 1915 Last Futurist Exhibition “0.10” in Petrograd, Kazimir Malevich and Vladimir Tatlin were in direct opposition to one another, driven to distinguish themselves. In Malevich’s From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: The New Realism in Painting (1878-1935), select passages from the text highlight key differences between the two artists’ ideologies in defining the role of the artist and artwork. Through an analysis of Malevich’s Suprematist Painting (1915) and Tatlin’s Selection of Materials (1914) alongside this text, one can see the artists’ shared departure from Cubism and toward distinctly different paths in Suprematism and the “new material creation” of Constructivism, respectively.1 The two are aligned in their dissatisfaction with Cubist and Futurist representations of the New SoviKazimir Malevich, Suprematist Painting (1915) et Reality, yet opposed in how these forms should be replaced. summarizes his new Suprematist apIn opposition to what he proach to form by saying “The artist can calls “collective art.”2 Malevich fixates be a creator only when the forms in his on the idea of the artist as “creator.” picture have nothing in common with An idea comparable to Tatlin’s Constructivist perspective on using material nature. For art is the ability to construct, not on the interrelation of form…Forms form to “create”a new reality, Malevich must be given life and the right to individu1 2

Christina Kiaer (April 20, 2021).

Harrison, Charles, Paul Wood, and Kasimir Malevich. “Kasimir Malevich (1878-1935) From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: The New Realism in Painting.” Essay. In Art in Theory, 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, 167. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2007.

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW eliminating a recognizable subject completely. To Malevich, previous Cubist attempts to do the same were “failed,” practicing only “the art of skillful reproduction.”6 The shapes in Suprematist Painting overlap each other to give the viewer only the slight semblance of depth. Eventually, Malevich will go even further in his pursuits to deconstruct traditional form, taking on a method of “zero of form” in 1915 in Black Square (1915). This method reduced form to the “basis of convention,”7 untethered to any representation to a current, recognizable world and depicting only itself in a detached space. Just as Malevich attempts to “give life” to his forms, Tatlin aims to honor physical, material objects in their raw forms, rather than using these materials to create something new. His approach differs from that of Malevich in that “form” for Tatlin is metal, wood, or any object used for construction, Vladimir Tatlin, Selection of Materials (1914) rather than a painterly depiction of al existence.”3 or Malevich, form is an it. In Selection of Materials, Tatlin presents object or depiction wholly disconnectthe materials for what they are, giving ed from any narrative, object or image them their own “individual existence.” in real life. This idea is present in his Constructivists like Tatlin may work Suprematist Painting through “color have felt more at home with the tiblocks” that are ‘self-sufficient,’4 depicttle “worker” than “artist.” Malevich’s ing color as pure sensation, attempting argument aligning “art” with the “ability to “escape specificity”5 of meaning to construct” highlights the Constructhrough any colors rooted in popular tivist debate between composition and culture. Malevich focuses on destroyconstruction.8 While Tatlin’s eventual ing the figure/ground dichotomy by creation of an efficient wood-burning 3 4

Harrison, Charles, Paul Wood, and Kasimir Malevich, 168.

5 6 7 8

Christina Kiaer (February 15, 2021).

Kiaer, Christina. “Futurism and Suprematism.” Introduction to Modernism, Winter 2021. Lecture, February 15, 2021 Harrison, Charles, Paul Wood, and Kasimir Malevich, 168. Christina Kiaer (February 15, 2021).

Harrison, Charles, Paul Wood, Alexander Rodchenko, and Varvara Stepanova. “Alexander Rodchenko (1891-1956) and Varvara Stepanova (1894-1958) 'Programme of the First Working Group of Constructivists'.” Essay. In Art in Theory, 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, 317–18. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2007.

ISSUE NO 21 stove and hygienic suits was seen as a loss, each of his constructivist additions to Soviet production during the NEP period were built upon his original ideas about “form,” as seen in his laboratory works. Despite Suprematism and Constructivism moving in opposite direc-

space (idealism), Tatlin was in motion toward the earthly realm (materialism). 9 According to From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism, “In order to depict the movement of modern life, one must operate with its forms.”10 By working toward the furthest reductions of form

Kazimir Malevich, Black Square (1915) tions, Malevich and Tatlin’s works both show the artists’ ability to “give life” to opposing, self-determined “forms.” In Malevich’s text, From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: The New Realism in Painting, the two artists find common ground when defining “movement”, despite implementing movement in differing ways. While Malevich moves toward a new, artist-led interplanetary 9 10

in his works, the directionality of the shapes in Malevich’s Suprematist Painting is ultimately what shows movement in the piece. The objects in this piece are not themselves located within a physical “knowable” space, rather they “float” aimlessly through the canvas. The large black form seems to be moving forward in space when skewed to look like a distorted rectangle alongside the

Christina Kiaer (April 20, 2021). Harrison, Charles, Paul Wood, and Kasimir Malevich, 171.

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW smaller forms in the upper left-hand corner, allowing the viewer to perceive it as leaning outward toward the viewer. Outside of the picture plane, true movement for Malevich is to move toward a “fourth dimension,” attainable for artists and poets, detached from the limiting language of art and literature, and without reliance on recognizable form. For Malevich, to reach this new dimension, one must destroy the “laws of logic and causality,” as well as the language that “imprisons” society in its war-torn state.11 His struggles against the urge to use language as a sign system in art connects directly to “Zaum,” or “beyond reason,” and its rejection of language to reach a more elevated form of logic.12 Diverging from Malevich, Tatlin finds forms in the physical construction of a new Soviet world. Tatlin is interested in the social, economic, and political movements pushing toward an industrialized future where artists are fully involved in the production of goods. By bringing “construction into production,”13 the Constructivists were attempting to use material form to bring about structural changes outside of the traditional art sphere. In Selection of Materials, Tatlin and his Constructivist compatriots focused on recategorizing artists not alongside poets or writers, but in the same space as factory and construction workers. Malevich’s text From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: The New Realism in Painting reveals another layer of the two artists' varied approaches to style, this time in reference to the “surface”. In his critique of Futurist Painting, Malevich states “But 11

a surface lives, it has been born. The grave reminds us of a dead person, a picture of a living one.”14 The surface for Malevich is the picture plane, the canvas itself as an object. Rather than attempting to fool the viewer into thinking the object is something other than paint on a surface, Malevich embraces the picture plane as a “2D” object and emphasizes the physical nature of the canvas. His perception of “surface” is prevalent in Suprematist Painting, where the visual object lacks the traditional perspective that one would expect in an “academic” painting, where the viewer almost forgets the painting is flat and the scene does not actually recede into the distance. Malevich embraces the idea that the art does not need to be about something other than itself, and it instead revolves around the reduction of form and color on the physical surface. Malevich is attempting to find the most reduced form that will qualify the surface as a “painting”. Contrastingly, the surface for Tatlin is the various materials and textures of industrial production: sheets, rods of metal and wood planks. By a surface being “born,” Constructivists might interpret this as laboratory work finally being implemented into real production, as the material surface will be “living” out a purpose outside of the walls of the gallery. This transition between laboratory work and production was extremely crucial to Tatlin and the Constructivists as their goal was to work alongside industrial/factory workers and bring art into production to serve the public. In Selection of Materials, the piece emphasizes Tatlin’s “distrust

Kiaer, Christina. “Introduction to Malevich.” Art of the Russian Revolution, Spring 2021. Lecture, April 15, 2021.

12 13 14

Christina Kiaer (April 15, 2021). Kiaer, Christina. “Construction into Production.” Art of the Russian Revolution, Spring 2021. Lecture, April 29, 2021. Harrison, Charles, Paul Wood, and Kasimir Malevich, 174.

ISSUE NO 21

of the eye,” “placing all reason under the control of touch”15 in its use of tactile materials that jut out into the viewer’s space. Placing all importance on touch emphasizes the need for the surface to act as a “subject” of the piece itself, rather than attempting to mask the surface by turning the materials into something else. Malevich and Tatlin agreed that to truly depict the new reality, the visual languages of Cubism and Futurism hadn’t gone far enough in aiding the development and representing the revolutionary reality of a Soviet world. In their respective Suprematist and Constructivist workspaces, the two determined their own definitions of form, movement, and surface that supported their beliefs of how an artist could best serve the socialist cause, whether in developing a new dimension, or working to produce for the present one.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Harrison, Charles, Paul Wood, and Kasimir Malevich. “Kasimir Malevich (18781935) From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: The New Realism in Painting.” Essay. In Art in Theory, 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, 167. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2007. Harrison, Charles, Paul Wood, Alexander Rodchenko, and Varvara Stepanova. “Alexander Rodchenko (1891-1956) and Varvara Stepanova (1894-1958) 'Programme of the First Working Group of Constructivists'.” Essay. In Art in Theory, 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, 317–18. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2007. Kiaer, Christina. “Abstract Art in Revolution: Constructivism.” Art of the Russian Revolution, Spring 2021. Lecture, April 27, 2021. Kiaer, Christina. “Construction into Production.” Art of the Russian Revolution, Spring 2021. Lecture, April 29, 2021. Kiaer, Christina. “Introduction to Malevich.” Art of the Russian Revolution, Spring 2021. Lecture, April 15, 2021. Kiaer, Christina. “Futurism and Suprematism.” Introduction to Modernism, Winter 2021. Lecture, February 15, 2021

Kiaer, Christina. “Abstract Art in Revolution: Constructivism.” Art of the Russian Revolution, Spring 2021. Lecture, April 27, 2021.

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW

A T ORTURED ARTIST’S HAUNT : W. EUGENE SMITH AND THE JAZZ MADIE GIACONIA, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY ‘24 LOFT

Smith at his loft window, 1957-65.

N 1957, legendary photojournalist W. Eugene Smith abandoned his suburban life and moved into a dilapidated loft apartment at 821 Sixth Avenue, New York City. The building, a hotspot for jazz jam sessions, was alive with music and people at all hours of the day—and Smith took it upon himself to document every inch of it. Before his residency at 821 Sixth Street, Eugene Smith had cultivated an illustrious career as a photojournalist for Life Magazine. Camera in hand, Smith photographed everything from soldiers on the front lines of World War II (exemplified by his Okinawa series, 1942) to a rural doctor in impoverished Colorado (the Country Doctor series, 1948).1 His work cemented him among the key founders of the editorial photo essay,

and he became one of Life’s most prestigious photographers. However, Smith’s relationship with the Life editors was tumultuous—their visions for the layout and selection of his photographs often did not align with his. After a blowout fight in 1955, Smith finally reached his breaking point and resigned from the magazine. He was quickly hired by the photo agency Magnum and contracted to photograph a series depicting Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In typical Smith fashion, he dragged the three-week assignment out over four years, dissatisfied but determined to finish what he deemed his magnum opus. By 1957, however, money for the project ran out. Smith abandoned Pittsburgh after shooting 17,000 photos, never to be completed.2

1 “W. Eugene Smith Papers: Guide Series Number Nine,” ed. Charles Lamb and Amy Stark. (University of Arizona: Center for Creative Photography, 1983), 20. 2 Jeremy Lybarger, “Doomed to Pittsburgh: W. Eugene Smith in the City of

ISSUE NO 21 Thus, it was a Eugene Smith in crisis that moved into the run-down apartment building on Sixth Street— “a dirty, begrimed, firetrap sort of a place,” as Smith described it in a 1969 monograph for Aperture.3 Smith, an oft-unstable obsessive, made it his mission to document every corner of the loft. He planted mics around the space; tape-recording hours of music, conversation, and even his own muttered narration.4 He turned his room into a photography studio: aiming his camera out of his broken window to capture the street below, or venturing downstairs to photograph the musicians and tenets that also haunted the building. Over his eight years in the Jazz Loft, Smith snapped Figure 2. Photograph by W. Eugene Smith over 40,000 photos: “ “[The apartment] has claimed… more film than I have ever given to any project,” he noted.5 Huddled by the window, Smith often pointed his camera outwards to encapsulate Manhattan through his eyes. Captured unbeknownst to their subjects, these photos often depicted people at fleeting moments in their daily lives, amidst the city’s constant movement. One, shot from overhead, catches a man at the door of a car, awaiting a companion who has partially exited the vehicle (Figure 1). One cannot be sure whether they are entering the car to depart, or exiting it to stay. Faceless, and caught in a moment of ambiguous motion, the

Figure 1. Photograph by W. Eugene Smith. Steel,” Belt Magazine, March 2, 2015, https://beltmag.com/doomed-to-pittsburgh-w-eugene-smith-in-the-city-of-steel/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAjJOQBhCkARIsAEKMtO3w3-oakH2671Z_jAFsFJM5VItVTATP8juk0BP4JZ9mpaqEtAMrkO0aArGkEALw_wcB 3 Kirstein, Lincoln, and Peter C. Bunnell. “W. EUGENE SMITH: His Photographs and Notes.” Aperture 14, no. 3/4 [55/56] (1969), p. 101. http://www.jstor. org/stable/24471440. 4 Sam Stephenson, The Jazz Loft Project: Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith from 821 Sixth Avenue 1957-1965, (Durham, NC, Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University, 2009), 3-17. perture 14, no. 3/4 [55/56] (1969), p. 101.

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW two figures are merely two tiny cogs in the constant bustle of the city. Smith also experimented with image framing, using a break in his blacked-out window to capture fractured images of the street below (Figure 2). The glass frames the world beyond it in a jagged border, leaving only a strip of the street and two faint figures on the sidewalk visible. The dark, tattered edges create an eerie effect, as though gazing out from a haunted house. Like the photograph of the car travelers, this image’s birds-eye perspective places the viewer in Smith’s spectator position—

and with music,” he wrote in an essay around 1947/48. He credits music with altering his photography, making it less superficial; and soothing his troubled mind: “Now it is an integral part of my life, being a source of great beauty and inspiration to me as well as the balm that eases the pain from my mental, and even my physical, wounds.”6 It was only natural that Smith was drawn to the music alive around him in the loft—and with his documenter’s instincts, decided to capture it not only on film but also on tape. During his time at the loft,

Figure 3. Photograph by W. Eugene Smith and the makeshift frame enhances this sensation, as one could only achieve this particular view if they peered out Smith’s window. But the New York City street was not Smith’s only source of inspiration during his Jazz Loft tenure. Eugene Smith was a self-proclaimed musicophile: “With careful judgment I divide my life into two parts, before music

Smith generated 4,000 hours of tape recordings. Sometimes the tapes captured Smith’s favorite radio shows, other times his conversations with neighbors—and occasionally, they were intimate documentations of groundbreaking musicians’ rehearsals. Since 1954, 821 Sixth Avenue had been a haven for jazz jam sessions, drawing names like Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, and Charles Min-

6 W. Eugene Smith, “An Essay on Music,” in W. Eugene Smith Papers: Guide Series Number Nine, 10-12.

ISSUE NO 21 gus.7 Notably, it became the site of rehearsals for Monk’s famed 1959 live performance series, arranged by composer Hall Overton and accompanied by a ten-piece orchestra—a unique collaboration between jazz and classical music. Thanks to Smith, the process was caught on tape, from the extensive rehearsals to private conversations between Monk and Overton as they arranged Monk’s music. Capturing even the creak of the floorboards under the artists’ feet, the recordings are a complete soundscape of the moment giants from two seemingly opposing genres united in their creativity. Smith, of course, could not help but snap several shots of the rehearsal in action—such as one capturing Monk leaned back, eyes closed passionately and hands lifting mid-dance across the piano (Figure 3). In his quest to document the Jazz Loft recordings, W. Eugene Smith aficionado Sam Stephenson scoured the country to interview anyone who lived in or visited the loft during Smith’s time there. “...I’ve met more than three hundred people along the way,” Stephenson recalls. “Some are famous, but most are unrecorded in the official annals of music, photography, or anything else.”8 This, perhaps above all, is the greatest legacy of Smith’s work. The Jazz Loft was a place where renowned musicians and artists rubbed shoulders with undiscovered performers and normal families—and to Eugene Smith, all were worthy of documentation, whether by tape or camera. His work encapsulated the loft’s identity, bringing the building to life and immortalizing all those who encountered it. 7 “People,” The Jazz Loft Project, http://www.jazzloftproject.org/index. php?s=people. 8 Stephenson, The Jazz Loft Project, 250.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Fishko, Sarah, The Jazz Loft Radio Series. Podcast audio. 2009. https://www.wnyc.org/shows/jazz-loft Kaplan Fred. “The View from His Window,” New York Magazine, December 18, 2009. https://nymag.com/arts/ books/features/62876/ Kenny, Glenn. “Review: The Jazz Loft According to W. Eugene Smith,” September 16, 2016. https://www.nytimes. com/2016/09/23/movies/the-jazz-loft-according-to-w-eugene-smith-review.html Kirstein, Lincoln, and Peter C. Bunnell. “W. EUGENE SMITH: His Photographs and Notes.” Aperture 14, no. 3/4 [55/56] (1969), http://www.jstor.org/stable/24471440. Lybarger, Jeremy. “Doomed to Pittsburgh: W. Eugene Smith in the City of Steel,” Belt Magazine, March 2, 2015. https://beltmag.com/doomed-to-pittsburgh-w-eugene-smith-in-the-city-of-steel/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAjJOQBhCk ARIsAEKMtO3w3-oakH2671Z_jAFsFJM5VItVTATP8juk0BP4JZ9mpaqEtAMrkO0aArGkEALw_wcB Morton, David L. Sound Recording: The Life Story of a Technology. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. Stephenson, Sam. The Jazz Loft Project: Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith from 821 Sixth Avenue 1957- 1965. Durham, NC: Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University, 2009. “The Jazz Loft Project,” http://www.jazzloftproject.org/index.php?s=people. Wilson, John S. “Thelonious Monk Plays his Own Works: Leads Quartet in Concert at Town Hall Devoted to his Jazz Compositions.” New York Times, Mar 02, 1959. http://turing.library.northwestern.edu/loGin?url=https:// www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/thelonious-monk-plays-own-works/docview/114688154/se-2?ac countid=12861.

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW

IMMERSIONS AND THE LIQUID INTERROGATION OF TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC SYMBOLISM

ZADA TIIMOB, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY ‘24

MERICAN photographer An- blood, and urine, and each substance may dres Serrano boldly introduced carry a distinct significance in the context his fascination with the poten- of the figure that it escorts. Overall, the tial for bodily fluids to juxtareligious theme of Immersions capitalizes on pose Catholic religion through his viral this capability in an attempt to encourage piece Piss Christ. The irony of the submer- nonorthodox reconsideration of standard sion of the Christian icon in urine stems Catholic figuration. Andres Serrano’s Imprimarily from the association of Christ with virtue and immaculacy and that of excretion with the opposite. This collocation is a means for Serrano to assert his frustration with the attenuation and cheapening that society Andres Serrano, Piss Christ, 1987 has imposed upon Catholic divinity as a whole1. Specif- mersions series relies on crude bodily fluid ically, urine generally embodies the social media to challenge the traditional attributes excretion of Catholicism in Serrano’s and symbolism associated with various work. Serrano’s Immersions series, which biblical figures. features the submersion of Christian The immersion of the Virgin Mary iconography in liquid, expounds on the in urine contrasts with the purity, respectcapacity for raw bodily fluids to assign an ability, and devotion of her biblical image. alternative meaning to holy figures as in Serrano’s Madonna of the Rocks is a reprothe case of Piss Christ. The primary bodily duction in both name and design of the fluids featured in this series are water, milk, content of the 1496 work by Da Vinci2. In 1

"Andres Serrano Artworks & Famous Photography." The Art Story. Accessed October 27, 2020. https:// www.theartstory.org/artist/serrano-andres/artworks/.

Linnell, Andrew. (2015). “The Mystery of Leonardo's Virgin of the Rocks Revealed”.

ISSUE NO 21 contrast to the original work in which John is relegated to a position on the ground alongside the angel Uriel, Serrano’s rendition depicts Mary with an infantile Christ and John the Baptist in either arm. Serrano’s decision to portray Christ and John as equals in his work consummates the image of Mary as impartial and benevolent in her favor. But if Mary is a paradigm of acceptance, then urine, which is a symbol of desecration and rejection, ridicules that openness. Likewise, if Mary illustrates purity, then the comparative filth of urine sullies her essence. The more commonly circulated title for Da Vinci’s painting is Virgin of the Rocks rather than [Madonna], with the sole difference in terminology being the level of respect assigned to Mary. Madon- Andres Serrano, Madonna of the Rocks, 1987 na, the Italian translation for the phrase “our lady”, The interplay of blood, milk, recognizes Mary as more than simply a and water in the series demonstrates the worthy vessel for immaculate conception thematic inflections to Christ and the pope due to her virginity and implies that her that non-traditional Catholic artwork can respectability is instead the result of more introduce. Perhaps the most standard presubstantial qualities. Whereas “virgin” cen- sentation of Catholicism in the Immersions tralizes Mary’s physical purity as her most series as a whole is White Christ; the photo outstanding trait as a woman, “lady” carshows a young Jesus Christ submerged in ries a more feministic tone which implies a combination of water and milk3 which that the beauty of her being extends to her accentuates the whiteness and thereby demeanor as well. This polite characterpurity of the Christian icon. The inclusion ization of Mary is incongruous with the of Christ in his infantile form rather than vulgarity that accompanies excretion. his adult form further supports the narra3

Hobbs, Robert. “Andres Serrano: The Body Politic.” In Andres Serrano: Works 1983-1993. Philadelphia: Institute Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, 1994; pp. 17-43

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW tive of the association of morality with innocence; though Christ is yet another biblical figure who symbolizes virtue, there is nonetheless a more intrinsically impure element to adulthood than there is to childhood. The crosses on Christ’s body have a decorative quality which dilutes the intensity of their true symbolism to suit the delicacy of his

Pope adds a layer of dubious morality to Catholicism. White Pope may be a recognition of sin as an inextricable component of adulthood; therefore, while a pope may theoretically symbolize all that is just and holy, there exists a possible disconnect between that persona and the person himself. Additionally, the Eucharist exploits the blood of Christ

Andres Serrano, White Pope, 1990

Andres Serrano, White Christ, 1989 adolescence. White Pope shares a conceptual overlap with White Christ in that vestiges of the general associations of Christianity with moral immaculacy are present through the similarly bold white coloration of the pope; however, White Pope poses a more potentially radical theme and interpretation through the presence of blood in the immersion. If the snow-like appearance of White Christ is presumably an emblem for the absolute purity of Christ in his youth, then the interruption of an otherwise unadulterated scene by blood in White

for the same purpose that his crucifixion served: the prosperity of human life. Assumption that the blood in White Pope belongs to Christ would alter the photo to demonstrate the use of Christ’s body for a noble cause and absolve the work of any immoral interpretation. On the contrary, the peripheral and almost trifling position of what could be Christ’s blood in the photo might further comment on the trivialization of his sacrifice, especially when in conjunction with the crucifix in the pope’s hands. While the Church capitalizes on the body of

ISSUE NO 21 Christ in the name of religion, the respect that he receives from society pales in comparison to the greatness of these sacrifices. The blackening and aquatic submersion of Christ and Mary in the final leg of Immersions attests to the ability of unorthodox art to invert and redefine the symbolism of Catholic figures. Serrano produced all of the blackened photos in the series by spray painting the icons within them and then submerging those figures in water; according to the artist, the bubbling that appears in photos such as Black Mary and Black Jesus is unintentional but contributes to a fantastical, aesthetic quality in each work3. Through the introduction of the color black to the subject matter, both photos seem to be direct inversions of the previously mentioned themes of innocence and purity within Catholicism. In a Catholic context, black mainly represents death4, and thus Black Jesus could further extend Serrano’s argument on the symbolic “demise” of Jesus within society. That same suggestion of figurative death may uphold for Black Mary with regards to her physical and moral chastity in the photo. Interestingly, Black Jesus is the only work in Immersions in which Serrano refers to the Savior by his first name; in doing so, Serrano effectively disconnects Jesus from his Christian roots and allows for focus on the figure as an individual as opposed to a martyr. After taking this detail into consideration, the flight of the bubbles surrounding Jesus in the photo could symbolize a departure of the stress that accompanies Jesus’s status as the central 4

sacrificial figure of Christianity. The slackness of Jesus’s posture in Black Jesus along with the leisure of the bubbles around him carry a mellow aura that humanizes Jesus in a way that the Bible fails to do. The submersion of Jesus in water, which is by far the most neutral and nondescript of the liquids in Serrano’s repertoire, almost finalize Jesus’s supposed conversion from the realm of the divine to the realm of normalcy. A more unlikely interpretation of Black Mary and Black Jesus is the literal in which Mary and Jesus appear in an Africanized form. Serrano has experimented with this progressive and provocative redefinition in works such as African Madonna from his Holy Works (2011) series5. The understanding of Jesus as an ethnic being has gained increasing traction and historical supplementation throughout the years. Therefore, Black Jesus and Black Mary may serve as rejections of the Anglo-centric

Bratcher, Dennis. "The Meaning of

Church Colors." The Meaning of Church Colors. 2019. Accessed October 27, 2020. http://www. crivoice.org/symbols/colorsmeaning.html.

"Holy Works." Andres Serrano - Series -

Holy Works - African Madonna. Accessed October 28, 2020. http://andresserrano.org/series/holyworks.

Andres Serrano, Black Jesus, 1990

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW and incorrect racial profile within the Bible that establishes a hierarchy where whiteness reigns supreme. Immersions successfully perverts the biblical presentations of Mary, Christ, and the pope through its skillful incorporation of blood, urine, water, and milk to each landscape. The series achieves this interpretational inflection through manipulations of the connotation that each of these liquids in a broader sense as well as in the context of each figure. Immersions predominantly contrasts the themes of purity and impurity, morality and immorality, and piety and disrespect via the introduction of these liquids. Despite these more obvious dichotomies, there is certainly still potential for alternate interpretation, as evidenced through the seemingly racial scope of Black Mary. Overall, Immersions effectively agitates the standard interpretive and emblematic range of Catholicism within present society.

Andres Serrano, Black Mary, 1990

BIBLIOGRAPHY "Andres Serrano Artworks & Famous Photography." The Art Story. Accessed October 27, 2020. https://www.theartstory.org/artist/serrano-andres/art works/. Bratcher, Dennis. “The Meaning of Church Colors.” The Meaning of Church Colors. 2019. Accessed October 27, 2020. http://www.crivoice.org/symbols/colorsmeaning.html. Hobbs, Robert. “Andres Serrano: The Body Politic.” In Andres Serrano: Works 1983-1993. Philadelphia: Institute Contemporary Art, University ofPennsylvania, 1994; pp. 17-43 "Holy Works." Andres Serrano - Series - Holy Works - African Madonna. Accessed October 28, 2020. http://andresserrano.org/series/holy-works. Linnell, Andrew. (2015). “The Mystery of Leonardo’s Virgin of the Rocks Revealed”

ISSUE NO 21

NAUTCH W OMEN IN AND OUT OF CONTEXT : MULTIPLE MEDIUMS AND IMA GE TYPES T O PERPETUATE THE FEMALE COURTESAN VISUAL ROSE AKCAN, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY ‘24 CATEGORY

HE Indian nautch girl embodies the allure that men sought to witness and women desired to embody. Based on the Hindi word nach or nac, meaning dance, the term nautch is a British distortion.1 From their beginning, nautch girls were constructed along colonial lines. The nautch girl’s cultural persistence as a visual category throughout Indian history orients the individual woman within a larger collective, thus creating two lenses for these performers to be examined. Female representation in the realm of nautch portraiture across different art styles and mediums correlates with a shifting public view of nautch performance. Overwhelmingly, group portraits featuring nautch women exist in a greater amount than individual portraits. The artist’s approach to visualizing the nautch girl speaks to their codependent cultural role which deemed their autonomous selves secondary. This strategic visual representa1 Walker, Margaret. “The

tion of nautch girls proposes that context affects their widespread perception and categorizes these cultural performances in a gendered space. Distinguishing between nautch and tawa’if performers establishes the contingency of the identities of Indian female performers based on their reputations. Examining the connotations of different courtesan performers in the Awadh region of India, for example, reveals the outward influences that shaped the widespread identities of these women.2 Tawa’ifs were highly skilled and respectable female performers who were associated with the Nawab’s court, a high rank of Indian royalty.3 Their duties ranged from prostitution, dancing, singing, and preserving pleasant relations with patrons, yet they maintained a well-regarded position in society as sophisticates who interacted with

‘Nautch’ Reclaimed: Women’s Performance Practice in NineteenthCentury North India,” no. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies (September 4, 2014): 551–67.

"FROM PARI KHANAS

TO LAL BAZAARS AND FURTHER AWAY: FEMALE PERFORMERS IN NINETEENTH CENTURY AWADH." Pakistan Journal of Women's Studies = Alam-e-Niswan = Alam-i Nisvan 28, no. 1 (2021): 1-20

Ibid., 3.

Figure 1 Samuel Bourne, Native Nautch at Delhi, 1864, ‘India - Groups. 1874,’ photograph.

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW

Figure 2 Phillip Francis Stephanoff (artist) and Louis Haghe (lithographer), A Nautch in the palace of the Ameer of Sind, 1838, Lithograph colored image, 26 x 35.7 cm. India’s elite.4 Tawa’ifs in the royal courts of north India were decidedly distinct from nautch dancers in nineteenth-century Bengal.5 One major trait distinguishing them from nautch women was their tendency to be highly-educated and positioned atop the female social hierarchy.6 Since tawa’ifs relied on patronage to continue performing, when large-scale support eventually declined, courtesan performers would entertain men privately in their own homes. This environmental switch consequently deinstitutionalized their performing 4 5

practice.7 Although tawa’ifs and nautch girls remain distinct, they both belong to an occasionally blurred category of courtly entertainers. Comparatively, nautch girls operated in often more publicized venues than tawa’ifs and were susceptible to objectifying colonial accounts that would sexualize their movements.8 While the tawa’if was thought of as “a dispenser of the aesthetic graces of the courtly culture,” nautch women were regarded as “mere performer[s],” despite their similar

Ibid., 4. Chakravorty, Pallabi. “Dancing into Modernity: Multiple Narratives of India’s Kathak Dance.” Dance

Research Journal 38, no. 1/2 (2006): 115–36.

6 7

Ibid., 7.

Ibid., 181.

Singh, Prakash Vijay. “From Tawaif to Nautch Girl: The Transition of the Lucknow Courtesan.” In South Asian Review, 177-194, 2017.

ISSUE NO 21 technical roles.9 The colonially charged origin of nautch as it differs from nac/ nach in Hindi indicates an oversimplification of these women as belonging to a collective rather than existing independently of their profession. Courtesan women would fall victim to the imaginations of British onlookers, a consequence of embodying an extravagant performer. However, societal perception dictated the main differences between tawa’if and nautch girls.

formers based on their education level and perceived promiscuity. With this distinction in mind, thinking through different mediums communicates diverse messages about context within the nautch visual category. Group paintings, visualizations of the nautch performance in the company of onlookers, represent the placement of performers in relation to other members of society. When viewing the nautch girl as a component of a larger

Figure 3 Charles Shepherd, Nautch - girl, 1862, Albumen silver print, 8 3/4 × 11 in., J. Paul Getty Museum. Nautch girls existed “where a mixture of fascination and repulsion worked together to form an elusive imagery of the exotic native woman,” so their role elicited a complex arena of meaning.10 Colonial Indian society separated these two categories of courtly per9 10 11

experience, an interplay across social classes and gender emerges. Samuel Bourne (1834-1912) and Charles Shepherd (1858-1878) were British photographers renowned for their work in India between 1863-1870.11 Bourne projected a Victorian perspective onto

Ibid., 179. Ibid., 182. Sampson, Gary David. "Samuel Bourne and 19th-Century British Landscape Photography in India."

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW nautch performance is a category that visualizes the intersection between English artists and an Indian cultural spectacle. Francis Phillip Stephanoff ’s (1790-1860) A Nautch in the Palace of the Ameer of Sind illustrates a reception room with the ruler, an Ameer, seated slightly off center wearing a large yellow turban and robe (fig 2). A yellow Figure 4 Gobindram and Oodeyram, Dancing girl, Opaque hue recurs throughout the composition and watercolor on albumen print, early 1900s, 20.2 × 26.7 cm. helps to guide the viewthe subtleties of Indian daily life during er’s eye in the direction the rise of the British Raj.12 Originally a of each figure and where they reside in landscape photographer, Bourne’s attenthis particular social fabric. The focal tion to each person’s body language in point is the nautch performer at the center, his composition of a nautch performance barefoot and clothed in a diaphanous is not surprising (fig. 1). Their differing gold-trimmed body veil overlaying a blue positions urge the viewer to focus on dress. She faces the ruler, suggesting that their movements as components of a he is the receiver of her dance, although nautch dance scene in Delhi (fig. 1).13 In he is occupied in conversation with one the center, Bourne shows four nautch girls of his attendants. Ironically, the scene’s directing their choreography towards a most powerful individual is not paying crowd gathered around to watch. The attention, whereas the spectators on the performers appear blurry, which imparts opposite side appear to be more attentive. a sense of motion throughout the entire The ruler’s dismissive attitude towards spectacle. Behind the performers is a the nautch girl complicates her importance semicircular formation of male musicians. within the depiction. An open, ornate As one’s eye moves outward, Bourne imarchway highlights her form as the light parts a strategy of capturing each person’s shines through and creates a spotlight proximity to the central performance in a effect. The artist lightens her complexion, way that reflects their social importance. which downplays her connection to IndiThree arches frame the entire scene and an beauty standards and aligns her more in the shadows stand additional spectaclosely with an Anglicized appearance. A tors. Bourne seeks to encapsulate a typical white veil delicately outlines her angelic scene of people gathering for a nautch figure, which suggests that her presence performance and in doing so, demonfills the space with a divine quality. Based strates an example of nautch girls in their on the painted medium, Stephanoff original context. captures the entire display rather than The group painting of Indian only the nautch woman, which accentuOrder No. 9204617, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1991.

12 13

Ibid., 10.

Kelly Wise Special to,The Globe. "Samuel Bourne's India and a Study of Work and Workers." Boston Globe (1960-), Jul 02, 1985.

ISSUE NO 21 ates her identity as a performer. With an overwhelmingly male audience who comprise musicians and likely associates of the ruler, this work represents an Englishman’s perspective of a nautch courtly performance. Photographs of candid courtesan performance comprise the archetypal presentation of a nautch dance scene. Considering the climate wherein photographers captured glimpses of nautch girls, between the late 19th and early 20th century, artists were unable to drastically alter the subject matter of their images. Photographs offer a more raw depiction of a person compared to a painting, which lends the artist a larger amount of discretion in assigning representational exactitude. Shepherd captures a nautch girl in the center of a scene framed by one musician on either side (fig. 3). With her left arm bent over her head and the other folded at her waist, her cascading dress draping gracefully over her form, she poses in a typical nautch stance.14 The men hold traditional Indian instruments, all the while maintaining close attention to her movements. Shepherd catches a raw moment within a larger dance performance, which would explain the absence of direct eye contact on the part of the nautch. Rather than capturing a stationery pose, this image seems to be candid and in motion, as if the photographer has caught a brief glimpse in time. This image’s symmetry allows for a clearer focus on the nautch girl, taking special care to notice her ornate attire along with the position of her arms and pointed toe. The archways in the background frame her figure, and each musician's gaze draws in the viewer’s attention. Shepherd’s pho14 15

Ibid., 556.

