Modern Art 1851-1929 Capitalism and Representation

by Brettell, Richard R.

• ISBN13: 9780192842732
• ISBN10: 0192842730
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-07-22
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Richard Brettell's innovative and beautifully-illustrated account, the latest addition to the acclaimed Oxford History of Art series, explores the works of artists such as Monet, Gauguin, Picasso, and Dali--as well as lesser-known figures--in relation to expansion, colonialism, nationalism and internationalism, and the rise of the museum. Beginning with The Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, Brettell follows the development of the major European avant-garde groups: the Realists, Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, Symbolists, Cubists, and Surrealists. Giving attention to the changing social, economic, and political climate, the book focuses on conditions for the development of modern art such as urban capitalism, modernity, and the accessible image made possible by art museums, temporary exhibitions, lithography, and photography. Brettell examines artists' responses to modernism, including changes in representation, vision, and "the art of seeing." Combining the most recent scholarship with 140 illustrations--75 in full color--the book chronicles the change in art and image itself, from the iconology of new representations of the nude human form to the anti-iconography of "art without 'subject'": landscape painting, text and image, and abstraction. Tracing common themes of representation, imagination, perception, and sexuality across works in a wide range of different media, and offering profuse illustration to bring the changing art forms vividly to life, Modern Art 1851-1929 presents a fresh approach to the fine art and photography of this remarkable era.

Author Biography

Richard Brettell, formerly Director of the Dallas Museum, is currently an independent consultant to museums around the world.

Table of Contents

Introduction The Great Exhibition of 1851, London	1	(3)
Paris: the capital of modern art	3	(1)
New technology	3	(2)
The beginnings of modern art	5	(4)
PART I REALISM TO SURREALISM	9	(40)
Realism	13	(2)
Impressionism	15	(4)
Symbolism	19	(2)
Post-Impressionism	21	(3)
Neo-Impressionism	24	(2)
Synthetism	26	(1)
The Nabis	27	(2)
The Fauves	29	(1)
Expressionism	30	(2)
Cubism	32	(3)
Futurism	35	(1)
Orphism	36	(2)
Vorticism	38	(1)
Suprematism/Constructivism	39	(1)
Neo-Plasticism	40	(2)
Dada	42	(1)
Purism	43	(1)
Surrealism	44	(2)
The`-ism' problem	46	(3)
PART II THE CONDITIONS FOR MODERN ART	49	(32)
Urban Capitalism	51	(14)
Paris and the birth of the modern city	52	(4)
Capitalist society	56	(2)
The commodification of art	58	(2)
The modern condition	60	(5)
Modernity, Representation, and the Accessible Image	65	(16)
The art museum	67	(3)
Temporary exhibitions	70	(2)
Lithography	72	(2)
Photography	74	(4)
Conclusion	78	(3)
PART III THE ARTIST'S RESPONSE	81	(44)
Represntation, Vision, and `Reality': The Art of Seeing	83	(22)
The human eye	86	(1)
Transparency and unmediated modernism	87	(2)
Surface fetishism and unmediated modernism	89	(3)
Photography and unmediated modernism	92	(3)
Beyond the oil sketch	95	(2)
Cubism	97	(8)
Image/Modernism and the Graphic Traffic	105	(20)
The Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood	110	(1)
Puvis de Chavannes and Gustave Moreau: image/modernism outside the avant-grade	111	(3)
Image/modernism outside France	114	(2)
Exhibitions of the avant-grade	116	(4)
Framentation, dislocation, and recombination	120	(5)
PART IV ICONOLOGY	125	(86)
Introduction	127	(4)
Sexuality and the Body	131	(24)
Manet's bodies	131	(5)
Modern art and pornography	136	(2)
The nude and the modernist cycle of life	138	(3)
The bathing nude	141	(5)
The allegorical or non-sexual nude	146	(1)
Colonialism and the nude: the troubled case of Gauguin	147	(3)
The bride stripped bare	150	(1)
Body parts and fragments	151	(4)
Social Class and Class Consciousness	155	(26)
Seurat and A Summer Sunday on the Island of the Grande Jatte (1884)	155	(4)
Class issues in modernist culture	159	(4)
Portraiture	163	(7)
Images of peasantry	170	(4)
The worker and modern art	174	(7)
Anti-Iconography: Art Without `Subject'	181	(16)
Landscape painting	181	(6)
Text and image	187	(3)
Abstraction	190	(7)
Nationalism and Internationalism in Modern Art	197	(14)
National identity	197	(3)
Time and place	200	(2)
Abstract art, spiritualism, and internationalism	202	(4)
Nationalist landscape painting	206	(5)
Afterword The Private Institutionalization of Modern Art	211	(7)
Notes	218	(8)
List of Illustrations	226	(6)
Bibliographic Essay	232	(8)
Timeline	240	(10)
Julie Lawrence Cochran
Index	250