Frederick Arthur Bridgman and the American fascination with the exotic Near East. (Volumes I and II).
Item
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Title
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Frederick Arthur Bridgman and the American fascination with the exotic Near East. (Volumes I and II).
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Identifier
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AAI9136796
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identifier
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9136796
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Creator
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Fort, Ilene Susan.
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Contributor
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Adviser: William H. Gerdts
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Date
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1990
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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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Art History | Biography
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Abstract
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During the late nineteenth century Frederick Arthur Bridgman (1847-1928) was one of the most prominent American expatriate artists. Trained under the foremost French teacher, Jean-Leon Gerome, Bridgman became internationally famous for his Orientalist paintings. From the 1860s through the turn of the century, he exhibited regularly in France, Great Britain, and the United States, was accorded several solo exhibitions, and was frequently the subject of laudatory articles in American and French publications.;This thesis is the first extended study devoted to Bridgman's career. His life is traced from his childhood in the United States, training abroad, and early participation in the art colony at Pont-Aven to his travels in North Africa and turn to Orientalist imagery. Bridgman's Orientalism is the main focus. The artist's debt to Gerome is analyzed in terms of both the similarity and differences in their subject matter, style, and attitude towards the East. The impact of several major Orientalists--Eugene Delacroix, Eugene Fromentin, Mariano Fortuny, Gustave Guillaumet, and John Lewis--are shown to be important, beginning around 1879, in Bridgman's turn away from Gerome's example.;The significance of Bridgman's cultural background, his early American Victorian upbringing, American clientele and French residence, were major determinants in his choice and interpretation of Orientalist subjects. The themes of the harem as family, Arab poverty, and the social interaction of Easterners and Westerners are discussed at length, with Bridgman's book Winters in Algeria (1890) furnishing supporting documentation. Little attention has been accorded the strong American fascination with the East; as Bridgman was the foremost American Orientalist he is the most appropriate exponent to demonstrate this phenomenon.;Also discussed are Bridgman's peasant scenes, idealized figure paintings, history paintings, landscapes, and portraits. Bridgman's archeological reconstructions are related to nineteenth-century archeological excavations in the Near East and similar paintings by Lawrence Alma-Tadema. His book Anarchie dans l'Art (1898), intended as a defense against extremist aesthetics such as Impressionism, also demonstrates Bridgman's academicism.
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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.
