Meaning of the art of William M. Harnett.
Item
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Title
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Meaning of the art of William M. Harnett.
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Identifier
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AAI9521296
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identifier
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9521296
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Creator
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Mandeles, Chad.
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Contributor
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Adviser: William H. Gerdts
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Date
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1995
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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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This dissertation will address a select set of questions about the art and iconography of the American still-life painter William Michael Harnett (1848-92). These questions have to do with the narrative dimension of Harnett's work, with the nature of meaning in his painting, and with how and to what degree allegorical messages are expressed. I am aiming at showing how a sense of purposiveness operates in the artist's decisions about matters of iconography and composition, and even style, and will attempt to lay to rest the premise that Harnett's art is devoid of the intellectual complexities of meaning.;It seems certain that the iconography of a select number of his paintings exhibits interrelated and definitive forms of meaning. We do not need to rely on Harnett's own words or the testimony of critics to know that Mortality and Immortality (1876), Memento Mori--"To This Favour" (1879) and To This Favor--A Thought from Shakespeare (1879) strongly affirm the tradition of vanitas. However, it should be noted that in no paintings beyond the three skull pictures is Harnett's interest in symbolizing the vanity of earthly existence made so obvious. While it seems certain that symbolic meaning does not appear in all or even most of Harnett's pictures, I believe allegory figures in works more numerous, and in ways more surprising, than has commonly been supposed. In this dissertation I suggest an order and design among the disparities of Harnett's oeuvre that hints persistently at a pious belief that the visual world is merely an illusion. In addition to traditional variations on the subject of vanitas--Job Lot Cheap (1878) and The Social Club (1879), for example--I will show that Harnett was capable of versatile formulations that not only obscured but extended traditional schemes. In this regard I shall examine a number of works painted near the end of his career, such as The Old Cupboard Door (1889) and Old Models (1892), in which the iconographic programs seem to fulfill his confidence in the experience of death and resurrection.
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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.
