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Studies on the Cicognara Library, Part 1 of a series: Guest edited by Jeanne-Marie Musto (New York Public Library): Introduction
Full text linkThe early years of Leopoldo Cicognara’s book collection’, the first of two articles by Barbara Steindl that follow, was first presented at the 2019 College Art Association Annual Conference. This article forms a prequel to the second, ‘Collecting art books: the library of Leopoldo Cicognara and his bibliographic system’, which first published in 2014 in Italian. Translation of this article into English forms part of a larger project to expand the reach of the Digital Cicognara Library. Funds for this project have been provided by a grant from the Kress Foundation’s History of Art Grants Program. Steindl’s studies of the Cicognara Library are indispensable to a solid understanding of the history, scope, and organization of the Cicognara library – a historic collection that survives intact as the Fondo Cicognara in the Vatican Apostolic Library
Bibles unbound: the material semantics of nineteenth-century scriptural illustration
Full text linkThis article takes as its starting point The Pictorial Bible, considering it as an historiographical vehicle for both biblical imagery and print history in the nineteenth century. The publication is significant alone as a compendium of visual forms, functioning for viewers even today as a vast collection of Judeo-Christian pictorial expression in the West stretching back to antiquity. This will become an underlying characteristic of much nineteenth-century scriptural illustration: the attempt to underscore the heterogeneity of the Bible while preserving its status as discursively unified object. What distinguishes this context from earlier moments in the history of the Bible and of print culture are an increased emphasis on historical authenticity and objectivity, and the availability of a diverse set of print processes, each with its own layers of perceived value
Hans Sedlmayr, ‘History and the History of Art’, trans. Karl Johns (Independent)
Full text linkIn the same year of 1934 as Julius von Schlosser celebrated the eightieth anniversary of the Österreichisches Institut für Geschichtsforschung with his essay ‘Die Wiener Schule der Kunstgeschichte’, Eberhard Hempel in his essay, ‘Ist ‘eine strenge Kunstwissenschaft’ möglich?’ claimed that the younger generation of the Vienna School had relaxed the connection to historical studies and that a volte-face had occurred. Since Hempel has named me as one of the leaders of the ‘younger generation of the Vienna School’, I am justified in refuting his claim. To avoid giving rise to any new misunderstandings, I speak only for myself as an individual and in the indefinite plural only for those who agree with my views. Hempel, who treats his opponents honourably, believes that in his sentences just cited, he was referring only to my opinion alone. Yet this is certainly not the case. All of my previous essays have in a very definite sense – as I intend to make clear here – originated in the desire to make the history of art more ‘historical’ than it now is. I consider myself from the very beginning to have been aligned with the traditional general historical trend of the entire Vienna School. There has definitely not been a ‘volte-face’. The goals are the same, only the paths and the means are some of them different. As I shall presently demonstrate, the method of ‘structural analysis’, which Hempel correctly identifies as characteristic for our conception of the problems but incorrectly viewing it as ‘psychological’ – is a truly art historical method. Guido von Kaschnitz-Weinberg was correct to identify Alois Riegl as the actual pioneer of structural analysis. This is not merely the view of those who have themselves been trained in the tradition of the ‘Vienna School’, but it has also been recognized by others more distant
‘The history of architectural history. The genesis and development of a scientific discipline between national perspectives and European models’. Report on the international Symposium of the Technische Universität Dresden at the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca in Rome, in cooperation with the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris Sciences & Lettres Univerity
Full text linkFor the first time, the symposium on the History of Architectural History, organised by Henrik Karge (Dresden) and Sabine Frommel (Paris) at the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca in Rome, analysed architectural history as a European phenomenon. The participants – renowned experts from Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Denmark, Poland, Hungary and Greece – described the genesis and development of the historiography of architecture within the panorama of historical sciences, especially in relation to the history of art. Of particular importance is the role that architectural history played in the constitution of national identities in the course of nation building, and thus also national conflicts, in 19th and 20th century Europe. In various contributions, the historians of architecture were examined: art historians, architectural theorists and practical architects have each developed specific perspectives. In this way, the special feature of the Roman school of architecture was elaborated, which consisted in keeping alive the awareness of historical models in the training of architects, even under the reign of 20th century modernism and postmodernism. Finally, current aspects of digital techniques and global aspects in the analysis and visualisation of architecture were also dealt with
‘Towards a truly global art history’. Review of: 20th Century Indian Art: Modern, Post-Independence, Contemporary by Partha Mitter, Parul Dave Mukherji, Rakhee Balaram, London: Thames and Hudson 2022, 744 pp., heavily illustrated, £85.00, ISBN-10: 0500023328, ISBN-13: 978-0500023327