16 17 18

Ibid., 183.

tograph envisions the nautch figure in a typical setting, without overt stylization. Bourne and Shepherd’s work poses the question of which demographic nautch performers were most accessible to and who their intended audiences were. Originally, nautch performance was intended for the eyes of Indian citizens, men and women alike, although “it was exclusively for the eyes of men that they used their seductive charms.”15 Women were permitted to view nautch performances, but it was established that the beautiful and entrancing characterization of the female performer were products of the male gaze.16 A quote from an Englishwoman about the nautch girl states, “it is their languishing glances, wanton smiles, and attitudes not quite consistent with decency, which are so much admired," articulating their universally captivating ability.17 Outward validation naturally dictates the success of performers, and in the case of courtesan dance, this approval thrived off of male satisfaction. Their status relied heavily on the desires of men, rendering their worth and personal lives less important than their standing as objects of infatuation. Until the British also became enamored with the exotic Indian dancer, tawa’ifs and nautches were both popular in the Indian entertainment world.18Across genders and cultural boundaries onlookers became intrigued by the female courtesan image. Images of the nautch girl in context function as examples of the male colonial gaze at work in these highly charged cultural environments. Photography as a mode of documentation humanizes the nautch woman compared to painting. Dancing Girl by artists Gobindram and Ood-

Singh, Prakash Vijay. “From Tawaif to Nautch Girl: The Transition of the Lucknow Courtesan.” In South Asian Review, 177-194, 2017. Ibid., 182. Ibid., 185.

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW eyram comes from an album of forty hand-colored prints and provides a rare glimpse of the nautch girl in a reclined position, still dressed in traditional performance wear, staring directly at the viewer (fig. 4).19 These artists’ reasoning for using this medium, painting over a photograph to add color, magnifies the side of an otherwise enigmatic female performer grounded in reality. They compose an unobstructed view of the woman removed from her usual context, despite her being dressed in full nautch attire. Perhaps this piece was taken before or after a performance. Her pose communicates a confident aura and she appears to be comfortable, placing one hand under her head while the other rests gently on her leg. This photograph stands out from contemporaneous others because Figure 5 Unknown artist, A nautch dancing the woman’s defiant body language girl, Wellcome Collection (UK), Gouache challenges the standard of the nautch visual category. Under a feminist read- drawing ing of this work, Englishwomen have ing space within the Indian social world articulated a belief stating that the nautch with its colonial influences that raises girl had more freedoms and excitement questions surrounding their femininity through their abilities to dance for men and whether a feminist reading is warrantthan the domestic housewife.20 An article ed. discussing a woman’s qualms with the Similar to the transformation an confines of domestic life argues that a actor may undertake for a new role, nautch white woman secluded in “her Anglo-Ingirls would forgo their identity and adopt dian bungalow” would live a less liberated an alternative persona. Margaret Walker, life compared to the “anomalous Indian woman.”21 The nautch girl’s ability to dance a scholar specializing in the North Indian kathak dance, discusses the required charand embrace a traditionally feminine acteristics of these performance styles and aspect of themselves, luxuries that other stresses the importance of female body women of the time were refused, support language.23 In one of the listed twenty gats the possibility of a feminist reading.22 (a form of choreography) the dancer is to Nautch girls inhabited a thought-provok19 20

Concrete information about Gobindram and Oodeyram’s first names and life spans are unknown.

Jagpal, Charn. "“Going Nautch Girl” in the Fin de Siècle: The White Woman Burdened by Colonial Domesticity." English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920 52, no. 3 (2009): 252-272.

Ibid., 254. Jagpal, Charn. "“Going Nautch Girl” in the Fin de Siècle: The White Woman Burdened by Colonial Domesticity." English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920 52, no. 3 (2009): 252-272.

22 23

Ibid., 253.

Walker, Margaret. “Courtesans and Choreographers: The (Re)Placement of Women in the History of Kathak Dance.” In Dance Matters: Performing India on Local and Global Stages, 279–300, 2021.

ISSUE NO 21 “go around the entire gathering, locking eyes with the audience members” and perform using “subtle body movements” to create an entrancing viewing experience.24 Nautch performers take a methodical approach to choreography in order to produce a performance that captivates their audience’s attention. Strategic movements such as the batting of eyelashes and pulling of shawls over bodies in a sensual manner communicate an air of desire that Indian and British audience members expected.25 Gats would use adjectives such as “amorous” and “flirting” to communicate the mesmerizing effect of the nautch girl.26 Each performer worked towards achieving this mysticism and fully embodying the charm of the nautch ideal. Thus nautch girls sacrificed their individuality for the sake of producing a pleasurable visual experience. Paintings of nautch girls—as opposed to photographs—tended to reinforce the presumption that nautch girls had less relevant individual existences compared to their identity as adored entertainers. As a reflection of this sentiment, art depicting nautch girls would stray from being individual portraits and frequently omitted the woman’s name within the title or description of the work. These contextual choices compound to alter the way in which viewers receive these images. Paying less attention to a female dancer’s unique character and centering on her role as a form of pleasure for the male and colonial consumer reduces their agency. Male, western painters who had traveled to India for a portion of their career most commonly took it upon themselves to il24 25 26 27

Ibid., 284.

28 29

Ibid., 864.

lustrate nautch girls and other glimpses into life in India.27 While courtesan women made a living out of providing enjoyment and pleasure for mainly men, performances were accessible to all members of society.28 These foreign artistic endeavors were most commonly fuelled by an interest in the exotic woman of India, which for so long was thought of as “a kind of fairytale land known only through commercial contacts” and out of a desire to globalize one’s career.29 Analyzing the existing mediums of nautches illuminates the emphasis or silencing of individuality among female performers, who altogether fell into a classification of commercialized entertainment. An illustration of a nautch girl causes the performer to lose her individual identity for the sake of perpetuating a fantasy. A gouache drawing in London’s Wellcome Collection by an unknown artist presents an interpretation of the nautch woman as a character (fig 5). Similar to Gobindram and Oodeyram’s break from tradition, this subject gazes intently at the viewer and occupies most of the composition. The setting is also comparable between the two, considering that both works feature a lone woman in authentic nautch attire situated in a plain indoor environment. She carries herself in traditional nautch fashion, with her arms folded towards her face, and the rest of her body clearly posed. This artist’s use of line brings texture to the fabric of her skirt and adds depth to her shawl. Her skirt splays outward to create a semicircular hem, and she is adorned with ornate jewelry and arm bangles. Here, the atten-

Ibid., 282. Ibid., 284.

Archer, Mildred. "BRITISH PAINTERS OF THE INDIAN SCENE." Journal of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce 115, no. 5135 (Oct 01, 1967): 863.27 Ibid., 864. Ibid., 864.

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW tion to costume and color overshadow an interest in her physical form. Qualities that would provide the viewer with context or features to distinguish her identity, including a name or naturalistic features, are absent from this drawing. Comparing photographs of nautch girls with paintings like this one and other stylized interpretations emphasizes the divide between the stereotypes of nautch performers and their realities. Again, we see how the West views a woman’s status as a nautch girl as more important than her personhood. Returning to Shepherd’s photograph, which exemplifies a nautch woman within her context, the gouache illustration also captures a nautch girl in isolation. She is the singular subject matter, laying in front of a largely bland background and an ornately decorated carpet. By stripping her of the typical nautch environs, where she would usually be surrounded by accompanying musicians, this portrayal challenges the visual standard. Viewing a nautch girl out of her usual context of performance, surrounded by other individuals, offers a stark contrast to the aforementioned artists’ isolated rendering of this woman. The viewer cannot relate her to an accompanying musician or pay less attention to her independent existence in the way they can when viewing group portraits. While individual portraits of nautch girls remain scarce, those in existence offer remarkable insight into the oft-neglected humanity of these performers. The implications of an artist’s depiction of nautch girls, either within their common context or individually, speaks to their multifaceted role. The hierarchy of Indian courtesan performers relied on how others—primarily colonial men— perceived them. Photographic evidence of nautch performances align with reality more closely than interpretative mediums such as the gouache painting technique. Even though two works may feature a

nautch girl alone, without the company of a musical troupe or an audience, a photograph can communicate a wildly different message from a drawing. Due to the transformative effect of the persistent nautch visual category, the truth of a nautch girl's identity depended on the imposed view of outsiders and the artist alike. The surrounding context of a nautch girl operates similarly to the way in which circumstances affect the meaning of an object. Evaluating the nautch girl within the artistic domain addresses a fissure between concerns about whether their individuality and humanity, separate from an intention to enchant its viewers, ever belonged in an image. An albumen silver print envisioning a single nautch woman, directly looking at the viewer, for example, serves a different purpose compared to a colorful group portrait. Depending on the medium, the prevalence of Indian nautch women in art as components of group performance suggests that their individual identities have lesser importance.

ISSUE NO 21 BIBLIOGRAPHY Archer, Mildred. "BRITISH PAINTERS OF THE INDIAN SCENE." Journal of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce 115, no. 5135 (Oct 01, 1967): 863. http://turing.library.northwestern.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/ scholarly-jour nals/british-painters-indian-scene/docview/1307299768/se-2?accountid=12861. Bautze, Joachim K. “Uncredited Photographs by Gobindram & Oodeyram.” Artibus Asiae 63, no. 2 (2003): 223–46. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3249685. Chakravorty, Pallabi. “Dancing into Modernity: Multiple Narratives of India’s Kathak Dance.” Dance Research Journal 38, no. 1/2 (2006): 115–36. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20444667. "FROM PARI KHANAS TO LAL BAZAARS AND FURTHER AWAY: FEMALE PERFORMERS IN NINETEENTH CENTURY AWADH." Pakistan Journal of Women's Studies = Alam-e-Niswan = Alam-i Nisvan 28, no. 1 (2021): 1-20. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.46521/pjws.028.01.0085. http://turing.library.northwestern.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest. com/scholarly-jour nals/pari-khanas-lal-bazaars-further-away-female/ docview/2559496217/se-2?accountid= 12861. Jagpal, Charn. "“Going Nautch Girl” in the Fin de Siècle: The White Woman Burdened by Colonial Domesticity." English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920 52, no. 3 (2009): 252-272. muse.jhu.edu/article/271155. Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library. "A Nautch in the palace of the Ameer of Sind." New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed December 7, 2021. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/ items/f04db6f0-2989-0133 cd38-58d385a7bbd0. Kelly Wise Special to,The Globe. "Samuel Bourne's India and a Study of Work and Workers." Boston Globe (1960-), Jul 02, 1985. http://turing.library.northwestern.edu/login?url=https://www.pro quest.com/historical-newspapers/samuel-bournes-india-study-work-workers/ docview/1821436116/se-2?accountid =12861. Sampson, Gary David. "Samuel Bourne and 19th-Century British Landscape P hotography in India." Order No. 9204617, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1991. Singh, Prakash Vijay. “From Tawaif to Nautch Girl: The Transition of the Lucknow Courtesan.”In South Asian Review, 177-194, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1080/02759527.2014.11932977. Walker, Margaret. “Courtesans and Choreographers: The (Re)Placement of Women in the History of Kathak Dance.” In Dance Matters: Performing India on Local and Global Stages, 279–300, 2021. https://www.artsrn.ualberta.ca/fwa_mediawiki/images/e/e0/Walker_Reading. pdf. Walker, Margaret. “The ‘Nautch’ Reclaimed: Women’s Performance Practice in Nineteenth-Century North India,” no. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies (September 4, 2014): 551–67.

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW

NICOLE EISENMAN’S PROCESSION

HANNAH BORUCHOV, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY ‘23

ICOLE Eisenman is well known for her figurative, narrative paintings. She has recently been exploring sculpture while maintaining similar themes to her painting practice. The forms she sculpts have cartoonish hands, feet, and noses, similarly distorted to the people she paints. Eisenman also continues to create dispirited figures marching together towards an unknown end. This is seen in Procession, a parade of encumbered, hideous, textured bodies facing the same direction. The sculpture takes a raw, anti-heroic twist on a procession, which is usually defined as an orderly parade. The forms of Procession work together and individually to express an absurdist human condition. Absurdism is a conflict between the human desire to find meaning and humanity’s inability to discover it in a chaotic world (Miessler), one of the central ideas in Eisenman’s recent sculptural works. I saw Procession at the Whitney Biennial and was drawn to its ridiculousness; it was a collection of hideous monsters that I couldn’t stop looking at. Occupying a terrace facing the New York skyline, it stood out as a notable spectacle after walking through a gallery of abstract, abstruse paintings. It was foul and seemingly nonsensical, sparking passionate conversations. Visitors had visible reactions while observing the outlandish details of the installation. Procession is a story about the absurdity of the human condition, and humanity’s anti-heroic search for meaning in an irrational universe; This sculpture embraces the absurdity of that journey. Each individual in the clan trudges through, stuck in cement or in a wad of gum, boorishly marching forward towards the same unknown goal. It is the antithesis of

Washington Crossing the Delaware, a painting in which the American flag is held up high by valiant soldiers. One figure in Procession attempts to carry a flag and thus uphold nationalist ideals, but the flag is just a pile of goop with a deflated eagle at its end. This image is the opposite of a courageous, proud American; it is the reality. The unfortunate truth of our existence is its hardship. It is challenging to accept the human condition of struggle and melancholy as it is, but Eisenman puts this idea right in front of us. These sculptures aren’t meticulously shaped to be an exact replica of a perfect human. They’re bent over, distorted, moving through life in a haze of absurdity; it is a striking image of human existence. Looking at Procession, you can’t help but wonder what the structures are walking towards. In the context of absurdism, they must be walking towards a nonexistent end just as Sisyphus is pushing a boulder to the top of a hill. The word “procession” implies a ceremonial and valorous parade. However, this sculpture contains the effortful movement of a parade without the heroism. The group is trudging through life, but they seem to be stuck. At the front of the group there is a towering man casted in bronze, holding a stick that slowly moves. He is hindered by a wad of gum stuck to his foot and tuna cans on a stick perched on his shoulder. The characters are ostensibly in motion, but remain stuck in place, speaking to the limitations of sculpture and heavy, solid materials as a medium. One figure is on a cart that cannot move because of its square wheels. The square wheels act as a burden, just as Sisyphus is burdened by his endless task (Camus). In the context of the myth of Sisyphus, the folks in this piece could be an

ISSUE NO 21 allegory about humanity’s pointless search for purpose in an absurd, chaotic world. The figures in Procession are on the path to realization, one after the other, locked in an existential conundrum. Their existence depends on each other because they compose the same system: the meaningless universe we share.

eryday life for the average person. This shared endeavor of life is depicted through the heavy materiality common among the different sculptures. The three huge busts sit on top of solid blocks of wood and logs with a strap tightly secured around the base, pulled by nothing. These busts are made of bronze or plaster with rough

Nicole Eisenman, Procession, 2019-2020, Photo Courtesy of artnews.ccom There’s an undeniable theatrical connection of bodies in Procession. It recallsSamuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, a play about two men waiting for a man who never arrives (Beckett). This play is about people attempting to live in a world that doesn’t make sense. The audience wonders why they’re waiting, just as the audience of Eisenman’s work might wonder what the people are marching towards. The sense of being physically stuck in a single moment in Waiting for Godot directly connects to the implication of movement contradicting the limitations of sculpture as a medium in Procession. Both works also emanate the feeling of being frozen in existential crisis and hopelessness. Eisenman illustrates the struggle of ev-

textured surfaces, revealing Eisenman’s physical movements in the obscured physiognomies. The two polished, burly, bronze bodies stand captured in effortful movements, each lugging a pole on their shoulder. There’s a physicality to the members of Procession which is immediately impactful to the audience. When looking at a painting, there’s a two-dimensional screen of canvas between the viewer and the idea, whereas sculpture is right there in front of us. Just like the characters, we experience the world in three dimensions. The audience can feel the struggle simply by being there, and might even see themselves in the faceless members. Most of Eisenman’s work involves dejected people walking in the same direction,

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW be associated together as part of the same installation. Their disconnection highlights their connection of coexistence and common experience of the impossible quest for purpose in a pointless world. Similarly to many of Eisenman’s paintings, Procession tells the fantastical narrative of the juxtaposition of darkness and humor. The cartoonish figures are individually comical and as a random, seemingly unrelated group. The most ludicrous part of the installation, titled “Museum Piece Con Gas,” is the central component kneeling on the squarewheeled cart that lets out a gas machine fart every few minutes (Cotter). It’s a humiliated tar and feathered person bent over in a cat cow position, dripping in mustard Nicole Eisenman, Procession, 2019-2020, Photo Courtesy of yellow goop. This element Matrons & Mistresses of Procession is reminiscent which is evident in Procession. Although of an ancient Greek satyr they are marching towards a common goal, play, typically performed between tragethe sculptures are all independent. They’re dies. Just like a satyr, the flatulent figure all placed in the same direction even has shaggy legs and attached phalluses, though they’re strangers to each other, strategically placed between tragic heroes, reminiscent of a snapshot of a sidewalk in which are the surrounding downtrodden New York. Humans have a duality as com- forms. The satyr is a complex being. He is munal beings who simultaneously have more insightful than man, yet has “inexstrong senses of individualism. Everyone haustible animal appetites for wine, dance, is on their own independent journey, but and sex” (Shaw 4). The procession looks they’re together in a community, heading like a parade of drunk, airheaded people. towards the same goal, lumbering along. For the purpose of this analysis, we asThe characters are made with different ma- sume that these people are sentient beings terials and posed in different movements, capable of complex thought and existential which implies that they are unique people contemplation. Eisenman invites the overdespite the clear intention that they should lap between humor and the complexity of

ISSUE NO 21 man. She uses humor as an honest tool for communication. The world is a strange, degraded place where you can also find some comedy and satire. Similar to the sculptures, we’re all on a search for meaning, whether we’re protesting to reform society or writing existential plays. It is what we fundamentally have in common as humans, even if we do things to distract ourselves from that existential deliberation, such as getting drunk. None of those distractions allow us to completely escape. The search for meaning still pulls us down. The figures in Procession are stuck in plight both physically and metaphorically, experiencing hopelessness beneath the external asininity. The flatulent figure on the cart is ditzy, but also grotesque and falling apart, much like the surrounding masses. Eisenman’s sculptural humor makes light of human pretentious ideals of heroism and excellence. It adds a lighthearted nature to what the sculpture really is: An honest allegory of the human condition. Nicole Eisenman’s Procession reminds us of our humanity and the anti-heroism of our lives. Her work reminds us to realize the shared absurdist experience as humans, even if we all appear wildly different on the outside. Placing the figures in the same direction encourages us to think about what the sculptures have in common: a mutual interest in a search for meaning, but that’s quite the difficult and often anti-heroic quest when you live in a meaningless world.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot: Tragicomedy in 2 Acts. , 1954. Print. Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus. Translated by Justin O'Brien, Penguin Classics, 2000. Cotter, Holland. “The Whitney Biennial: Young Art Cross-Stitched With Politics (Published 2019).” The New York Times, 16 May 2019, https://www.ny times.com/2019/05/16/arts/design/whitney-biennial-review.html. Miessler, Daniel. “General Absurdism, and How It Applies in Everyday Life.” Daniel Miessler, 17 December 2019, https://danielmiessler.com/blog/how absurdism-applies-in-everyday-life/. Shaw, Carl. Satyric Play: The Evolution of Greek Comedy and Satyr Drama. Oxford University Press, 2014.

