"Art knows no fatherland": The reception of German art in France, 1878-1900.
Item
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Title
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"Art knows no fatherland": The reception of German art in France, 1878-1900.
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Identifier
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AAI9431353
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identifier
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9431353
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Creator
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Esner, Rachel.
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Contributor
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Advisers: Linda Nochlin | Patricia Mainardi
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Date
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1994
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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 | History, European
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Abstract
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The relationship between France and Germany marked nineteenth and twentieth century European history. Little is known, however, about their artistic relations, particularly after the Franco-Prussian War. Art historians have researched the reception of French art in Germany, but it has been commonly believed that German art was either ignored or despised after 1870/71. Although it is certainly true that there was little influence of a formal nature, an examination of the French criticism in this period reveals that contemporary German painting was both greatly admired and played an important part in the redefinition of the role of culture in post-war France.;The dissertation brings together the writings of a large spectrum of French critics on the German painting seen in Paris between 1878 and 1900. Important in the examination of these comments is both what was said and how this was conditioned by certain ideas of Germany and German art, and the political situation of the moment. Isolated and defeated, the French nation was in the course of seeking a new self definition in the 1870s and 1880s. The conflict between the nationalists and the Republicans, whose image of France was based on the Revolutionary tradition, was a shaping force in French intellectual life. The often repeated phrase "l'art n'a pas de patrie" characterized the art critics' position within this debate. Much as Michelet had once envisioned all countries moving towards universal brotherhood under the leadership of France, so now the critics saw the European art movements. This meant not only that the work of German painters like Liebermann, Uhde, and Kuehl was incorporated into the French defintion of modernism. The critics believed that through their influence, Germany had found its way out of dark Romanticism into the light of Naturalism, making them a part of a brotherhood of artists. German art was proof that all had not been lost in 1871, and it was by praising it rather than denigrating it that a kind of revanche was achieved and a plea for an open and cosmopolitan France was made.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy Restricted.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.