Full text linkThe present review of 20th Century Indian Art focuses on the book’s contribution to debates around ‘global art history’ and ‘world art studies’. What methodological breakthroughs can be gained from the comparative study of regions outside Europe and the USA? Issues such as hybridity and syncretism, primitivism and folk art, nationalism and regional identities, authenticity and derivativeness, belatedness and modernization, are common to discussions of art history in various contexts traditionally regarded as peripheral or marginal. Inverting the vantage point of historical analysis, and examining them from the position of the formerly colonized, undermines established categories and generates novel insights. Such shifts in perspective tend to inflect differently, and may even alter radically, the understanding of terms like primitivism, Orientalism and even art and craft. The article underscores the importance of rethinking commonly held presumptions about dislocation, appropriation, precedence, deviation. Only when art historians can look at the discipline from a multiplicity of cultural and geographical perspectives will it be possible to establish a truly global art history
‘Caricature, Salon criticism, laughter and modernity’. Review of: Julia Langbein, Laugh Lines: Caricaturing Painting in Nineteenth-Century France, London: Bloomsbury 2022, pp. 245, 43 col. plates and 46 b. & w. ills, ISBN 9781350186859, £ 85
Full text linkThe book examines the genre of Salon caricatural, a special kind of Salon criticism which, made of rows of ‘pocket cartoons’ that poke fun on the art works on display, was a common feature of French satirical journals from the 1840s onwards. Looking closely at prints by Pelez, Daumier, Cham, and Bertall, while reading Baudelaire and other contemporary critics, the book examines its rise on the pages of Le Charivari until the end of the Salon in 1881. If French political caricature is characterised by violence and resistance against power, Salon caricature was never primarily oppositional, the book argues. Produced by caricaturists who shared training and pictorial references with Salon artists, it was aiming for laughter, generated by the very act of the translation of the medium of paint into drawing and print. Shifting reproductive technologies were part and parcel of the mechanisms of ‘repicturing’. As insiders’ views on practices of imaging, as well as social and cultural norms of the time, Salon caricatures share their approach with modern art
From analog to digital: The archive of Enzo Mari as a case study
Full text linkThe paper presents a digital project I developed for the archive of Enzo Mari preserved at the CSAC (Study Centre and Communication Archive, CSAC) of the University of Parma (Italy) as part of my doctoral thesis. By taking into account the efforts made by national and international institutions, a project of a prototype has been developed, presenting a part of the author’s research and production between the Fifties and the Nineties organised in categories, with the will to share with a large audience of scholars and enthusiasts. The work has been conducted with the digital support of Italian company Hyperborea
Framing devices for works of art and hypotheses for an immersive use of cultural patrimony
Full text linkThe project envisages the development of innovative and immersive fruitive solutions through the use of an eye tracking device, capable of identifying the points of greatest interest for an observer and, therefore, of suggesting possible set-up criteria useful for maximizing the visiting experience on a cognitive level. The project focuses on a specific category of frames characterised by a complex wealth of information that is, through the presence of repetitive decorative motifs, also extended to less elaborate types (up to and including images without borders), in order to identify whether and which of these can be considered ‘indices’ and vehicles capable of catalysing the attention of observers towards specific aspects of a visual construct
Translating Warhol: turbamento, transmutation, transference
Full text linkAndy Warhol (1928–1987) is one of the most famous and influential artists of the twentieth century, and a vast global literature about Warhol and his work exists. Yet almost nothing has been written about the role of translations of his words (understood as collaborative creations), and those of his critics, in his international reputation. ‘Translating Warhol’ aims to fill this gap, developing the topic in multiple directions and in the context of the reception of Warhol’s work in various countries. The contemporary artist Ai Weiwei has often said that the first book he read in English was The Philosophy of Andy Warhol because it was easy for a non-English speaker to understand. A closer look—the kind afforded by the intimacy of translation—offers a different picture, however. ‘Translating Warhol’ explores the questions of interpretation raised by the challenges of translating the double meanings, ambiguities, paradoxes, now-obscure cultural references, and slang populating Warhol’s publications. Linguistic as well as other forms of translation are considered. The articles comprising ‘Translating Warhol’ also reveal how, for example, Warhol’s queer identity has been either concealed or emphasized through the process of translation, or how translation has affected the presentation of his political and social positions and attitudes. Translation extends Warhol’s collaborative approach to crafting language, and like it, transmutes and yet also promotes the human understanding we all seek
Translating texts, translating readers: could Andy Warhol’s writings be translated into Indian languages?
Full text linkTranslating time- and context-bound subjects cross-culturally requires creative negotiations that often exceed the usual challenges a translator faces. Translating Andy Warhol’s writings, ever so resistant to translation for multiple reasons explored here, presents layers of complications that might make one question if the effort is even worth it. Drawing upon the insights of veteran translator-scholar A.K. Ramanujan and Bhupen Khakkar, India’s first Pop artist, this article speculates on how one may approach a translation of Warhol’s writings into Indian languages other than English and why such an enterprise has yet to be undertaken even if it were to be desirable and possible
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