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW

HIGHLIGHTING THE FRAME: SCHOLARS HIP ON EUROPEAN PAINTING FRAMES , CIRCA 1890S T O GRACE WU, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY, ‘23 THE PRESENT

OR centuries, art historians have begun to recognize frames as art objects vastly ignored the objects that rather than mere ornamentation. Due to cradle the very paintings they the vast collections of museums, scholars obsess over. The director general working in the museum world often have of the Rijksmuseum, Henk van Os, credits easier access to study frames. Thus, frame this lack of art historical investigation of scholarship assumed the form of collaboframes to a larger emphasis on cultural rative exhibitions, catalogs, books, articles, arguments and aesthetic and iconographic and even a frequently updated blog. The interpretations as opposed to the hiswork to date is significant in understanding torical context of art.1 Paul Mitchell and frames as objects in their own right and Lynn Roberts, authors of the widely cited not purely complementary decor as the frame entry in the 1996 Dictionary of Art, young field continues to expand and grow.4 attribute this lack of scholarship to the In the late 19th century, Wilhelm uncertainty surrounding the authenticity von Bode authored one of the first dedof frames and to the unique position they icated analyses of frames. Published in occupy between the fine and decorative Berlin-based German arts magazine Pan, 2 arts. However, frame scholars such as “Bilderrahmen in alter und neuer Zeit” Henry Heydenryk call attention to the sig- (“Picture Frames in Old and New Times”) nificance of the “indispensable” frame as includes the “finer taste” of frames in the a complement and addition to the artwork 19th century as well as Gothic and Italian 3 that it holds. Starting with Wilhelm von Renaissance framing practices. Von Bode Bode’s Pan article in 1899, members of does not call attention to the lack of prior the art historical community have slowly investigation into frames; rather, he dives 1 Van Os held this position when Prijst de Lijst (translated as “Acclaim the Frame”) was on view in the spring of 1984. The Rijksmuseum exhibit, which showcased 17th-century Dutch frames, was one of the first of its kind. P. J. J. van Thiel and C. J. de. Bruyn Kops, Framing in the Golden Age: Picture and Frame in 17th-Century Holland, Zwolle: Waanders, 1995, 7.

Paul Mitchell and Lynn Roberts, Frameworks: Form, Function & Ornament in European Portrait Frames, London: P. Mitchell in association with Merrell Holberton, 1996, 12.

Henry Heydenryk, The Art and History of Frames; an Inquiry into the Enhancement of Paintings, New York: J. Heineman, 1963, 4.

I would like to acknowledge that the historiography discussed in this paper only includes materials

that were available to me physically, digitally, and linguistically. I have been able to locate the most-referenced and foundational works in frame studies through NU Libraries and online sources, and other sources discussed are simply ones I had access to. The 14 works of scholarship I discuss in this paper are just a miniscule fraction of the knowledge in the field. In a 2014 article, Janet M. Brooke notes, “The 165 bibliographic references painstakingly assembled by my student in 1992 would easily triple today.” Throughout this essay, I use the terms “frame studies” and “frame scholarship” to refer to academic investigations into European framing practices and attitudes. I acknowledge that there is also a rich history of frames outside of this canonized geographic scope, but for the sake of clarity and cohesiveness, this historiography focuses on Western European frames because they are more comparable in their material, construction, and presentation. This essay also includes an American artist active in Europe and Australian framers, and I felt that their inclusion is necessary due to their social proximity and relevance to the discussed European frame literature.

ISSUE NO 21

directly into his analysis. He firmly establishes the scope of his article by only analyzing wooden frames of panel paintings, the earliest of which were medieval European altarpieces. This starting point in his analysis shaped how future scholars, such as Henry Heydenryk, considered the parameters of frame studies. Von Bode also drew on his own experience as a curator in discussing the two 19th-century attitudes towards frames: some people sought to use genuine frames from centuries past to elevate the value of their artwork while others thought that reframing their old paintings in “modern [and] beautiful frames” was “an honor.”5 By acknowledging that frame-painting pairings are subject [Fig. 1 ] (left) Plate 24 of Serge Roche’s 1931 to the whims of their owners, von Cadres français et étrangers du XVe au XVIIIe siècle. Bode points future scholars to The text below the plate reads: “FRANCE. Début consider economic practices and du XVIIIe siècle. Cadre en bois sculpté doré. 137 social attitudes in frame studies. x 105,5, vue.” On The Frame Blog, Lynn Roberts The earliest frame exdirectly compares this plate with a detail (right) of hibition occurred in 1931 with a French giltwood Régence frame in the Musée du Parisian designer Serge Roche’s Louvre that currently holds Ludovico Carracci’s La L’exposition internationale du cadre du Vierge et l’Enfant. XVe au XXe siècle at the Galerie preface, Roche emphasizes that frames Georges Petit. In this historical must be worthy accompaniments of moment, frames were still considered a paintings, which he considers “the highest part of the decorative arts, so such an exwork of art.”6 Although the idea of frames hibition likely followed in the steps of the as a noble — but nevertheless, decora1925 International Exhibition of Modern tive — complement is a consistent theme Decorative and Industrial Arts. Roche’s throughout the preface, Roche’s detailed folio Cadres français et étrangers du XVe au photographs advances frame studies by XVIIIe siècle, which contains photographs of frames from Germany, England, Spain, serving as a visual survey collection of Eu7 France, Italy, and the Netherlands, accom- ropean frames. The majority of the folio contains 152 plates, each featuring a “clear panied the Georges Petit exhibit. In the 5 Wilhelm von Bode, “Bilderrahmen in alter und neuer Zeit,” Pan, no. 1 (1899): 245. These rough translations were made possible through a word-by-word referencing of a German-English dictionary. The original text reads, “Denn fast jeder neue Besitzer suchte eine Ehre darin, diese aufs beste herausputzen und vor allem mit einem schönen Rahmen d.h. mit einem derzeit modernen Rahmen zu versehen.”

Serge Roche, “Préface,” Cadres français et étrangers du XVe au XVIIIe siècle: Allemagne, Angleterre, Espagne,

France, Italie, Pays-Bas, Paris: Etienne Biniou, 1931. The original text reads, “Il faut donc qu’un cadre puisse atteindre la plus belle qualité pour s’unir à la plus haute œuvre d’art et que d’autre part, sa verve soit tempérée par de la modestie.”

As Roche mentions, groups of people involved in the frame-making process include: sculptors, designers, repairers, gilders, and goldsmiths. Individuals named in the preface include “the grand ornamentalists” Jean Bérain,

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW and detailed” photograph of a standalone frame, spanning from medieval altarpieces to Régence [Fig. 1] and Rococo frames.8 By allocating each frame its own page, Roche apparently contradicts his assertion that frames are purely complementary decor with the bold display of frames as objects that can be analyzed without their paintings. Thirty years later, Henry Heydenryk published the first anthology of frames, The Art and History of Frames. Heydenryk’s historical survey encompasses the post-medieval Western canon: from medie-

val Europe to the 19th century in countries such as Italy, Spain, England, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States. In the introduction, Heydenryk justifies his exclusion of other eras by noting that frames existed in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, though “the craft of frame making declined during the early centuries of the Christian era and what concerns us here is the development of the frame from the Middle Ages onward.”9 His decision to organize frame development into temporal and geographic categories can be attributed to conventional art historical understandings of artistic styles based on the time and place of their maker and intended viewer. In treating frames similarly to paintings, Heydenryk highlights the visuality of frames in his book; on every spread, there is at least one reproduction of a framed painting or of a standalone frame, and the reader can visually examine the visual evolution of such objects through time. In 1983, Macmillan commissioned widely known frame historians and consultants Paul Mitchell and Lynn Roberts to author an article on European frames in The Grove Dictionary of Art. They Detail of the frame of La Vierge et l’Enfant is courtesy expanded their research into two independently published of The Frame Blog. books: Frameworks and A History of European Picture Frames.10 Daniel Marot, Robert de Cotte, and Charles Le Brun, as well as Abraham Bosse, Jean Le Pautre, Richard de Lalonde, Jean-Charles Delafosse, Jean-Siméon Rousseau de la Rotière, Johann Lutma, Grinling Gibbons, and Thomas Chippendale.

Lynn Roberts and Andrew Levi, “Serge Roche: Cadres français et étrangers du XVe siècle au XVIIIe

siècle – Part 1,” The Frame Blog, 22 Sept. 2020. https://theframeblog.com/2020/09/22/serge-roche-cadresfranc%CC%A7ais-et-etrangers-du-xve-siecle-au-xviiie-siecle/.

It is possible that if early frame scholars, such as Heydenryk, had chosen to widen the scope of their work, then our consideration of which frames are worthy of studying would have been shaped differently. Henry Heydenryk, The Art and History of Frames; an Inquiry into the Enhancement of Paintings, New York: J. Heineman, 1963, 4.

In the “Authors’ Preface in Frameworks, Mitchell and Robert write that Macmillan recognized “the considerable extent of new research within this study deserved general accessibility” beyond the “thirty-four-volume

ISSUE NO 21 the frame maker and dealer — also played a role in frame development and production. In A History of European Picture Frames, Mitchell and Roberts utilize photo galleries of frames to assert a visual argument. The photographic survey accompanies constructed diagrams to further investigate how frames were handled by their contemporaries. This analysis allows the audience to understand that frames were bought and sold with or separate from their paintings, which means a frame could be coupled with a painting from an entirely different era and country. Due to the painting owner’s wish[Fig. 2 a] Pages 124 and 125 of John W. Payne’s Framing the nine- es of presentation, teenth century: picture frames 1837-1935. This page discusses an early every viewing experience of the pairing is 20th century frame by Australian frame maker S. A. Parker. The unique and becomes catalog-style book is among the first of its kind in frame studies and boldly declares frames as objects worthy of being studied as more complex with each new owner. their painted counterparts. While curating the first British exhibiFrameworks revolutionized how scholars tion on portrait frames, National Portrait considered the materiality and economics of frames. By considering the transactions Gallery curator of 18th-century art Jacob Simon sought to answer the question: “[H] of frames from raw materials to display, ow were decisions on framing made by the Mitchell and Roberts deepened the levartist, architect, patron or framemaker?”11 el of understanding of how individuals Simon and his team chose to focus on beyond the artist and patron — namely colossus.” Thanks to the work of other scholars, which are mentioned in the introduction, frames have found themselves important enough to the art history discourse to be included in the extensive encyclopedia. This understanding allowed the authors to extensively expand on their anthology entry, of which is considered a pioneering work within frame studies.

The Art of the Picture Frame was on view from November 8, 1996, to February 9, 1997, at the National Portrait Gallery in London. It was originally intended to be a small-scale educational exhibit, but when the curators realized its significance and potential impact, they expanded it to a large-scale public exhibition.

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW frames of portraits; portraiture is significant as the dichotomy of frame and sitter signals the patron’s/sitter’s motivations of their portrayal to the viewer. Simon opens the book by considering the social history of the frames with the chapter “Attitudes to Picture Framing in Britain.” This chapter focuses on the evolving tastes for frames, from the 16th-century curtain frame to the embracement of the “fitting adornment” of a gilt frame, which leads to mass reframing of non-gilded-framed paintings to match the desired visual aesthetic.12 Simon also acknowledges the demand and curiosity for the history of frames of prints, drawings, and photographs, though he acknowledges “it is too early in the short history of frame studies to do that.”13 The end of the book includes a glossary of frame sections, including cross-sectional and frontal views of their structure, which later scholars adopt and expand upon. Dutch art historians P. J. J. van Thiel and C. J. de Bruyn Kops expanded upon the information presented in the pioneering Rijksmuseum exhibit in their book, Framing in the Golden Age: Picture

and Frame in 17th-Century Holland.14 In the introduction, van Thiel and de Bruyn Kops say there was not enough time to do traditional archival research in the process of writing their book. The authors also critique previous methods of studying frames as isolated objects rather than part of a historical tradition. Van Thiel and de Bruyn Kops harnessed guild archives and the understanding of guild functionings of a “traditional mentality” to establish eight basic models of 17th-century Dutch frames.15 Also through their archival

Jacob Simon, The Art of the Picture Frame: Artists, Patrons and the Framing of Portraits in Britain, London: National Portrait Gallery, 1996, 7.

Ibid., 17. Simon references Percy Fitzgerald’s 1886 article “Picture Frames” in the Art Journal on the universal taste of mankind for gold. I was unable to locate this article through the NU Libraries database; its addition would have been notable as it precedes Wilhelm von Bode’s “Picture frames in old and new times.”

13 14

Ibid., 7.

In the spring of 1984, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam opened its pioneering frame exhibit, Prijst de Lijst (“Acclaim the Frame”), which exhibited 17th-century Dutch frames.

P. J. J. van Thiel and C. J. de. Bruyn Kops, Framing in the Golden Age: Picture and Frame in 17th-Century Holland, Zwolle: Waanders, 1995, 12.

ISSUE NO 21 research, van Thiel and de Bruyn Kops were able to, en masse for the first time in frame studies, identify the identities of those who would have created and developed the frames: the frame maker, ebony worker, and woodcarver (with the finishing touches by the painter and gilder). By investigating the individuals and their roles, their book further shines light on the collaborative nature of frame production. Van Thiel and de Bruyn Kops’ research on the execution of the framework, such as joint construction, also reveal how frames would have been displayed (e.g. suspended from loops of cord/string) and alternate functions for frames (e.g. a canvas stretcher). Starting in the late 1980s, scholars investigated how artists themselves, who were previously removed from the frame making process due to specialization, took agency of how their paintings were presented in frames. Isabelle Cahn, the chief curator of paintings at the Musée d’Orsay, expands the depth of frame studies in “Degas’s Frames,” published in The Burlington Magazine. Edgar Degas served as the perfect case study due to the existence of his sketches of frames and personal letters, which demonstrate “maniac care … to the presentation of his paintings.”16 In addition to referencing these primary documents, Cahn crafts her argument by noting the influential attitudes of Degas’ Impressionist colleagues regarding color theory and other artists motivated in designing their own frames such as James McNeill Whistler and Camille Pissaro, the former of whom Degas exchanged letters with. The publication of this article was likely influenced by the then-upcoming exhibit at the Musée d’Orsay, “Gold and colour: the

frame in the second half of the nineteenth century,” where Degas’ white and colored frames served as “the only extant remnants of the impressionists’ revolutionary framing systems.”17 Thus, through the examination of an individual artist’s frame designs, contemporary scholars are able to study the framing preferences of an entire artistic movement. Another foray of an individual artist and frame designer is Ira M. Horowitz’s “Whistler’s Frames.” Published in the Art Journal, the 1989 article utilizes comparative analysis between the designs of James McNeill Whistler, Pre-Raphaelite Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Degas to trace how the ideas of his contemporaries influenced the American painter’s attitudes regarding the frames of his paintings. In her article, Horowitz also acknowledges the social history of imported Asiatic art and Orientalism during the late 19th century, drawing connections between the Oriental motifs on the frames, porcelain and metalware from China, and woodblock prints from Japan. Horowitz attributes the difficulty of research into Whistler to the lack of his detailed sketches of frame designs and no execution of his earlier designs. However, her comparative analysis method serves as a tool for future frame scholars to follow when this information is unavailable. Almost two full decades after Cahn’s Degas article, Elizabeth Easton and Jared Bark immersed themselves in Degas, “the most inventive and energetic frame designer” of the Impressionist artists, and the execution and reception of his frames.18 In prior anthologies of frame development, the shift from the opulent and gilded ancien régime frames to plain monochrome Impressionist frames is

Isabelle Cahn, “Degas’s Frames,” The Burlington Magazine 131, no. 1033 (1989): 289. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/883839.

The exhibition was on view in summer 1989, and the short notice appeared in The Burlington Magazine’s

April 1989 edition. Ibid., 292.

Elizabeth Easton and Jared Bark, “‘Pictures Properly Framed’: Degas and Innovation in Impressionist Frames,” The Burlington Magazine 150, no. 1266 (2008): 603. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40479868.

