The shipcarvers' art: Shop and cigar store figures in America.
Item
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Title
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The shipcarvers' art: Shop and cigar store figures in America.
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Identifier
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AAI9959228
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identifier
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9959228
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Creator
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Sessions, Ralph.
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Contributor
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Adviser: William H. Gerdts
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Date
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2000
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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 | American Studies | Folklore | Design and Decorative Arts
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Abstract
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Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, American shipcarvers created a wide range of wooden sculpture, including figureheads, shop and cigar store figures, garden and circus wagon figures, and all types of decorative architectural and church carving. Most of this work has long since disappeared. Because they have survived in reasonable numbers, shop and cigar store figures provide the best opportunity for exploring the shipcarvers' art.;The earliest extant cigar store Indian dates to about 1800, but they surely were used throughout the colonial period. Shop figure carving reached its height in America from about 1840 to 1890, a period that coincided with the last great era of shipcarving. Fanciful images of American Indians were by far the most common, but especially after about 1860, any character that caught the public's imagination could and would be skillfully personified, from the more traditional Turks and Scotsmen to up-to-date baseball players and fashionable women.;New York City was the source of much of the most innovative work during this period, and was the major center for the production of figures that were used to advertise a wide variety of goods and services. After the Civil War, New York figures were marketed nationally by a few large tobacco products distributors.;Derived from a shared cultural and artistic imagination, nineteenth-century shop figures speak to several important aspects of American social history, including racial and gender stereotyping, and the emergence of a national popular culture. Based on contemporary perceptions, they resonate with meaning, embodying traditional values while at the same time reflecting the attitudes, prejudices and trends of a rapidly developing society. Indian figures were generally rendered in the "Noble Savage" mode, for example, a characterization influenced by the art and literature of neoclassicism and romanticism.;By tradition, shipcarvers were familiar with current trends in the fine arts and their work reflected the general stylistic developments of the time. While not considered "Art" by contemporary critics, wooden sculpture was widely admired and remained a vibrant form of popular expression until the end of the nineteenth century.
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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.
