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The article focuses on W. H. Bartlett's 1887 painting "The Last Brief Voyage: A Connemara Funeral," which deviated from the prevalent themes at the Royal Academy of Arts by presenting a stark visual narrative of death in an Irish rural setting. Topics include the unconventional nature of the painting within the context of the Royal Academy, the public reception and reviews of Bartlett's work, and Bartlett's background and artistic influences as he captured the rural coastal Irish life.

Paysages et paysans: la vie rurale en France au XIXe siècle, 1820–1905 was the anodyne title of a loan exhibition inaugurated in March of 1978 at Beijing's National Gallery of China. As the first exhibition of Western painting in China after the instauration of the Communist regime in 1949, the show was a cultural- diplomatic landmark; its planning and reception can refresh our understanding of both Franco–Chinese cultural relations in the waning years of Maoism and the diplomatically recuperative uses of French nineteenth-century painting. This article uncovers the rationales of French actors and institutions as revealed in archival documents and then scrutinizes the unexpected reception of an art exhibition that remains an important episode in cross-cultural relations and aesthetic reclamation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article revisits an obscure episode in the early history of colour photography, the collaboration between poet and inventor Charles Cros and painter Édouard Manet. I consider the genesis of a colour photographic copy of Manet's Jeanne (Le Printemps) painting of 1882, a work featured in the recent exhibition Manet and Modern Beauty. I argue that more can be said about the intermedial layers of this experiment from a social, historical and theoretical perspective. Based on letters previously unexamined in the scholarship, I provide additional historical context about the experiment and reveal that it was not a one-off whim of the inventor, but rather a project that involved Jules Carpentier, the engineer who, among other achievements, would go on to collaborate with the Lumière brothers in building their cinématographe camera. Finally, I consider more closely the sentiments expressed by Cros in a letter to Manet about the experiment, sentiments that, I argue, help open onto broader questions about the progress of chemistry at that historical moment. I conclude with a theoretical question about the incunabula of new technologies and their connections to an 'environmental unconscious'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Théodore Géricault's The Head of a Lioness resists art historical conventions of picturing lions by encouraging up‐close engagement with a wild animal who can paradoxically be construed as both sensually alluring and patently dangerous. The sentience of Géricault's leonine subject would have been impossible to achieve without direct encounters with live lions during the work's elaboration. The act of seeing and depicting this animal in the menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes, a public, state‐controlled space, emerged from a carefully orchestrated set of relationships and transactions involving international diplomacy, public policy, and scientific inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the 1877 French oil painting "Paris Street, Rainy Day," by Gustave Caillebotte, including its depiction of Paris, France. An overview of Caillebotte's use of optical illusions in the painting, including in regard to the perspective utilized in the painting, is provided.

The article presents the history of the painting "Grimaces et misère--Les Saltimbanques" by French artist Fernand Pelez that was first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1888 in France.

The article discusses the use of a set of pictorial experiments in pastel by French artist Edgar Degas in making his paintings in the 19th century.

The article explores the art and artistic process of the French painter Georges Seurat. Particular focus is given to his ventures into Surrealism, which are cited throughout the 1965 text "Surrealism and Painting," by André Breton. Additional topics discussed include the "exacting logic" utilized by Seurat in his art-making, abstraction in art and how Seurat's work relates to modern art of the 20th century.

During; his short life the French watercolourist Leon Bonvin (1834-66) created a corpus of floral still lifes, mostly dating from the seven-year period between 1 859 and his suicide in 1866. Details of his life and career are fragmentary, but the way Bonvin's works have been interpreted, and sometimes misinterpreted, demonstrates the conflicted place of flower painting in relation to French nineteenth-century art, particularly its avant-garde. In this sense, readings of Bonvin's work mirror those of his more famous contemporary, Fantin-Latour, who is an important reference point in the investigation that follows. Considering the production, reception, and presentation of Bonvin's still lifes reveals surprising new contexts for his work that can enlarge our understanding of French nineteenth-century flower painting more generally. The floral still life emerges as a slippery genre, which at times overturns neat distinctions between art criticism and art collecting, sentimentality and technology, and Realism and the industrial arts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay focuses on the innovative aspects of Édouard Debat-Ponsan's painting of 1886 entitled Before the Ball. As opposed to his contemporaries, the artist chose to depict breast-feeding amid a haute-bourgeois family, a subject matter that was no longer prevalent in French art after the beginning of the nineteenth century. He thus sought to undermine the premise of medical literature, which consistently claimed that high-society women abstained from breast-feeding, as they refused to give up their social amusements. In order to transmit this message, the artist melded--in an unprecedented way--different iconographic traditions, while accentuating the juxtaposition of the suckling baby's bare bottom and the nursing mother's sumptuous ball gown. Through an examination of the dress, with a particular emphasis on the corset concealed beneath it, this essay illustrates the empowerment of women reclaiming ownership of their own breasts, intricately connected to consumerism and Parisian fashion in the late nineteenth century. Although the new maternal ideal was essentially a male construct, this essay claims that the enthusiasm of bourgeois women for breast-feeding at the end of the century reflected a new sense of femininity that shaped material commodities, instead of being shaped by it, thus distinguishing the "fashionable body" from the "fashioned body." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review of the painting exhibition of work by the French artist Gustave Doré titled "Master of Imagination" at the National Gallery of Canada, including the paintings "Dante and Virgil in the Ninth Circle of Hell," "Oceanids or Naiads of the Sea" and "Souvenir of Loch Lomond."