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW always noted but discussed in broader pat- and formal pattern of frames. To describe terns. Easton and Bark’s article, “‘Pictures how purchasers paid for frames sepaProperly Framed’: Degas and Innovation rately than the paintings, Victoria Doran in Impressionist Frames,” directly points references letters between Frith and his to the influence of Degas as the individpatron, Thomas Miller. Doran also uses ual pioneering this comparative shift in attitudes and analysis of the aesthetic tastes. They frame decor and analyze his method construction to and logic behind see which frames creating designs, would have been citing sketches of the originals that frame profiles indicFrith intended for ative of the artist’s display, shining thinking of the light on reframing frame as a three-diattitudes and pracmensional object. tices. On the last They also attribute page of the chapDegas’ Impressionist ter, Doran outunderstanding of lines the steps of [Fig. 2b ] The catalog-style of the book color theory and the allows the reader to visually compare the creating a compoeffect of light on the different types of frames and the evolution sitional ornament, eye as instrumental which frame makof the work of an individual frame maker in his frame designs. and his workshop. The logo of S. A. Parkers would have Notably, Easton and er’s workshop on the verso of two frames bought from speBark identify Decialist manufacdated to 1922-27 and (right) the logo of gas’ primary framthe same workshop on the verso of a white turers and glued er, Pierre Cluzel. onto the frame. frame dated to 1930. Although his biograIn mentioning the phy is brief, Cluzel’s compo-making inclusion affirms his process, where presence in frame the frame maker scholarship alongmolds ornamenside a key figure in tation onto the frame development. frame instead of The art historians hand carving the also analyzed the wood, Doran calls verso of frames in attention to the learning about their construction, which trade structure in England, which echoes contrasts sharply with how prior scholars van Thiel and de Bruyn Kops’ focus on mostly focused on the frontal appearance the guild structure in the Netherlands. and cross section. Throughout the chapter, Doran discussInvestigations into frame praces three frame makers associated with tices also existed within the biographies Frith: Mr. Haynes, John Vokins, and James of artists, such as the last chapter of Bourlet; Australian curator John W. Payne William Powell Frith: Painting the Victorian further studies the two latter individuals in Age, “Frith’s Frames and the Business of a book published a year later. Frame-Making.” In this brief chapter, Senior conservator of painting at Victoria Doran discusses the economics the National Gallery of Victoria in Mel-

ISSUE NO 21 bourne, Australia, John W. Payne sought to elevate the individual frames, craftsmen, and companies and challenge the notion that 19th-century frames are poor imitations from frames of prior centuries. His catalog-style book, Framing the nineteenth century: picture frames 1837-1935, features the fifty-five frame makers in the National Gallery of Victoria, most of whom are from the United Kingdom and Australia. Through the process of colonization, Australia has a unique status as being considered part of and not part of the West, and Payne’s book sought to elevate Australian frame makers and insert them into canonical art historical discourse. The layout of the book [Fig. 2a] invokes Serge Roche’s work from seven decades ago; each entry in the catalog includes details one would expect about a painting, such as artist (frame maker), address, date, dimensions, materials and composition, condition, and frame maker’s workshop logo [Fig. 2b]. Payne provides a detail of each frame with an imposed graphic conveying its cross section and structural form, emulating how one would peer into different layers of a painting. In providing these details, Payne places the focus on the frame itself — perhaps a symbolic gesture against tradition of gazing at the painting without much consideration of its frame. The formal execution of the book, most notably in its catalog-style format, boldly declares frames as objects deserving of the attention commanded by paintings. Getty assistant conservator of frames Gene Karraker’s Looking at European Frames: a Guide to Terms, Styles, and Techniques serves as a consolidated resource of terms of frame materials, methods of creation, formal elements, and types of frames. The creation and existence of this guide demonstrates that sufficient work 19 20

had been done in frame studies up to 2009 for there to be standardized terms on the methodology and creation of these objects. The book also includes terms of different frame types from schools and guilds in Italy, France, England, and the Netherlands. This categorization brings frames and paintings on a closer level as scholars continue to analyze frames as art rather than complementary wooden materials to paintings. The most recent contribution to frame studies is Lynn Roberts’ The Frame Blog, a “specialist online magazine devoted to the study of antique picture frames.”19 The blog consolidates eras from Ancient Rome to the 21st century and regions all over the world from canonized Western countries to Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and Japan. Other categories of the blog include supplementary information relevant in the frame world: event promotions, book and exhibition reviews, and recent sales of antique frames. Each blog entry assumes the form of an article, interview, or extensive gallery of pictures of frames; and the breadth of the blog is likely attributed to the additive and editable nature of a website. As someone who has been immersed in frame studies for several decades, Roberts strives to push the field’s boundaries by discussing lesser-known individuals and communities involved in framing.20 Other scholars can post comments on blog entries, literally demonstrating art historians in dialogue with one another. Although the term ‘blog’ may sound informal, the accessible medium of the website adds to its strength; frame scholars, art historians, and members of the general public are able to access this consolidated online resource and continue shaping frame studies. Since frame studies is a compar-

Lynn Roberts, ed., “About,” The Frame Blog, WordPress, https://theframeblog.com/about/. For example: two exhibitions in the 2000s at the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg that displayed

18th to 20th century Russian frames. The blog contains an interview with exhibition curator and catalog author Oksana Lysenko, who later contributed to the blog by reviewing a 2014 exhibition at the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. The catalog of the 2004/2005 exhibitions is no longer available for purchase, so without Roberts’ documentation, I would not have understood that contemporary scholars in Russia are also actively engaging with frame studies.

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW atively new field within art history, we observe the development of professional identity in these academics. In the late 19th century, no art historian would have labeled themselves a ‘frame scholar.’ However, about a century later, individuals such as Paul Mitchell and Lynn Roberts proudly refer to themselves as “frame historians.”21 This development of individual professional identity further points to how frame research is on a trajectory of achieving instrumental significance within the field of art history. The surveyed scholarship in this essay demonstrates how frame studies has followed a predictable journey of initial specific inquiries (von Bode, Roche) to anthology (Heydenryk, Mitchell and Roberts) to country/era specificity (Simon, van Thiel and de Bruyn Kops) to investigations into individuals (Cahn, Horowitz,

Easton and Bark) to categorization and standardization (Karraker). Most of the specialized frame studies to date concentrate around the gilded ancien régime frames and simple Impressionist frames; future research would be more complete with the inclusion of 20th and 21st century framing methods, economics, and reception beyond canonized Europe.22 As frame studies continues to grow, the wealth of research possibilities offers scholars exciting opportunities to learn more about the social history and collaborative production of these objects. With each new investigation, frames achieve another step in being regarded as objects in their own right — alongside the paintings that art historians have long adored.

Paul Mitchell and Lynn Roberts, A History of European Picture Frames, London: P. Mitchell Limited, 1996, front jacket cover.

See Footnote 4 regarding geographic scope.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Brooks, Janet M. “The Historiography of the Frame: Knowledge and Practice.” Journal of Canadian Art History 35, no. 2 (2014): 24–41. Cahn, Isabelle. “Degas’s Frames.” The Burlington Magazine 131, no. 1033 (1989): 289–93. http://www.jstor.org/stable/883839. Doran, Victoria. “Frith’s frames and the business of frame-making.” In William Powell Frith: Painting the Victorian Age, edited by Mark Bills and Vivien Knight. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. Easton, Elizabeth, and Jared Bark. “‘Pictures Properly Framed’: Degas and Innovation in Impressionist Frames.” The Burlington Magazine 150, no. 1266 (2008): 603–11. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40479868. Heydenryk, Henry. The Art and History of Frames; an Inquiry into the Enhancement of Paintings. New York: J. Heineman, 1963. Horowitz, Ira M. “Whistler’s Frames.” Art Journal 39, no. 2 (1979): 124–131. https://doi.org/10.2307/776398. Karraker, D. Gene. Looking at European Frames: a Guide to Terms, Styles, and Techniques. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2009. Mitchell, Paul, and Lynn Roberts. Frameworks: Form, Function & Ornament in European Portrait Frames. London: P. Mitchell in association with Merrell Holberton, 1996. Mitchell, Paul., and Lynn Roberts. A History of European Picture Frames. London: P. Mitchell Limited, 1996. Payne, John W. Framing the nineteenth century: picture frames 1837-1935. Victoria, Australia: Images Publishing Group, 2007. Roberts, Lynn, ed., The Frame Blog, WordPress, https://theframeblog.com/. Roberts, Lynn, and Andrew Levi. “Serge Roche: Cadres français et étrangers du XVe siècle au XVIIIe siècle – Part 1.” The Frame Blog. 22 Sept. 2020. https://theframeblog.com/2020/09/22/serge-roche-cadres-franc%CC%A7ais-et-etrangers-du-xve-siecle-au-xviiie-siecle/. Roche, Serge. Cadres français et étrangers du XVe au XVIIIe siècle: Allemagne, Angleterre, Espagne, France, Italie, Pays-Bas. Paris: Etienne Biniou, 1931. Simon, Jacob. The Art of the Picture Frame: Artists, Patrons and the Framing of Portraits in Britain. London: National Portrait Gallery, 1996. Van Thiel, P. J. J., and C. J. de Bruyn Kops. Framing in the Golden Age: Picture and Frame in 17th-Century Holland. Zwolle: Waanders, 1995. Von Bode, Wilhelm. “Bilderrahmen in alter und neuer Zeit.” Pan, no. 1 (1899): 243-256. http://libserv14.princeton.edu/bluemt n/?a=d&d=bmtnabe189904-01.2.19&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------.

ISSUE NO 21

GOYA’S ROMANTIC COMEDY: THE SERIOUS AND THE SATIRICAL IN FRANCISCO GOYA’S FRIAR PEDRO S HOOTS EL MARA GAT O AS HIS HORSE RUNS OFF, 1806

HE culmination of the eighteenth century and the political turbulence that came with it sparked a shift in European artists' subject matter. For instance, the French Revolution of 1789 politically engaged renowned artist Jacques-Louis David (1748 - 1825) in expressing his revolutionary ideologies through his paintings’ narratives. David began depicting contemporary subject matter in place of classical antiquity, which had been the dominant mode of history painting until then. This shift from classical themes to contemporary ones was reflected with a similar change of how artists began depicting their subject matter. Theodore Gericault (1791 - 1824) shocked the French public with his infamous painting, The Raft of The Medusa1as he portrays a widely recognized contemporary event while subverting traditional modes of history painting through a Romantic perspective2. However, somewhere in between these two influential figures and outside of France, another critical artist was able to challenge traditional history paintings through channeling Romantic themes and captivating his

LISA VICINI, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY ‘23 audiences: Goya. By the time Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746 - 1828) was working as a successful court artist in Madrid, major social changes had ensued in Spain, in which lower classes had begun to enter aristocratic circles.3 Goya’s visual language expressed interest in understanding interactions between emerging and established groups, and the implications of these interactions on Spain’s people.4 Goya ultimately investigates these themes through his production of history paintings depicting contemporary events. Friar Pedro Shoots el Maragato as His Horse Runs Off (Figure 1) exhibits Goya’s ability to morph traditional modes of history painting and expand them to visual narratives of the human experience through Romanticism and humor. By conflating these two almost conflicting elements, Goya establishes his perpetual conversation with popular culture that extends beyond the nineteenth century and Spain. As seen in Friar Pedro Shoots el Maragato as His Horse Runs Off, and the entire series of el Maragato’s capturing, Goya establishes his artistic vision by evoking Romantic themes of heroism and damnation

Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa, 1819, Oil on canvas, 16′ 1″ x 23′ 6″ in (490 x 716 cm), Louvre Museum. Paris, France.

Alicia Caticha, “The Pop Culture of History Painting Part II: Romanticism, The Revolution of 1830” (presentation, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, November 1, 2021).

Jutta Held, “Between Bourgeois Enlightenment and Popular Culture: Goya's Festivals, Old Women, Monsters and Blind Men,” History Workshop Journal 23, no. 1 (1987): pp. 39-58, https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/23.1.39, 40.

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW through a comedic lens, ultimately allowing for the depiction of human nature as an experience of spectacle . The capturing of el Maragato quickly developed into a cause célèbre in Spain. Several weeks after the bandit was caught, a printed pamphlet entitled, The news of exactly everything that happened to Pedro Piñero, alias el Maragato, from when he escaped

as well.7 Upon examining these images, historians believe that Goya must have consulted them when constructing his own representation of the incident.8 Goya’s representation of the event was broken up into six small and lively paintings, each illustrating the progression of Zaldivia and El Maragato’s confrontation, from their first meeting to El Maragato’s defeat. The

Figure 1. Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Friar Pedro Shoots El Maragato as His Horse Runs Off c. 1806, Oil on panel, 11’6” x 15’7” (29.2 x 38.5 cm), The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. the presidio5 until he was captured and injured by Friar Pedro de Zaldivia, the religious laybrother from the order of San Pedro de Alcantara was published6 Apart from the brochure, a series of aleluyas (chronological depictions of the event) presented el Maragato’s capture 5 6

fifth painting, capturing the exact moment Friar Pedro shot El Maragato, conjures the most action and emotion proving to be the climax of the entire series. Making this painting the focal point, Goya strategically invokes his subjects’ experiences, his view-

Enclosed base established by the Spanish government.

Ruth Pike, “Popular Art Forms as Sources for Goya's Series on the Bandit El Maragato,” The Journal of Popular Culture21, no. 1 (1987): pp. 19-26, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1987.00019.x, 1.

Elanor S. Font, “Goya’s Source for the Maragato Series,” Gazette des Beaux Artes, 52, July-December 1951,

Pp 289 - 305.

ISSUE NO 21 ers' emotions, and his own artistic imagination. Unlike the Aleluyas who simply pictorially described the confrontation, Goya’s use of romantic and comedic elements best capture the humor and sorrow of the scene and bring Madridian gossip to life. Both subjects, Friar Pedro and el Maragato, flank the painting, with the friar situated on the left and el Maragato on the right. The subjects stand in an exterior setting, as seen by the gray sky and the grassed hills in the background. Zaldivia’s friarhood is made clear through his brown robes, hood, and the beaded rosary that hangs from his waist. The friar stands with his feet apart, as he faces el Maragato, and intently shoots him. The bright spark produced from the gun’s firing directs the viewer's focus to Maragato, and specifically, the degree to which his presence contrasts the friar’s. Maragato stands with his backside facing the viewer, and his head tilted towards the friar. His tarnished clothes, ripped boots, and unruly hair highlight his role as the marauder and the villain of the story. Behind the men, Goya depicts El Maragato's horse fleeing the violence at the sound of . Goya’s strategic rejection of neoclassical elements and his ability to render a contemporary event as grandiose and allegorical in Friar Pedro Shoots el Maragato as His Horse Runs Off, demonstrates his knowledge of history painting. The term ‘history painting’ was born in the seventeenth century and used to describe paintings that drew their subject matter from classical antiquity, mythology, and the bible.9 Over the course of the eighteenth century, the definition of history painting expanded to more recent historical events, and even contemporary ones in the nineteenth century. Traditional history painting rendered its subject matter under the scope of the Academy.

Although he pays little attention to line and uses free brushstrokes, Goya’s exploring of didactic themes, careful depiction of action, and ability to transform Spanish gossip into high Art, constitute Friar Pedro Shoots El Maragato as a history painting. As the bandit—infamous for his crimes—finally gets defeated by a Friar—a representative of God on Earth—the painting espouses a strong sense of divine intervention and justice. The audience is forced to confront these themes and view the painting not only as a depiction of contemporary news but also as an allegorical altercation of chaos and justice. The projected bullet and its fiery path, as well as the running horse, bring the scene to life. Goya does not rely on realism and tight brush strokes to depict action. Instead, he purposefully relies on the paintbrush’s presence to convey movement. Goya’s ability to depict a historical event as an allegorical scene of action define his series of the friar and El Maragato’s confrontation as an unorthodox history painting. Goya’s ability to synthesize Romantic and comedic elements epitomizes Friar Pedro Shoots El Maragto in showcasing the human experience. Through merging these themes, Goya encapsulates “the multitude of follies and blunders common in every civil society.”10 From the painting’s color palette alone, viewers are introduced to the notions of Romanticism that Goya grapples with. Muted shades of browns, grays, greens, and reds frame the painting as tenebrous and suggestive of dark themes. Friar Pedro stands out as the most heavily romanticized figure; specifically, Goya’s treatment of the friar’s face becomes one of the most alluring, yet enigmatic parts of the painting. The friar’s face, unlike what would be expected from a man shooting a musket—determined and

Tate , “History Painting,” Tate, accessed May 15, 2022, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/h/history-

López-Rey, José, and Francisco Goya. Goya's Caprichos: Beauty, Reason & Caricature. Westport, CT:

painting.

