Material Inspirations : The Interests of the Art Object in the Nineteenth Century and After

This book is a study of the complex relationship between matter and idea that shaped the nineteenth-century culture of art, and that in turn determined the course of still-current accounts of art's nature and value. Fundamental questions about the effects of material conditions on the creation and reception of art arose as early as the nineteenth century, and put important pressures on later eras. The place of class distinctions in the making and reception of art, the relationship between copy and original, the effects of display on art appreciation, even the role of pleasure itself: this book treats these and related issues as productive conceptual challenges with an unresolved relationship to matter at their core. Drawing on recent scholarship on the history of art and its institutions, Material Inspirations places cultural developments such as the emergence of new sites for exhibition and the astonishing proliferation of printed reproductions alongside a wide range of texts including novels, poems, travel guidebooks, compendia of antiquities, and especially the great line of critical writing that emerged in the period. The study vivifies a dynamic era, which is still too often seen as static and unchanging, by emphasizing the transformations taking place throughout the period in precisely those areas that have appeared to promise little more than repetition or continuity: collection, exhibition, and reproduction. The book culminates with the two great critics of the period, John Ruskin and Walter Pater, but it also includes close analysis of other prose writers, as well as poets and novelists ranging from William Blake to Robert Browning, George Eliot to Henry James. Significant developments addressed include the vogue for the representation of Old Masters in the first half of the century, ongoing innovations in the creation and diffusion of reproductions, and the emergence of the field of art history itself. At the heart of each of these the book identifies a material pressure shaping concepts, texts, and works of art. Cover Material Inspirations: The Interests of the Art Object in the Nineteenth Century and After Copyright Dedication Preface What Goes Without Saying Acknowledgments Contents List of Illustrations Introduction: Feeling for Things, or What Really Matters 1. What Matters in Theory a. Demystification b. The Experiential School (i): Philosophical Sources and Sentiments c. The Experiential School (ii): Feeling for Things in Theory d. The Experiential School (iii): Encountering Things/Displaying Objects e. Realism: Art Works/Art Objects/Commodities 2. (How) Art Matters in the Nineteenth Century 3. A Note on Scope and Method Part I: Interesting Chapter 1: Transfiguration Chapter 2: Desire and the Body of Inspiration 1. “To neutralize ordinary urgencies” 2. How the Painting was Finished: Representations of Old Masters and the Case of Raphael 3. The Origin of Painting 4. The Promise of Happiness and the Death of an Old Master 5. Hesiod or Orpheus Chapter 3: “Strange Aphrodite” Part II: Remains Chapter 4: Matter, Form, Abstraction: Mediation and the Reception of Antiquities 1. Stone on Paper 2. Collection and Copy 3. Compendia: Image into Word 4. Blake 5. Mysterious Antiquity (Two Urns) 6. Nature in History: From Abstraction to Form Chaper 5: The Experience of Form (Bewilderment at the Vatican in George Eliot and Vernon Lee) Chapter 6: Failure and Revision at the Vatican:Some Evidence from the Baedeker (an Interchapter) Chapter 7: Ruin and Allegory in Benjamin Part III: Things, Personally Chapter 8: The Ruined Cathedral, Black Arts, and the Grave in Engraving: Ruskin and the Fatal Excess of Art 1. The Ruined Cathedral 2. Black Arts 3. The Grave in Engraving Chapter 9: Pater at the Museum/Raphael’s Fortune 1. The Nineteenth-Century Museum (Parnassus or the Dispute of the Sacrament) 2. The Museum as Medium (Apollo or the Discobolus) 3. The Museum as Emblem (The Most Religious City in the World) 4. Raphael’s Genius Endnotes Preface Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Index "This book is a study of the relationship between matter and idea that shaped the nineteenth-century culture of art, and that in turn determined the course of still-current accounts of art's nature and value. Drawing on recent scholarship on the history of art and its institutions, Material Inspirations places cultural developments such as the emergence of new sites for exhibition and the astonishing proliferation of printed reproductions alongside a wide range of texts including novels, poems, travel guidebooks, compendia of antiquities, and especially the great line of critical writing that emerged in the period. The study aims to vivify a dynamic era, too often seen as static and unchanging, by emphasizing the transformations taking place throughout the period in precisely those areas that have appeared to promise little more than repetition or continuity: collection, exhibition, and reproduction. The book culminates with the two great critics of the period, John Ruskin and Walter Pater, but it also includes close analysis of other prose writers, as well as poets and novelists ranging from William Blake to Robert Browning, George Eliot to Henry James. Significant developments addressed include the vogue for the representation of Old Masters in the first half of the century, ongoing innovations in the creation and diffusion of reproductions, and the emergence of the field of art history itself. At the heart of each of these the book identifies a material pressure shaping concepts, texts, and works of art" -- Library of Congress