The article presents an examination into the influence of the tapestry on the artistic aesthetics of late 19th-century French painters, highlighting the work of Félix Vallotton and the interpretation of his works through decorative narrativity. Topics addressed include the relationship between Vallotton and the Nabi group of artists, the narrative aspects of Vallotton's print album series "Intimacies," and the presence of carpets and decoration in several of the artist's works.

This essay examines Horace Vernet’s painting and lithograph of The Crossing of the Arcole Bridge (1826) in terms of its representation of the dynamic and potentially disappointing process of producing consensus within a larger social body; this issue was of crucial importance after 1815, when France faced entrenched social divisions produced by revolution, toppled regimes and decades of unending warfare. The painting began as a lithograph commissioned for a multi-volume history of the life of Napoleon and quickly became a touchstone across different realms of official and popular visual culture; in its focus on the deliberations of a motley collective of individuals who must decide whether or not to follow their leader, Vernet’s Arcole marks an important ideological shift during the middle decades of the nineteenth century, a period when rulers such as King Louis-Philippe justified their legitimacy through the rhetoric of popular consent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Art-historical accounts of the last 200 years identify developments in the types, or "modes," of address that a picture can present to a viewer as critical to the experience and evaluation of paintings. The authors focus on "anti-theatrical" theories of pictorial address and the complex and innovative "double relation" of absorption and acknowledgment introduced by the painter Edouard Manet. They report a case study of Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère investigating expert and novice spectators' eye movements and utterances in response to the painting to find evidence that viewers seek resolution of the complex "double relation" that the theories describe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although a popular success when Jules Bastien-Lepage first showed it at the Paris Salon of 1878, Les Foins (Haymaking) immediately prompted a critical skirmish over the legacy and meaning of realism. At the centre of the debate was the painter’s troubling representation of an immobile, exhausted haymaker, ‘absorbed by some vague thought’, as one critic put it. Underlying the critical division, this essay argues, was the painting’s problematic attempt to make an enduring and temporally extended picture – a picture consistent with the mid-century realism of Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet – out of the historically shifting dynamics of rural wage labour in early Third Republic France. In doing so, Bastien-Lepage brought one line of realist painting to a close and in turn opened a new tradition of artistic naturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author explores the similarities, stylistic and otherwise, between the work of the 19th-century French artist Honoré Daumier and the work of the 18th-century French artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Particular focus is paid to Daumier's small painting "The Studio," also known as "Homage à Fragonard," comparing it to Fragonard's own painting "The New Model." The author argues that Daumier's painting imitates Fragonard's Rococo style and imagery.

The article discusses the 19th-century painting "Portrait of Mlle Fiocre in the Ballet 'La Source,'" a work by the French artist Edgar Degas. The author argues that the painting, which depicts the ballet dancer Eugénie Fiocre wearing a Georgian costume, may be interpreted as Degas's attempt to portray an Orientalist subject in the context of modern life.

The article explores the small paintings of French painter Edouard Manet and their meaning to loss and mourning. It explains that Manet's small flower paintings document the tension created by the impending loss of one's mortal world and entry into another. It mentions the 16 flower paintings completed in the last two years of Manet's life with repetition of everyday objects.