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW alert—is presented disillusioned, diffident, and even reluctant. By depicting him this way, Goya makes eminent the suggestive irony of the scene: a friar devout to God having to commit a violent act that he otherwise would not. Evidently, Goya makes the friar’s conflicted soul palpable through illustrating his face and presents the sheer act of heroism that the friar engages in at the cost of possible damnation. Additionally, Goya’s use of shadows, especially cast from the friar, are consistent with other Romantic themes that the painting manifests. The friar’s shadow seemingly encroaches his opponent’s feet and thus alludes to both El Maragato’s sins as well as his future death via a public hanging .11 The shadow also seems to trap El Maragato from moving; his feet become cemented to the ground, allowing him to be a perfect target for the Friar’s bullet. Finally, Goya uses the depiction of animals, in this case a horse, to portray the inner nature of man as well as behaviors he considered to be psychologically antisocial.12 El Maragato’s horse reveals the uncivilized nature of its owner; the fleeing horse mirrors his owner in creating destruction and not enduring the ramifications of his (El Maragato’s) actions . However, struck by the friar’s presence, shadow, and bullet, El Maragato plummets into the balances of justice. Goya’s works before Friar Pedro Shoots El Maragato as His Horse Runs Off demonstrated a clear engagement with satirical analysis. Therefore, it is no surprise that when depicting this widely famous scene, he would invoke similar notions

of humor and make his Romantic history painting a visual pasquinade —or a satire delivered in a public setting. Goyas’ Los Caprichos, 1797-98, established him as an artist not daunted by satirical commentary and invocations of humor. Although he contested against his plates being vehicles of satire, Madrid society could not help in experiencing a delectation in deciphering his visual narratives and extracting their comedic elements.13 Perhaps because of their satirical content, only twenty-seven sets of Los Caprichos were sold before it was discontinued.14 Nonetheless, Goya’s comedic and satirical subject matter carried on through his art as demonstrated by Friar Pedro Shoots El Maragato as His Horse Runs Off. The clearest comedic element in Goya’s painting comes from the violent act of the gun-firing; although this moment should elicit fear rather than humor, the bullet’s destination proves to serve a sort of comic-relief for the entire debacle. As seen from the direction of the sparks produced by the gun, the bullet penetrates El Maragato’s left buttock. Moreover, the gunshot and distinct fiery path of the bullet point towards El Maragato’s fully fronted rear end. The way in which Goya bends El Maragato’s legs and slightly tilts his body makes his derriere a bulls-eye for the bullet. This becomes the center of the painting's satirical commentary: a friar shooting a bandit in the ass. El Maragato’s tush, however, is not the only one present in the composition. The viewer is also clearly presented with El Maragato’s horse’s behind. The horse, fleeing

Greenwood Press, 1970.

Francisco de Goya, “El ‘Maragato’ Amenaza Con Un Fusil a Fray Pedro De Zaldivia,” Fundación Goya en Aragón, January 1, 1970, https://fundaciongoyaenaragon.es/obra/el-maragato-amenaza-con-un-fusil-a-fray-pedro-dezaldivia/168#bibliografia.

Hugh Stokes, Francisco Goya: A Study of the Work and Personality of the Eighteenth Century Spanish Painter and Satirist (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1914).

Charles Harrison, Paul Wood, and Jason Gaiger, Art in Theory, 1648-1815 an Anthology of Changing Ideas (Oxford: Blackwell, 2012).

ISSUE NO 21

from the scene and displaying his tail, is unable to “save his owner’s ass.” Moreover, when positioned with the paintings that complete the series, the sequence of El Maragato’s capture resembles a modern-day comic strip that works to not only demonstrate action and emotion, but also elements of parody and ridicule. This combination of Romantic themes and humorous ones in Goya’s Friar Pedro Shoots El Maragato as His Horse Runs Off unveils the artist’s ability to engage with the paradoxical nature of the human experience, an experience subject to “follies and blunders.”15 Only through this lens of human experience was Goya able to enter Spain's realm of popular culture. Late eighteenth century social shifts resulting in the reorganization of classes and the rise of the Bourgeois reconstructed popular engagement with visual culture.16 Goya’s distinct mode of imaginative storytelling makes Friar Pedro Shoots El Maragato as His Horse Runs Off a perfect symbol for Spain’s cultural moment. Goya’s series of paintings of El Maragato were never displayed publicly, for his patrons agreeing with a critics’ disapproval of “insipid subjects” like El Maragato’s capturing and death, encouraged Goya to keep the paintings for himself. However, the painting still embeds itself in Goya’s artistic cannon and thus Spain’s popular culture as the silence from its non-existing viewership falls short compared to the influence Goya’s unique style had on future artists and movements. Goya’s imaginative synthesis of Romanticism and humor in depicting

contemporary events disseminates through subsequent generations of artists. From Daumier, in his role in commentary and visual culture during the July Monarchy, to the Chapman brothers, contemporary artists inspired by Goya’s exploration of themes like violence and sadism,17 Goya's imprint on popular culture is unequivocal.

Quote by Goya when commenting on Los Caprichos found on Charles Harrison, Paul Wood, and Jason Gaiger, Art in Theory, 1648-1815 an Anthology of Changing Ideas (Oxford: Blackwell, 2012).

Ellen, Gamerman. “Goya's Pop-Culture Movement; The Spanish Painter Laid Bare Anxiety, Lust, Violence and Ambivalence-Themes That Resonate Powerfully Today.” Wall Street Journal. September 25, 2014.

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW BIBLIOGRAPHY Caticha, Alicia. “The Pop Culture of History Painting Part II: Romanticism, The Revolution of 1830”. Class lecture at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, November 2021. De Goya y Lucientes, Francisco. Friar Pedro Shoots El Maragato as His Horse Runs Off. c. 1806. Oil on panel. 11’6” x 15’7” (29.2 x 38.5 cm). The Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago, Illinois. Ellen, Gamerman. “Goya's Pop-Culture Movement; The Spanish Painter Laid Bare Anxiety, Lust, Violence and Ambivalence-Themes That Resonate Powerfully Today.” Wall Street Journal. September 25, 2014. Font, Elanor S. “Goya’s Source for the Maragato Series.” Gazette des Beaux Artes, 52. July-December 1951. Pp 289 - 305. Géricault, Théodore. The Raft of the Medusa. 1819. Oil on canvas. 16′ 1″ x 23′ 6″ in (490 x 716 cm). Louvre Museum. Paris, France. Goya, Francisco de. “El ‘Maragato’ Amenaza Con Un Fusil a Fray Pedro De Zaldivia.” Fundación Goya en Aragón, January 1, 1970. https://fundaciongoyaenaragon. es/obra/el-maragato-amenaza-con-un-fusil-a-fray-pedro-de-zaldivia/168#bibliografia. Harrison, Charles, Paul Wood, and Jason Gaiger. Art in Theory, 1648-1815 an Anthology of Changing Ideas. Oxford: Blackwell, 2012. Held, Jutta. “Between Bourgeois Enlightenment and Popular Culture: Goya's Festivals, Old Women, Monsters and Blind Men.” History Workshop Journal 23, no. 1 (1987): 39–58. https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/23.1.39. López-Rey, José, y Francisco Goya. Goya's Caprichos: Beauty, Reason & Caricature. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1970. Pike, Ruth. “Popular Art Forms as Sources for Goya's Series on the Bandit El Maragato.” The Journal of Popular Culture21, no. 1 (1987): 19–26. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1987.00019.x. Stokes, Hugh. Francisco Goya: A Study of the Work and Personality of the Eighteenth Century Spanish Painter and Satirist. London: Herbert Jenkins, 1914. Tate . “History Painting.” Tate. Accessed May 15, 2022. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artterms/h/history-painting. Tomlinson, Janis A. “A Monarchy at Twilight: 1804–1807.” Goya: A Portrait of the Artist, 205–10. Princeton University Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ct vz938wp.30.

ISSUE NO 21

HEAD OF A GUILLOTINED MAN AND GERICAULT’S ROMANTICISM ELIZABETH DUDLEY, NORTHWESTERN ‘24

HÉODORE Géricault (1791Théodore Géricault’s attention to 1824)’s Head of a Guillotined Man anatomical detail immediately stands out does not immediately make itin Head of a Guillotined Man while a lack of self approachable – the specter aesthetic idealization underscores the comof violence looms over dismembered flesh, position’s quiet horror. As the head rests a potentially repulsive sight easier to turn upon the table, the last blush of life quickly away from than fully engage with. However, fades to decay; brushstrokes in pink and a quick turn away from the bloody sight abandons a painting far more complex than its first impression. Held between the last breaths of life and death, a simultaneous anatomical study and unique work of art, a portrait and a still life, Head of a Guillotined Man sits at the intersection of layered dichotomies. These aspects coalesce to form a harmonious emphasis on horror, empathy, and humanity, subverting artistic conventions Théodore Géricault, Head of a Guillotined Man, oil on panel, 1819, Art in pursuit of new Institute of Chicago forms of meaning. Head of a Guillotined Man thus embodies peach tones give way to dull grays, browns, the defining elements of Théodore Gériand greens as thick daubs of crimson paint cault’s art – pursuit of the naturalistic body, bleed out of the man’s neck. Although the defiance of the Neoclassical, and emotional visible strokes highlight the image’s true engagement that carries beyond the canvas nature as a painting, Géricault’s brushwork and into the political sphere. builds an unnervingly recognizable human

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW extensive study of human corpses.1 The artist regularly obtained body parts from a local morgue, studying from dead flesh until the rot became physically unbearable.2 His careful study of anatomy and detailed rendering instantly sets the tone of horror and empathy that extends throughout the painting. Géricault’s commitment to studying the flesh in its natural form stands in stark contrast to popular Neoclassical ideas of anatomical pedagogy. In the Neoclassical studio, artists’ training in anatomy progressed from copying two-dimensional drawings to studying plaster casts and marble sculptures. Théodore Géricault, Officier de chasseurs à cheval de la garde impériale Artists were only permitted to study the chargeant, oil on canvas, 1812, Museé de Louvre live form once they had head. This head rests on its side, angled to fully mastered the Neoshow a foreshortened vacant expression classical standard of the idealized body.3 and drooping flesh. Here, resemblance of The Neoclassical understanding regarded humanity is created through the ear and the human body as a canvas for the projecsoft tissue draping around the skull, rather tion of ideals through aesthetic improvethan capturing an individual’s likeness in ment. Géricault defied this perspective not high fidelity. Light and shadow carve out only in his selection of decaying flesh as his the underlying bone structure, revealing model, but in formative experiences in his Géricault’s deep understanding of human early training. Studying in Rome was often anatomy. This painting, as with Géricault’s the pinnacle of an artist’s training– surother studies of the dismembered body, rounding oneself with the greatest works owes its mimetic fidelity to the artist’s 1

Lorenz Eitner, “Gericault, [Géricault] (Jean-Louis-André-)Théodore” (Oxford University Press, 2003), https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T031509. Géricault’s study of cadavers not only provided anatomical models, but maintained his focus on the horror and emotional depth of his subjects.

Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, “Géricault’s Severed Heads and Limbs: The Politics and Aesthetics of the Scaffold,” The Art Bulletin 74, no. 4 (1992): 599-618, https://doi.org/10.2307/3045912. 603.

Alicia Caticha, “The 18th Century Art World, the Academy, Hierarchy of Genres, and the Role of Rome,” Art History 350-1: Late 18th Century-1848 (class lecture, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, September 27, 2021)

ISSUE NO 21

Théodore Géricault, Raft of the Medusa, oil on canvas, 1818-1819, Museé de Louvre of classical antiquity to fully absorb their aesthetic power.4 However, when Géricault studied in Rome, he completely abandoned this model of pedagogy. The young artist turned his attention not only to the great artists of the Renaissance – Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Titian– but also towards scenes of life happening around him. One notable sketch depicts a public execution, captured as it occurred.5 This rendition, captured at a formative moment in his artistic training, underscores how his technical approach to art is grounded in the wholly naturalistic experience, considering violence and terror as immutable. Thus, the artist’s sketch and choice of model for Head of a Guillotined Man highlight the conscious rejection of Neoclassical visions of art. Both instances distinctly defy the established hierarchical processes of rendering human anatomy as a regimented method of stylistic emulation, instead embracing the messy visual truth of 4

the moment. Therefore, Géricault’s treatment of anatomy in Head of a Guillotined Man exemplifies his technical fidelity to the naturalistic body. Whereas Géricault paid careful attention to the natural world’s conventions in his technique, he challenged Neoclassical social conventions of artistic genres. Head of A Guillotined Man continues the subversion of the hierarchy of genre found within Géricault’s work, overlapping aspects of genres adding conceptual and thematic richness. An understanding of the hierarchy of genre is essential to see how exactly Géricault subverts it. The hierarchy of genre emerged from the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture to organize the pedagogy and production of art.6 The classical world was not only the pinnacle of artistic training, but also the highest subject an artist could depict. History paintings not only engaged with the

Alicia Caticha, “The 18th Century Art World, the Academy, Hierarchy of Genres, and the Role of Rome,”

Art History 350-1: Late 18th Century-1848 (class lecture, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, September 27, 2021)

5 6

Eitner, “Gericault, [Géricault] (Jean-Louis-André-) Théodore.”

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW ideas and morals of antiquity, but also presented the nude body as a site of dialogue with the classical tradition.7 Genres below history painting had less opportunities to engage with purportedly universal classical ideas, and consequently were perceived with less respect. and Portraiture captured the likenesses of middle and upper-class individuals to display status and power, yet its inherently individual focus distanced it from overarching classical themes. However, portraiture maintained a high status relative to still life painting, which rested at the bottom of the hierarchy with a purely mimetic focus and comparative accessibility to women.8 The hierarchy of genre thus functioned not only to order and rank the aesthetic appearance of art, but also to segment and control the underlying meanings each genre carried. Classical ideals were doubly venerated in technique and theme through the hierarchy of genre. Training within the Academy system firmly entrenched this hierarchy in many young artists; however, Théodore Géricault was not among them. Although he briefly studied in two different artists’ studios, much of his education came from self-guided studies of Renaissance and Baroque masterpieces in the Louvre.9 This education not only occurred beyond the strictly hierarchical progression of technical study in the Neoclassical studio, but also beyond the Neoclassical perspectives on art imparted such as the segmentation of meanings imposed through the hierarchy of genre. His first foray into the Salon, the 1812 painting Officier de chasseurs à cheval de la garde impériale chargeant, immediately demon7

strates the young artist’s disregard for the hierarchy of genre. Although entered as a portrait, the painting represents the French spirit ready to battle with Russia.10 This painting engages individualistic representations of power and glory commonly found in portraiture, while the militaristic valor and relatively simple composition follow aspects of genre painting. Positioning the figure not as an individual, but as the nation of France provides a propagandistic sig-

Théodore Géricault, Portrait of a Kleptomaniac, oil on canvas, 1820, Museum voor Schone Kunsten Gent nificance that further incorporates themes often seen in history painting. These interwoven interpretations of genre thus add richness to the themes of national valor and military conquest Géricault positions here.

Alicia Caticha, “The 18th Century Art World, the Academy, Hierarchy of Genres, and the Role of Rome,”

Art History 350-1: Late 18th Century-1848 (class lecture, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, September 27, 2021). Whereas clothing indicates temporal specificity, the nude form removes these distinctions and thus elevates them beyond a singular moment.

Alicia Caticha, “The 18th Century Art World, the Academy, Hierarchy of Genres, and the Role of Rome,”

Art History 350-1: Late 18th Century-1848 (class lecture, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, September 27, 2021). Not only did still life paintings depict material objects with less of a moralizing message or personal representation than other genres, but the reduced need for studying the human form, particularly the nude male model, meant women faced less barriers to studying and working in the genre.

9 10

Eitner, “Gericault, [Géricault] (Jean-Louis-André-) Théodore.” Eitner, “Gericault, [Géricault] (Jean-Louis-André-) Théodore.”

ISSUE NO 21 The subversion of single-genre paintings established in Géricault’s training and early work continues within Head of a Guillotined Man. While Officier de chasseurs à cheval de la garde impériale chargeant smoothly incorporates aspects of portraiture, genre, and history painting to promote a rich sense of militaristic pride and glory, Head of a Guillotined Man creates thematic enrichment by allowing genres to conflict. By placing aspects of portraiture, still life, and history painting in contradiction to each other, Géricault enriches themes of horror and haunting. Shifting visions of the head as a post-mortem portrait and a still life of disembodied flesh expose the dichotomy between emotions of empathy for the deceased human being and revulsion towards the decaying flesh. The invisible presence of the guillotine casts a shadow over the painting, with the associated political significance of history painting infusing significance of Géricault’s liberal political beliefs. As Head of a Guillotined Man breaks apart genres and brings them together, it reconfigures the limitations of Neoclassical genre into the heart of a deeply emotional, individualized, and wholly Romantic art form. Head of a Guillotined Man depicts a human face and is therefore inseparable from themes of portraiture and human identity. Human faces cannot be separated from the context of recognition and unique personhood. Variation in facial characteristics is often among the most visible distinctions – noses of differing lengths will impact the appearance of two otherwise similar faces, whereas arms of differing lengths do not have the same impact. Thus, every face creates a unique ground for recognition or curiosity. The subject of Head of a Guillotined Man is no different – his protruding cheekbones, rounded ear, and single visible tooth all indicate a distinct individual. Although tilted away from the

viewer, a profile view of this man emerges as recognizably human. Even in fragments of the body, there is a distanced recognition of the self.11 Seeing a part of the body invites viewers to map their own physical sensations on to the disembodied object, despite a gap in realities between the twoand three-dimensional. The mere presence of some aspect of the human body inspires association with one’s own body, searching for a semblance of identity to attach. Despite the potential for viewers’ self-recognition, the humanity of the subject of Head of a Guillotined Man is not guaranteed. Head of a Guillotined Man can also be understood as a still life painting, framing the severed head as a butchered piece of meat to emphasize the sensation of horror. While the central aspect of the composition is the man’s head, the setting also plays a crucial role. The head rests upon a white drop cloth on a simple wooden table, the folds of the cloth draping around the contours of the head. Blood stains on the lower left side spill in a clean diagonal line that alludes to the head being wrapped in cloth, carried back to the artist’s studio like a cut of meat. This allusion to butchery continues through the overall composition, where the simple drop cloth on a table resembles numerous other still life paintings of food. As the face of the Guillotined Man angles away from the viewer in a partial profile, the man’s facial features lie perpendicular to the viewer’s own face. Dark shadows define not only the eyes, nose, and lips, but also the planes of the face, carving out valleys and ridges of bone structure. Perspective and lighting harmonize to visually distort the face, challenging the head’s status as a human. Even the alignment within planes of space distances the head from its humanity – lying on the horizontal plane, the head is distanced from the vertical plane of beauty, positioned as a mere object.12 While understanding Head of a Guillotined Man

Darcy Grigsby, “Cannibalism. Senegal. Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, 1819,” in Extremities: Painting Empire in Post-Revolutionary France, 2002, 207.

Linda Nochlin, The Body In Pieces: The Fragment as a Metaphor of Modernity (Thames & Hudson, 1995). 21-22.

