Modern Art 1851-1929: Capitalism and Representation

by Richard R. Brettell

Overview

Richard R. Brettell's innovative and beautifully-illustrated account 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780192842206
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	07/22/1999
Series:	Oxford History of Art
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	9.40(w) x 6.62(h) x 0.67(d)

About the Author

Richard R. 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
Paris: the capital of modern art
New technology
The beginnings of modern art

PART I: REALISM TO SURREALISM
Realism
Impressionism
Symbolism
Post-Impressionism
Neo-Impres sionism
Synthetism
The Nabis
The Fauves
Expressionism
Cubism
Futurism
Orphism
Vorticism
Suprematism/Constr uctivism
Neo-Plasticism
Dada
Purism
Surrealism
The '-ism' problem

PART II: THE CONDITIONS FOR MODERN ART
Chapter One: Urban Capitalism
Paris and the birth of the modern city
Capitalist society
The commodification of art
The modern condition
Chapter Two: Modernity, Representation, and the Accessible Image
The art museum
Temporary exhibitions
Lithography
Photography
Conclusion

PART III: THE ARTIST'S RESPONSE
Chapter 3: Representation, Vision, and 'Reality': The Art of Seeing
The human eye
Transparency and unmediated modernism
Surface fetishism and unmediated modernism
Photography and unmediated modernism
Beyond the oil sketch
Cubism
Chapter 4: Image/Modernism and the Graphic Traffic
The Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood
Puvis de Chavannes and Gustave Moreau: image/modernism outside the avant-garde
Image/modernism outside France
Exhibitions of the avant-garde
Fragmentation, dislocation, and recombination

PART IV: ICONOLOGY
Introduction
Chapter 5: Sexuality and the Body
Manet's bodies
Modern art and pornography
The nude and the modernist cycle of life
The bathing nude
The allegorical or non-sexual nude
Colonialism and the nude: the troubled case of Gauguin
The bride stripped bare
Body parts and fragments
Chapter 6: Social Class and Class Consciousness
Seurat and A Summer Sunday on the Island of the Grande Jatte (1884)
Class issues in modernist culture
Portraiture
Images of peasantry
The worker and modern art
Chapter 7: Anti-Iconography: Art Without 'Subject'
Landscape painting
Text and image
Abstraction
Chapter 8: Nationalism and Internationalism in Modern Art
National identity
Time and place
Abstract art, spiritualism, and internationalism
Nationalist landscape painting

Afterword: The Private Institutionalization of Modern Art
Notes
List of Illustrations
Bibliographic Essay
Timeline (compiled by Julie Lawrence Cochran)
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Uniquely valuable...a magisterial survey of the cultural, economic, and historical conditions in which modern art flourished."—Stephen Eisenman, Northwestern University

"Very refreshing and original....The visual range—Czech and Canadian, Finnish and French—wrenches our tired assumptions about pictorial modernism into vivid new perspectives."—Richard Thomson, Edinburgh University

"A history of modern art of the highest quality, informative and enthusiastic."—Françoise Cachin, Directeur des Musées de France

"Lushly illustrated and laced with insightful captions, the images showcase a large cross-section of masters, including many works from the former Eastern bloc never before seen.... This addition to the Oxford series brings a freshly chivalrous account of modern art."—Foreword

"Written with an almost manic verve and fluency and an enviable command of many distant crevice in its panoramic subject matter.... A reordering of the global potential of modern art."—John Russell, New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher