"The painter -in -chief of ugliness": Edouard Manet and nineteenth -century America.
Item
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Title
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"The painter -in -chief of ugliness": Edouard Manet and nineteenth -century America.
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Identifier
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AAI3103087
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identifier
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3103087
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Creator
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Brennecke, Nancy Mishoe.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Patricia Mainardi
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Date
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2001
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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History, United States
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Abstract
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By the end of the nineteenth century, Edouard Manet was widely acknowledged by the art cognoscenti in this country as a positive influence on the evolution of modern painting, who redirected artistic expression away from a reliance on the stale formulae of the academy toward originality of vision and methods. In addition to perceptions of Manet as a liberator and a force for change, many Americans, especially artists, recognized him as one of the greatest painters of all time, who had an exceptional talent for handling paint, for capturing accurate values, and maintaining freshness of color in his canvases. In the course of only three decades, the number of Manet's admirers increased significantly in this country from a handful of art writers and artists in the 1860s and 1870s, to an impressive segment of the artistic community by the close of the century. Considering the fact that Manet's importance was still under debate in France at the century's end, and his works continued to elicit outbursts of disdain from his countrymen, enthusiasm for Manet's art in America was extraordinary, especially in light of long standing allegiance to academic painting on these shores. Nonetheless, while they lamented the ugliness of his subjects or the roughness of their treatment, the absence of sentiment, as well as faulty drawing and modeling of form, nineteenth-century American art viewers were open to a consideration of Manet's art and found it worthy of study, cautious praise, and even emulation.;This dissertation investigates the reputation of Manet in nineteenth-century America through the identification of opportunities for contact with his art in this country and abroad and through an examination of critical commentary in period newspapers, popular magazines, art journals, and books. By studying the reactions of American art writers, artists, and amateurs to their encounters with Manet's art, we can chart the rise in appreciation for the artist, consider the elements of his art that commanded respect as well as those that were problematical, and come to a better understanding thereby of changing aesthetic attitudes in the United States in the post-Civil War period.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