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW as a portrait allows viewers to bring their identities in dialogue with the perceived individual, seeing the painting as a still life twists that interaction into an interrogation of humanity and inhumanity. Portraiture and still life thus create a terrifying tug-of-war, revealing the subject’s humanity one moment and concealing it the next. Invisible, and yet omnipresent, the specter of the guillotine illuminates Géricault’s message in bringing these two genres into conflict. As the head flutters between a human head, to be pitied and mourned, and a slab of meat, to be dissected and revulsed by, the artist challenges the dehumanizing power of the guillotine. Addressing political topics from a liberal perspective was a frequent theme for Géricault in his work, with pieces supporting the abolition of slavery, the rights of the poor, and other Republican topics, likely including the abolition of the death penalty.13 Although Head of a Guillotined Man does not make an overt political statement, the friction between portraiture and still life inspires empathy in the viewer as they place their own head in the man’s position, revealing a more personal focus on the horror and lasting trauma of the guillotine. The viewer is powerless to reverse this man’s dismemberment, yet without fully surpassing the vision of his head as a bloody piece of meat, is also complicit in his dehumanization. Within this stasis, a space for reflection emerges – a call to recognize shared humanity and put an end to the cruelty that yields the suffering laid bare here. The simultaneous harmony and friction between portraiture and still life creates a more direct engagement with the viewer, not imposing a set message of power or wealth but rather sharing a haunting image, both in terms of fear and emotional impact, to inspire further thought. Even without a direct political message, the reflection that Head of a Guillotined 13 14 15

Man inspires goes against the Neoclassical treatment of political subjects in art. Géricault’s delicate yet deliberate approach to depicting horrific and violent subjects reimagines how history painting contributes to political discourse, as embodied not only in Head of a Guillotined Man but also the Raft of the Medusa. Whereas Head of a Guillotined Man focuses on the horrors of the guillotine, Raft of the Medusa recounts a desperate fight for survival by any means - even cannibalism. Despite the gravity of both narratives, the defining moments of violence are not central to in either painting. Brief allusions come in the form of the bleeding wound on the man’s neck - an intentional yet anachronistic detail - and a single axe aboard the raft respectively.14 Instead, viewers’ existing knowledge contextualizes the horrific circumstances, freeing the artist to explore emotional effects of the events in greater detail.15 History painting thus shifts from a fixed pedestalization of military and ideological triumph to a dynamic interrogation of consequence and site of critique through these works. As the initial terror confronted in these paintings enmeshes with other emotions – grief, empathy, pity – they interlock in complex and unique ways that go beyond strict moral lessons or catharsis. Discomfort, distress, and disgust are all possible experiences for viewers, challenging the resolutely propagandistic narratives of Neoclassical history paintings. Viewers are not only invited to reflect upon the humanity they share with the suffering subjects, but also to consider the political and historical circumstances that brought these events into being. By emphasizing the human consequences, Géricault’s approach to history painting creates a new kind of message in dialogue with viewers rather than proclaiming. While Géricault’s reimagining of history painting shifted the dynamics of surrounding discourse and experience, his

Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, “Géricault’s Severed Heads and Limbs.” 604. Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, “Géricault’s Severed Heads and Limbs.” 603. Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, “Géricault’s Severed Heads and Limbs.” 609.

ISSUE NO 21 reworking of portraiture found in Head of a Guillotined Man and later works challenges the genre’s foundational methods of conveying and lauding identity. Although the specific identity of the man is unknown, he was likely a criminal – in another painting of a severed head, Géricault is noted to have used the body of a guillotined thief from a nearby prison.16 The guillotined man is not identifiable by appearance, name, title, or material possessions. Instead, the means of his suffering and death act as the only manner of recognition. This painting does not celebrate a virtuous character, nor cement a legacy, nor preserve a handsome appearance – in fact, the compositional arrangement of the head specifically removes it from the realm of beauty – thus thoroughly disrupting the Neoclassical concept of the portrait.17 Whereas social power would normally be reinforced and clearly tied to an individual’s identity, in this painting, political critique of the guillotine undermines the balance of power while the clear lack of identity makes individual recognition impossible. Instead of following existing social dynamics, Head of a Guillotined Man raises new questions about what it means to channel power through a portrait. Géricault further reworks the genre of portraiture through his choice of socially stigmatized individuals as models, questioning how portraits can carry identity and the effects of recognition through portraiture in both Head of a Guillotined Man and Portrait of a Kleptomaniac. The portraits depict a likely criminal and a man deemed insane, going beyond the aristocratic and bourgeois individuals routinely depicted in portraits. Both portraits remain coolly objective in technique, faithfully rendering the subjects as they are. The men are defined by their stigmatized identities, with little to no visual information about who 16 17 18

they are otherwise. Instead of identity stemming from names, material possessions, or setting, these men are fully defined by the labels applied to them. However, while the severed head is fully disconnected from personal visual identity, the subject of Portrait of a Kleptomaniac remains visually recognizable. The difference between portraits thus demonstrates Géricault’s deeper exploration of how to represent domineering aspects of identity, as the artist balances the possibility for unique visual recognition with the broadly erasing label of insanity applied only through context in the later work. Nevertheless, the dedication to naturalistic representation provides a rare glimmer of respect for both individuals, depicting them without condemnation or shame. Even though the intended function of Head of a Guillotined Man is academically debated and Géricault’s series of portraits of the insane is unknown 18, both paintings create a new possibility for portraiture not only as a genre that reinforces power of the elite, but also as a genre that emphasizes a shared humanity. Head of a Guillotined Man and Portrait of a Kleptomaniac demonstrate how Géricault’s approach to portraiture goes beyond Neoclassical portraiture’s treatment of the individual, exploring how portraiture can reflect individual experiences outside of bourgeois norms and subsequently redirect the power of portraiture to restoring dignity to society’s outcasts. Head of a Guillotined Man abandons Neoclassicism in technique, treatment of genre, and understandings of art – pursuing terror and tensions to create a vividly emotional experience. Whereas Neoclassicism imposed the classical past in fixed terms and hierarchies, Géricault pursues the living present in its truest form, unflinchingly confronting horrific emotions, traumatic subjects, and challenging dichot-

Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, “Géricault’s Severed Heads and Limbs.” 603. Nochlin, The Body In Pieces: The Fragment as a Metaphor of Modernity. 21.

Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, “Géricault’s Severed Heads and Limbs.” 602; Eitner, “Gericault, [Géricault] (JeanLouis-André-) Théodore.”

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW omies. The themes and ideas informing this painting reflect those of Géricault’s artistic development, from his early training and forays into the Salon to defining works such as Raft of the Medusa, even laying the groundwork for later themes of depicting stigmatized individuals in portraiture. Head of a Guillotined Man thus marks a defining moment in Théodore Géricault’s vision of

Romanticism: embracing the complexity of nature, the full range of human emotion, and working towards a world fulfilling the ideals of liberty and liberal social change rather than the Neoclassical aesthetic.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, Nina. “Géricault’s Severed Heads and Limbs: The Politics and Aesthetics of the Scaffold.” The Art Bulletin 74, no. 4 (1992): 599–618. https://doi.org/10.2307/3045912. Caticha, Alicia. “The 18th Century Art World, the Academy, Hierarchy of Genres, and the Role of Rome.” Art History 350-1: Late 18th Century-1848. Class lecture at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, September 27, 2021. Eitner, Lorenz. “Gericault, [Géricault] (Jean-Louis-André-)Théodore.” Oxford University Press, 2003. https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T031509. Grigsby, Darcy. “Cannibalism. Senegal. Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, 1819.” In Extremities: Painting Empire in Post-Revolutionary France, 165–235, 2002. Nochlin, Linda. The Body In Pieces: The Fragment as a Metaphor of Modernity. Thames & Hudson, 1995.

ISSUE NO 21

ART MUSEUMS AND NON-FUNGIBLE T OKENS (NFTs): THE INNOVATIVE POTENTIAL, LONG-TERM RISKS , AND FINANCIAL OPPORTUNITIES HANNAH CHEW, HARVARD UNIVERSITY ‘23

Introduction HE sale of digital artist Beeple’s EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS for over $69 million in March 2021 catapulted NFTs into the mainstream spotlight (Fig. 1). A purely digital artwork paired with an accompanying Non-Fungible Token (NFT), EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS crowned Christie’s the first major auction house to offer such a work for sale, as well as the first to accept Ether, a rapidly growing cryptocurrency, as payment.i From March 2021 onwards, institutions, individuals, and businesses have all begun minting and selling NFTs of digital assets with varying degrees of financial successii. However, the cultural institution sector has been seemingly hesitant to participate in the growing but infant market, while NFT and blockchain advocates have touted its financial potential to monetize art museums’ holdings. In response to major art museums participating in the NFT art marketplace, this paper will highlight the potential risks, ethical considerations, and need for increased critical scholarship and discussion around the interaction between art museums and NFTs. Alongside a brief historical overview, current modes of interaction, and exhibition techniques to establish foundational context, this paper will also demonstrate the need for long-term sustainability and financial planning and discourse regarding major art museums monetizing their collections with NFTs.

Figure 1 Beeple’s EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS, 2021 Defining NFTs, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and Web3 Trends The emergence and adoption of NFTs began far before the March 2021 Christie’s sale. Non- Fungible Tokens (NFTs) will be defined in this paper as “a cryptographically unique, indivisible, irreplaceable and verifiable token that represents a given asset, be it digital, or physical, on a blockchain” (Valeonti, F. et al, 2021).iii Most commonly traded on the Ethereum blockchain, NFTs are not exclusively connected to self-referential artworks, but this paper will focus only on digital and physical artwork-based tokens. Although artist Kevin McCoy claims to have minted the first art-based NFT on the Namecoin blockchain1 in 2014 with his artwork Quantum, the most

A blockchain, in its current form, is defined as “a distributed, immutable ledger that is maintained and verified among a network of peers” (Valeonti, F. et al, 2021)

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW

Figure 2 Kevin McCoy’s Quantum, 2014. commonly defined NFT is an Ethereum smart-contract backed token that emerged in 2017 (Fig. 2).iv Ethereum as a blockchain differs from popular blockchain and cryptocurrency giant Bitcoin2 in its utilization of smart contracts, which Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin defines as “systems which automatically move digital assets according to arbitrary pre-specified rules.”v Dieter Shirley, an Ethereum source code contributor, created and implemented the original NFT with smart-contract technology, providing the gaming community of CryptoKitties (also founded by Shirley) with a new way to identify and trade unique digital assets. vi This emphasis and utilization of unique digital assets differed from the other fungible tokens circulating on the Ethereum blockchain at the time, and appealed to digital creators and traders alike. NFTs by nature also created scarcity in the digital landscape, a difficult endeavor when digital images and assets are easily replicated and disseminated. Their financial value, and often their sentimental value as collectibles, hinge on this scarcity principle. With artwork-based NFTs, one of the most common definitional concerns derives from intellectual property rights and copyright claims. As of 2021, various countries and

blockchain platforms do not have a single, widely adopted legal precedent for the connection of digital assets, NFTs, and intellectual property claims. However, it is widely accepted that the sale of a digital or physical artwork NFT is similar to the sale of a purely physical artwork in this sense, wherein buyers and sellers transfer ownership of the asset, but the original creator retains the copyright and commercial rights. vii In certain circumstances, the creator may choose to also transfer the intellectual property rights to the seller, but must do so with a separate agreement, a practice that proves fairly uncommon in the emerging market. The emphasis on transaction tracking on the blockchain and smart contracts of NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain appeals to many creators concerned with the authenticity and protection of their work in the next generation of the digital realm. In recent years, blockchain advocates have suggested that the lack of hierarchy built into blockchain technology and assets would, in theory, render platform-based technology companies obsolete, ushering in an era freed from “tech giants” that advocates and researchers have deemed Web 3.0, Web3, or Internet 3.0.viii Excitement over the potential for blockchain to revolutionize nearly every technology-based practice from the diamond supply chain to sampling in the music industry has increased over the last decade, and NFTs have been hailed as the breakthrough of the art world and potential “Second Renaissance” by enthusiasts advocating for their adoption. ix Facebook’s rebranding campaign in 2021 launched discussions of the Metaverse, a world integrated with decentralized blockchain technology heralded as the future by the tech world, into mainstream dialogue. NFTs presented opportunities for scarcity and artistic innovation in the digital world, and ushered in new creations in the digital art world. Greater participation in the

The Bitcoin blockchain, intended for cash and financial transactions, is considered to be a product of Satoshi Nakamoto, an unknown online entity whose true identity is fiercely debated.

ISSUE NO 21 space by institutions and large corporations indicates NFTs and their digital artwork accompaniments may occupy positions of significance in coming years.

challenge for exhibition designers and curators. The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns pushed forward virtual exhibition design innovations originating from decades prior, honing new technologies Risk, Reward, and Revenue: Art Muse- like GoogleMaps Street View and Oculus ums Engaging with NFTs VR to engage visitors.xi Displaying digital For art museums to engage with NFTs, art, art that exists only in the digital realm there are a number of scalable approaches rather than digital reprodu tions of physand opportunities to explore. The most ical artworks, evolved from click-through vital distinction between art museum slideshow formats to digitally rendered interactions with NFTs is the question of models of 3-dimensional galleries complete displaying digital and physical artwork atwith perspective sightlines and wall labels. tached to NFTs and the actual creation and xii The question of exhibiting NFTs adds sale of NFTs connected to an art museum’s another layer of complexity to the question collection. Displaying digital artwork is not – models for displaying digital art pieces a new practice for museums, but how to already exist, so what changes with NFTs? display associated NFTs, which in many Since NFTs are the actual tokens on ways act as receipts and ledger books, poses the blockchain that represent a physical or a new challenge. However, the most notable digital asset, it is simply not enough to only engagement between major art museums display the asset they represent and deem it and NFTs has been the creation and sale an NFT exhibit. However, the listed record of NFTs linked to the museum’s collection, of every transaction included in an NFT which raises a new host of logistical and is likely not of particular interest to the ethical dilemmas. average art museum visitor, nor is a literal breakdown of source code and blockchain Exhibition of NFTs information. Thus far, galleries and muWhen the Russian State Hermitage seums experimenting with the exhibition Museum launched Ethereal Aether, its first of NFTs, which already mystify much of fully-virtual exhibition of digital NFT art the public, have chosen to emphasize the (Fig. 3), Director of Contemporary Art physical and digital artworks the token repDmitri Ozerkov stated “we want to see resents. The Seattle NFT Museum, founded what’s left of the NFT if you take away by two tech executives with limited expethe money aspect.”x As the conversation rience in the art world, makes the mistake around NFTs and their potential dominate of glossing over the technical genius of contemporary art spaces, it is unsurprising NFTs in favor of a familiar, and marketthat they’ve caught the attention of major able, art world experience. xiii The Seattle art institutions. Apart from their growing NFT Museum replicates a standard whitevalue as tradable assets, NFT and digital cube gallery experience, and its only unique artworks comprise a substantial portion of divergence is that the rotating collection of contemporary art, and museums that hold digital artworks will only be displayed on these works in collections need to find an screens. This display method brings digital engaging, sustainable way to exhibit them. art to the physical museum experience rathNFTs especially pose a challenge, and Ozer than NFTs and their associated technolerkov is right in questioning how to exhibit ogies, containing little new innovation. xiv and analyze their value while disregarding Furthermore, the Seattle NFT Museum will their identity as a complicated ledger and not have a permanent collection, displaying record of asset transactions. artworks for visitors to purchase, rendering Exhibiting digital art is not a new it a gallery or marketplace and not a muse-

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW um. Given the inseparable relationship beand curation, NFTs provide a provenance tween discussions of NFT art and discushistory unrivaled by traditional records, and sions of NFT value, displaying these works provide a new dimension of engagement in a true museum environment will require with contemporary artwork. innovation beyond traditional methodology. Further experimentation with Financial Incentives for Museums to Create online exhibitions may prove valuable. and Sell NFTs Multiple online platforms have embraced Since their inception, NFTs have the built-in provenance tracking of NFTs, been inextricably linked to financial gain which provides vital information normaland asset valuation. Despite the Russian ly synthesized into a wall label. Museums State Hermitage Museum’s best efforts and galleries around the world have already to isolate the essence of these digital art begun incorporating QR codes in physical forms, the heavy reliance on top-level galleries that link to online resources and technology and value- based assessments records. For suggests NFTs galleries lookhave received ing to exhibit attention due to artworks for their potential as sale, an NFT financial assets may replace and technologtraditional ical inventions. record-keepWhile purchasing and ing physical encourage artworks also transparency. constitutes the While the practice of inFigure 3 Ethereal Aether Exhibition, image courtesy early exhibivestment, the art of the Russian State Hermitage Museum tion of NFTs historical scholhappened arship around under primarily commercial and marketing physical artworks often separates a physical circumstances, considering these gallery artwork’s identity as art and its identity as examples may provide insight into display an asset. Art museums work to provide opportunities. The Feral File exhibition a physical, personal experience with art platform, which operates on the Bitmark objects, and generate responses and obserblockchain, launched their Social Codes exvations that digital or other representations hibition with “Collect This Work” buttons cannot. However, NFTs do not provide that listed all trades and purchases accomthis real-world experience and reaction, and panying each artwork to draw out unseen have yet to receive the same treatment and narratives and interactions in the collection. attention from art historians as traditional xv Although Feral File is a purely digital ex- physical artworks. Their identity as objects hibition platform, access to blockchain-en- (even in the online world) thus far has been abled ledgers of artwork ownership could defined by their meteoric rise in financial combine with creative visual mapping to value, and with greater saturation of the help art museums create educational and market after 2021, the majority of NFTs xvi informative tools. The precedent for dis- are simply unremarkable pieces of digital playing digital artwork is decades old, and art. xvii The innovation behind NFTs has perhaps NFTs are the next step moving largely been considered technological, with museums towards education and transthe artistic potential the field may hold parency. In the field of exhibition design relegated to the background. Accordingly,