The article discusses the depiction of Italian nobleman Ugolino della Gherardesca in paintings by students of the artist Jacques-Louis David, including Louis Gauffier, Fortuné Dufau, and Antoine-Jean Gros. Particular focus is given to the relationship between depictions of Ugolino and the reception of poet Dante Alighieri's writings in France. The use of historical subjects in painting and the relationship between French and English aesthetics are also discussed.

Copyright of Patrimônio e Memória is the property of Centro de Documentacao e Apoio a Pesquisa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article concerns the 'tableau photography' of the Canadian artist Jeff Wall (b. 1949), whose quotation from canonical paintings, especially of the nineteenth-century French painter Édouard Manet, has led interpreters to conclude that Wall is revitalizing Manet's peinture de la vie modern through the medium of photography. I propose, however, that the search for iconographical matches misses the real relationship between the two artists: a shared resistance to interpretation or 'illeg-ibility'. Wall's selection and manipulation of his sources blocks precisely the kind of interpretive work that ought to be enabled by identifying them, paradoxically illuminating an obscurity his work shares with them, which is obscured in turn by the very lucidity of the iconographical match. However, I argue that this illegibility is not equivalent to mere meaningless but is central to Wall's artistic enterprise, thereby restoring some substance to the cliché that Wall is a 'photographer of modern life'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1864, with his Christ and the Angels, now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, Manet drew an uneasy connection between the Paris salon and the public morgue, replacing the eloquent, universal body we expect to find in a religious history painting with a silent and particular corpse of the kind exhibited at the new Morgue of Paris. This replacement marked Manet's rupture with the French tradition of religious history painting and signaled the birth of a new aesthetic vision, born at the Morgue, and defined by Zola as Naturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among drawing masters of all times Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec clearly stands out. His sketches, posters, drawings and paintings on cardboard still keep open mouthed all those who deals with graphic art. This brief essay is about the portrait which appears so prominent in Lautrec's work, from the deep study of the ten paintings he made of his favourite model Carmen Gaudin. We offer a new approach about the datation of these portraits and a possible solution to the fact of her apparent shyness to show her whole face. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses 19th-century French painter Edouard Manet. The author describes Manet's portrait of writer Émile Zola and discusses Manet's inspiration from reproductions of Japanese and Spanish art. The author discusses the use of lithography, wood engraving, and photography in art reproduction. The author focuses on Manet's representation of the painting "Olympia," by Diego Velázquez, possibly using a print by Francisco de Goya, and a Japanese print by Utagawa Kuniaki II.

The use of rubber as a component of the grounds of artists' canvases appeared simultaneously in Britain and France, and such primed canvases became commercially available from around 1835 to the beginning of the 1850s. India rubber (so called as it first came from the 'India' discovered by Columbus) or elastic gum was at the time a new material in the visual arts. More generally, this product found vogue in many fields of manufacturing. The addition of rubber to grounds applied to artists' canvas was an extension of the process of waterproofing utilitarian fabrics then common in Britain and France. Rubber-based grounds were first mentioned in the conservation literature in 1981 by Byrne. The present paper seeks to identify manufacturers and individuals involved in the development of rubber-based artists' grounds. The study is based on textual sources and the few material sources which remain: handwritten recipes, patents, press releases, catalogues, marks on fabrics, and rare paintings on manufactured French and British fabrics. The deterioration aspects of grounds containing rubber are illustrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the technical examination and conservation of the 1885 painting "The Organ Rehearsal," by French painter Henry Lerolle, at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. The author describes the condition of the painting, including the detachment of the hemp canvas from the stretcher, and describes the materials used for the painting, including bitumen. Specific topics include the presentation of the painting at the 1885 Salon exhibition, the infrared raflectography of the painting showing lines made by Lerolle for the composition, and the underdrawing of the painting.

The article discusses the art criticism of nineteenth century French writer, critic, and poet Théophile Gautier. It examines his engagement with Romanticism and Realism, and comments on his association with the notion of "Art for Art's Sake." The author reflects on Gautier's writings on the Salon art exhibition in Paris, France and notes his open-mindedness and his focus on originality in art. Gautier's critiques of specific artists, including the French painter M. Adolphe Leleux, are also considered.

The article presents information about the painting "The Absinthe Drinkers" by the artist Jean-François Raffaëlli. It discusses the critical interpretations of the painting and examines its realistic portrayal of the French middle class in the late 19th century. Raffaëlli's painting "La terrain vague" is also explored. The themes of time and social class are analyzed.

Copyright of Musique, Images, Instruments is the property of Editions du CNRS and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)