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NFTs exist in a liminal space between traditional artwork and valued assets, complicating their position in the museum world. Museums have the potential to utilize the notability and prestige of their artworks to profit. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, admission numbers have declined drastically, and museums of all sizes have struggled to maintain steady budgets and fund exhibitions.xviii Minting and selling NFTs of their collections, especially pieces that are easily recognizable by the general public, would potentially provide a source of cash flow. The large infusion of money provided by a successful NFT can provide funding for crucial services, and private art-owning individuals like the Czech Republic’s Lobkowicz family have used massive NFT auctions to finance the restoration of the physical artworks the NFTs represent.xix At the start of 2022, major museums across the world began minting and selling NFTs of their collection, including the British Museum’s Hokusai prints and JMW Turner paintings, the Uffizi Gallery’s Michelangelo paintings, and the Academy Museum with their “Future of Cinema” collection. xx Participating museums have cited multiple applications for the revenue generated by NFT sales, including social projects, restoration, and greater accessibility. Although the financial gain may be immediate, the upcoming auction of the British Museum’s Turner NFTs seem to indicate museums anticipate a lasting increase in value for NFTs, with the Museum holding onto multiple editions of the NFTs they intend to mint and auction.xxi With the increase of major museum participation in the NFT market, the field may benefit from the art sector prestige and legitimacy lent by these collaborations, encouraging future investment and a potential increase in value for museum backed NFTs. Even regardless of the future, NFTs currently present an opportunity for short-term funding during a period of widespread financial difficulty for museums impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Associated Risks and Damages Despite the observed monetary gains seen by art museums and institutions participating in the NFT market, there are a number of risks and concerns associated with NFTs and blockchain technology that should keep both museum individuals and institutions hesitant. Blockchain technology, especially in its current iteration, is extremely young and unexplored. Although the technology boasts impenetrable security and an unexploitable decentralized model, attempted attacks on the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains occur, and errors in smart contracts, the 51% rule, and future technological innovations have already impacted many blockchains in the last year. xxii NFTs also present many unknown variables, and the volatile nature of cryptocurrency and blockchain assets can be alarming for museums seeking reliable cash infusions. With limited scholarship and collected data on the financial and technological long-term patterns and models for NFTs, they are a gamble for long-standing, stable institutions to take on. Alongside these limitations is a lack of substantial government regulation and legal precedent. xxiii Blockchain technologies may seek to elude government control and regulation, but they struggle to overcome the inconsistent regulations and concerns posed by governing bodies around the world. With many museums reliant on government funding and subject to hyper-scrutiny over collections management, NFTs pose significant risks. A museum-minted NFT that bears the name and credibility of the institution can be used as an asset or exchange in illicit activity or be used to circumvent nation-specific regulations and embargos. With the freedom granted by the blockchain, museums and governments have significantly less control over NFTs of their artworks than they do the physical copy. From a legal standpoint, precedent for usage and trade of NFTs is sparse, opening the museum world up to potentially costly and unfavorable litigation.

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW

Ethical Considerations Environmental Impact As blockchain technology spreads, environmental activists raise concerns over the extreme amounts of energy siphoned by Bitcoin and Ethereum. In order to verify transactions and stay decentralized, computers or increasingly complicated rigs expend incredible amounts of energy to mine cryptocurrency. Ethereum, where the majority of NFT activity has taken place, required around 30 kilowatt-hours for a single transaction at the close of 2021, with the energy cost per transaction and subsequent verification increasing steadily.xxiv The majority of energy consumption does not originate from individual transactions, but rather the immense computing power required to secure the network. NFTs and their meteoric rise have been integral to increased activity on the Ethereum blockchain, and therefore increased energy consumption. Although there are energy efficient blockchain alternatives, including growing Tezos, much of the market still operates on Ethereum and seems unlikely to migrate.xxv With many museums and their associated governments pledging to decrease their carbon footprint, engaging with the NFT market, with its current reliance on Ethereum, is contradictory at best.

deaccessioning for the sale of collections is not uncommon, major sales of recognizable works often generate protest.xxvii For museums to engage with the art market, they must navigate the difficult responsibility of upholding community and donor trust. As previously discussed, the future relevance and importance of NFTs is unknown, and dependent on the widespread adoption of blockchain technology. The gamble museums take by creating and selling NFTs of collections closely associated with their identity as cultural institutions is substantial. Museums bear the responsibility of care and conservation for their collections, and while NFT sales may generate funds used for this mission, the NFTs associated with the museum have the potential to end up in unfavorable circumstances. Once sold, NFTs may be re-sold continuously, potentially ending up in illegal dealings or corruption scandals, forever attached to the museum’s name (and profits). The future value and significance of NFTs is difficult to predict without extensive research and further study, highlighting the need for museums to proceed with extreme caution for the good of their collections and in accordance with public trust.

Held In Public Trust Since the conversion of the Louvre to a public art museum at the end of the 18th century, governments, the public, and scholars have placed greater and greater emphasis on major art museums’ responsibility to hold priceless artworks in public trust.xxvi This museum-public dynamic also deepens as museums build relationships with local communities, turning certain collections into symbols of regional pride. While museum professionals make conservation, storage, and loan decisions regarding their collections daily, the public, scholars, and museum ethics boards expect efforts to be guided by the best interests of the collection. Although

NFTs and Deaccessioning: Solution or Shortcut? There has always existed financial self-interest for museums to sell their artworks, especially when the majority of collections sit sequestered from public view in storage facilities. For the last century, precedent and vicious opposition from donors and academics discouraged major museums from considering deaccession, even after clearing extremely strict regulation from entities like the Association of Art Museum Directors.xxviii Yet the temptation of a secure budget and greater economic freedom persists, and museums have recently begun rooting their deaccessioning proposals in claims of moral obligation. The Baltimore Museum of Art, led by Christopher Bed-

ISSUE NO 21 ford in 2018, promised that the sale of their Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and other twentieth-century works would fund the acquisition of contemporary art from women and people of color in an effort to diversify the museum’s holdings. xxix Although the sale of artworks deemed low quality or unworthy for public view is common, the sale of well-known artworks adored by the local community stirred massive protest. The eventual cancellation of the sale, in a rather dramatic hours-before-auction intervention, suggested ethical protests, precedent, and the public’s attachment to its famous art objects would limit the economic ambitions of major art institutions.xxx However, for all the protests invoked by talks of deaccessioning, the art world and its critics have been relatively quiet as art museums and institutions around the world begin minting and selling NFTs of digital images of equally famous artworks in their collection. Although NFTs are not typically connected to specific physical objects they represent, often pieces of purely digital art in the form of an image or video, their relationship to existing (and well-known) physical art objects owned both physically and legally by museums implies NFTs are linked to or even part of collections. Given the historical opposition surrounding the sale, movement, or manipulation of museums’ most notable artworks, their sale should perhaps warrant great protest, but participating institutions ranging from the Russian State Hermitage Museum to the British Museum have proceeded with little resistance. The general director of the Hermitage cited moral reasoning similar to the Baltimore Museum’s deaccessioning arguments, saying in a statement that the Hermitage’s sale of NFTs proved “an important stage in the development of the relationship between person and money, person and thing,” and that NFTs “create democracy, make luxury more accessible.” xxxi Contrary to the ef-

forts of the Baltimore Museum’s attempted sale of notable pieces from the collection, the Hermitage proceeded with little protest and massive monetary success. The relative silence from critics suggests a few things. First, NFTs and their accompanying Web3 chatter are not nearly as mainstream and marketable as the technology and art markets assume, and a general lack of accessible understanding persists. The first NFT art allegedly surfaced in 2014, but the market skyrocketed in March 2021 with Christie’s $69 million sale of Beeple’s EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS. xxxii Mass entrance of NFTs in the art market is a recent development, and unlike traditional art history, the leading scholars and innovators are those with deep computer science and blockchain knowledge. The general public has yet to adopt much of the Web3 craze (apart from occasional mentions of cryptocurrency), and very few have the opportunity to interact with or understand the NFT market. xxxiii Some museum professionals and art historians have begun to participate and study NFT trends, but many consider the craze temporary and the technology inaccessible. Thus, major museums are reliant on third-party firms, like LaCollection or Artory, to mint and sell NFTs of their collections, with many museum donors, visitors, and even staff possessing a limited understanding of the underlying technology. xxxiv The inaccessibility of the general technology behind the NFT market perhaps results in the little resistance and lack of discussion around future implications. Secondly, despite manifestos and discourse from the technology community, physical art objects and museum experiences will not be rendered archaic by blockchain technology and digital art immersion. Encountering and studying art objects in person and in a gallery is wholly different from viewing images in a digital or virtual context, and the art historical and museum discipline is built on these

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW experiences. Phenomenology, object study, and spatial engagement have informed art history, museum ethos, and exhibition design for centuries, and present a difficult, if not impossible, epistemological base to overturn. The extensive discourse around digital reproduction of art and digital art generally comes to a consensus regarding the irreplaceable experience of actual art objects, relegating NFTs to a categorization apart from art objects held by museums. The touted “Second Renaissance” of NFT art appears bleak when its offerings fail to consistently achieve the label of art itself. In occupying this previously outlined liminal space between ownership and actual art object, NFTs present an opportunity for museums to engage in large-scale economic activity without the same moral opposition traditional deaccessioning presents. Alongside a general lack of understanding, the minting and subsequent sale of NFTs connected to museum collections do not threaten the all-important physical collection, rendering their sale less concerning to traditional critics. Furthermore, many museum professionals and scholars still consider NFT art as a temporary fixture in the art world, which reduces the perceived long-term risk to the collections of major museums while increasing pressure to participate while still lucrative. However paradoxical and potentially false this conception of the NFT art market, it will likely enable greater and greater participation by major art institutions, lending this young market new credibility. This increase in museum participation in the NFT market may generate excitement across multiple industries, but it also appears short-sighted. If museum administration, donors, and professionals conflate the unknown future importance of NFTs with an assumption that NFT sales are a low-risk source of money, museums may become dependent on NFT revenue to fund every new project. In longer-term stakes, this may move museums away from

relying on donors and government assistance, and place institutional emphasis on generating revenue rather than public good. Furthermore, a rapid rush to monetize collections while the NFT market is popular may oversaturate the market and fail to generate desired returns. With an abundance of unknown variables and an uncertain future, it is vital museums consider and research the future implications of participating in the NFT market and create long- term sustainable plans that prioritize the care and conservation of their collections. Conclusion This new technology is both an opportunity and a gamble, rife with potential monetary reward and ethical questions. Although NFTs and the NFT market have hardly breached mainstream usage, museums are increasingly faced with the dilemma of participating as art auction houses and small galleries embrace the new technology. With the NFT engagement of the Uffizi Gallery, Russian Hermitage Museum, and British Museum, the art museum ecosystem seems to be moving towards tentative participation and early success in the market. Less than a year into the newfound popularity, it is difficult to predict if NFTs are the next step for the art world as technology gurus and startups claim, or simply a temporary trend. However, the long-term innovative and financial potential of NFTs should be explored for the purpose of museum participation. Without further research, museums have an ethical duty to work in the best interests of their collections and proceed with caution. This project was made possible by the support of Elie Glyn, Harvard Art Museums Assistant Director for Exhibitions, and The Office of Career Services’ January Arts and Museums Wintersession Program. Originally published in the Harvard Journal of Art Criticism

ISSUE NO 21 BIBLIOGRAPHY i “Beeple: A Visionary Digital Artist at the Forefront of NFTs | Christie’s,” accessed January 21, 2022, https://www.christies.com/features/Monumental- collage-by-Beeple-is-firstpurely-digital-artwork-NFT- to-come-to-auction-11510-7.aspx?sc_lang=en. ii “Home,” nft now, accessed January 21, 2022, https://nftnow.com/. iii Forteini Valeonti et al., “Crypto Collectibles, Museum Funding and OpenGLAM: Challenges, Opportunities and the Potential of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs),” Applied Sciences 11, no. 21 (December 10, 1924), https://doi.org/10.3390/app11219931. iv Valentina Di Liscia, “‘First Ever NFT’ Sells for $1.4 Million,” Hyperallergic, June 10, 2021, http://hyperallergic.com/652671/kevin-mccoy- quantum-first-nft-created-sells-atsothebys-for-over- one-million/. v Forteini Valeonti et al., “Crypto Collectibles, Museum Funding and OpenGLAM: Challenges, Opportunities and the Potential of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).” vi Forteini Valeonti et al. vii Forteini Valeonti et al.; Brian Droitcour, “From Blockchain to Browser: Exhibiting NFTs, Part One,” ARTnews.Com (blog), August 12, 2021, https://www.artnews.com/artin- america/features/nfts-curation-online-exhibitions- crypto-art-1234601534/. viii “What Is Web3, Anyway? | WIRED,” accessed January 21, 2022, https://www.wired. com/story/web3-gavin-wood- interview/. ix “What Is Web3, Anyway? | WIRED.” x “‘Ethereal Aether’: World’s Largest Museum Launches NFT Art Exhibition,” Cointelegraph, accessed January 20, 2022, https://cointelegraph.com/news/invisible-aetherworld-s-largest-museum-launches-nft-art-exhibition. xi Forteini Valeonti et al., “Crypto Collectibles, Museum Funding and OpenGLAM: Challenges, Opportunities and the Potential of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).” xii Forteini Valeonti et al. xiii “Seattle NFT Museum,” Seattle NFT Museum, accessed January 20, 2022, https:// www.seattlenftmuseum.com. xiv Taylor Dafoe, “Two Tech Executives Are Opening an NFT Museum in Seattle to Give Decentralized Art a Centralized Home,” Artnet News, January 14, 2022, https://news. artnet.com/market/permanent-nft- museum-set-open-seattle-2060360. xv Droitcour, “From Blockchain to Browser.” xvi “Feral File - About,” Feral File, accessed January 21, 2022, https://feralfile.com/about. xvii Forteini Valeonti et al., “Crypto Collectibles, Museum Funding and OpenGLAM: Challenges, Opportunities and the Potential of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).” xviii Forteini Valeonti et al. xix “NFT Auction: Lobkowicz Noble Family to Raise Money Through Sales Bloomberg,” accessed January 21, 2022, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09- 29/nft-auction-lobkowicz-noble-family-to-raise- money-through-sales. xx Artnet News, “The Uffizi Gallery Just Sold a Michelangelo NFT for $170,000, and Now Is Quickly Minting More Masterpieces From Its Collection,” Artnet News, May 14, 2021, https://news.artnet.com/art-world/uffizi-gallery- michelangelo-botticelli-nfts-1969045; Droitcour, “From Blockchain to Browser”; Nadia Khomami, Nadia Khomami Arts, and culture correspondent, “British Museum Enters World of NFTs with Digital Hokusai Postcards,” The Guardian, September 24, 2021, sec. Technology, https://

NORTHWESTERN ART REVIEW www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/sep/ 24/british-museum-nfts-digital-hokusai-postcards- lacollection; “Hermitage Museum Mints Leonardo, Monet, Van Gogh NFTs to Raise Funds,” The Art Newspaper - International art news and events, July 27, 2021, https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2021/07/27/hermitage-museum-mints-leonardomonet-van-gogh-nfts-to- raise-funds. xxi “British Museum Banks on Turner NFTs after Hokusai Initiative,” The Art Newspaper - International art news and events, January 11, 2022, https://www.theartnewspaper. com/2022/01/11/britis h-museum-banks-on-turner-nfts-after-hokusai- initiative. xxii “Once Hailed as Unhackable, Blockchains Are Now Getting Hacked,” MIT Technology Review, accessed January 21, 2022, https://www.technologyreview. com/2019/02/19/239 592/once-hailed-as-unhackable-blockchains-are-now- getting-hacked/. xxiii Forteini Valeonti et al., “Crypto Collectibles, Museum Funding and OpenGLAM: Challenges, Opportunities and the Potential of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).” xxiv “Ethereum Transaction Energy Use Equals 2.5 Miles in a Tesla Model 3: Report,” Cointelegraph, accessed January 20, 2022, https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereumtransaction-energy-use-equals-to-2-5-miles-in-a-tesla- model-3-report. xxv “Ethereum Transaction Energy Use Equals 2.5 Miles in a Tesla Model 3”; “Seattle NFT Museum”; Forteini Valeonti et al., “Crypto Collectibles, Museum Funding and OpenGLAM: Challenges, Opportunities and the Potential of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).” xxvi “Louvre | History, Collections, & Facts | Britannica,” accessed January 21, 2022, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Louvre-Museum. xxvii Julia Halperin, “‘It Is an Unusual and Radical Act’: Why the Baltimore Museum Is Selling Blue-Chip Art to Buy Work by Underrepresented Artists,” Artnet News, April 30, 2018, https://news.artnet. com/market/baltimore-museum- deaccession-1274996. xxviii “Standards &amp; Practices,” Association of Art Museum Directors, accessed January 21, 2022, https://aamd.org/standards-and-practices. xxix Halperin, “‘It Is an Unusual and Radical Act.’” xxx Halperin. xxxi “Hermitage Museum Mints Leonardo, Monet, Van Gogh NFTs to Raise Funds.” xxxii Liscia, “‘First Ever NFT’ Sells for $1.4 Million.” xxxiii Forteini Valeonti et al., “Crypto Collectibles, Museum Funding and OpenGLAM: Challenges, Opportunities and the Potential of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).” xxxiv Khomami, Arts, and correspondent, “British Museum Enters World of NFTs with Digital Hokusai Postcards.”

FRONT AND BACK COVER ART: Jean-Antoine Watteau, The Embarkation for Cythera, 1717, oil on canvas, Musée du Louvre, Paris.