The Fine Arts and Crafts of the Fin-de-siècle

Associate Editors: Síghle Bhreathnach-Lynch, Isa Bickmann, Nicola Gauld, Sarah Turner.

Contributors: Morna O’Neill, Sunie Fletcher.

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Summer 2008

For the Table of Contents, click   | To hub page | To THE OSCHOLARS home page

EDITORIAL

This is the second issue of VISIONS, which is still evolving both in form and content, and we are sensitive to reader response. As you will have seen, we have exchanged the easel logo of VISIONS 1 for the head of John the Baptist from Moreau’s ‘Vision of Salomé’ as more appropriate.

We have also added two new sections to VISIONS 2: the first coverage of Auctions, formerly in the ‘Some Sell and Others Buy’ section of THE OSCHOLARS, and a list of journals, formerly in the ‘The Rack and the Press’. These will be enlarged in future issues. Clicking on the brush icon in the Table of Contents will bring you directly to each section, but three of these (Bibliographies, Exhibitions and Reviews) are now on separate pages. In VISIONS 3, the section devoted to SOCIETIES will also be given its own page, under the Editorship of Nicola Gauld.

VISIONS is one of three journals that we publish on our website that cover the arts and æsthetic of the fin-de-siècle, the others being NOCTURNE and THE EIGHTH LAMP. The first series of NOCTURNE, our James McNeill Whistler journal, came to an end when we moved websites, but is being revived under the editorship of Elaine Saniter and Jenny Allan. THE EIGHTH LAMP, edited by Anuradha Chatterjee and Carmen Casaliggi, is devoted to John Ruskin.

Please contact oscholars@gmail.com for inclusion on the mailing list for alerts to new issues for any of our journals.

All our journals are served by a discussion forum which also functions as a 'Letters to the Editor' section. This will also be used for posting announcements and readers are strongly recommended to sign up. It can be reached by clicking its icon.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstracts
Auctions
Bibliographies
Conferences – Seminars – Symposia – Lectures
Exhibitions: Austria – Australia – Belgium – Canada – England – Germany – Italy – The Netherlands – Scotland – Spain – Sweden – Switzerland – USA. Note: this is on a separate page
Journals
Publications
Reviews: Wilhelm von Gloeden – Paris fashion in art. Note: this is on a separate page.
Societies
Brushstrokes

ABSTRACTS

This section will present abstracts of theses, conference papers and work in progress. These will be then be indexed. If you would like your abstract to appear here, please contact Sarah Turner @

Grace Brockington is Lecturer in the History of Art at the University of Bristol. She wrote her doctoral thesis on the subject of pacifism and the arts in Britain between c. 1900 and 1918 (Oxford, 2003). This has developed into a study of internationalism at the fin de siècle, with a particular focus on cosmopolitan individuals, and the cultural infrastructures of internationalism (societies, exhibitions, institutions). Recently, her involvement with the exhibition Literary Circles: Artist, Author, Word and Image in Britain 1800-1920 (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 17th October–30th December 2006) led to an interest in late Victorian children’s illustration, and more broadly, the uses of visual art in education.

Linda Goddard (British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, Courtauld Institute of Art): ‘Aesthetic Hierarchies: interchange and rivalry between the visual arts and literature in France, c.1890-c.1920.’ (PhD, Courtauld Institute of Art, 2004)

‘Aesthetic Hierarchies’ explores interaction and competition between painting and literature in France, c.1880-1926, offering new readings of works by key figures including Gauguin, Mallarmé, Picasso and Gide. It contests the widespread view that fin-de-siècle artists and writers worked harmoniously towards a shared goal of aesthetic synthesis. Instead, it shows how critics presented painting as inherently inferior to the non-mimetic form of poetry, and how painters fought back.

Combining close visual and literary analysis with a broader examination of critical discourse, it uncovers a mutual, but often contentious, exchange of ideas. It undermines the perception of artists as passive receptacles of literary theory, arguing that they contributed to aesthetic debate through their own theoretical writings and strategies of self-promotion. Gauguin, for example, exploited the ambivalent interaction between text and image to complicate the critical reception of his work. Likewise, in their written statements, Delaunay and Matisse built on earlier formulations by Delacroix and Maurice Denis to privilege the immediacy and autonomy of visual harmonies over literary description.

As well as restoring a sense of the competitive exchanges between writers and artists in nineteenth- and twentieth-century France, Aesthetic Hierarchies also challenges habits of periodisation. It charts changes and continuities in critical terminology, showing how disputes regarding the different qualities of poetry and painting persisted beyond the turn of the century. In the process, it draws attention to the links between Symbolist and Cubist criticism. Issues such as the debate about ‘literary’ painting, the role of art criticism and artists’ writings and the themes of newspapers and gold, alchemy and forgery, connect the centuries as well as the disciplines. Asking how the rejection of mimesis in painting affected literary responses to the visual arts, it explores a shift in power from the verbal in favour of the visual in the early decades of the twentieth century.

AUCTIONS

with links to illustrations, catalogues and exhibition details

18th June

Sotheby’s, Milan

Palazzo Broggi, Via Broggi

19thC. Paintings & Sculpture

24th June

Christie’s, London

8 King Street, St James’s

Impressionist & Modern Art

25th June

Sotheby’s, Paris

Galerie Charpentier
76 rue du Faubourg St-Honoré

19thC. Paintings & Drawings

26th June

Sotheby’s , London

34-35 New Bond Street

Impressionist & Modern Works on Paper

2nd/3rd July

Sotheby’s, Paris

Galerie Charpentier
76 rue du Faubourg St-Honoré

Impressionist & Modern Art

15th July

Sotheby’s , London

34-35 New Bond Street

Victorian & Edwardian Art

CONFERENCES – SEMINARS – SYMPOSIA – LECTURES – CALLS for PAPERS

Lectures at the Van Gogh Museum

The Van Gogh Museum presents a series of lectures for all those interested in finding out more about Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries. Every first Sunday of the month the museum hosts a presentation highlighting the latest research into the collection or a current exhibition. Researchers, curators and restorers tell the story behind the art on display andpresent new insights and findings. The lectures start at 14.00 in the auditorium and last 30-45 minutes. Entrance is free for visitors to the museum. The language is Dutch. In case of speakers from abroad the language is English.

Sunday, 1st June 2008: ‘Gauguin in the Van Gogh Museum?’ by Leo Jansen, curator of paintings (Van Gogh Museum). The paintings by Paul Gauguin in the Van Gogh Museum’s collection tell the story of his quest for a new style and for recognition as a modern artist. At the same time they are illustrative of the admiration Vincent and Theo van Gogh felt for his talent and the support they gave him. This exceptional triumvirate is the focus of this lecture.

To accompany the exhibition ‘Painting Light - Hidden techniques of the Impressionists’ (29.2 - 22.6.2008), the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud hosted a symposium. From 12th to 14th June 2008, international experts talked about ‘Painting techniques of Impressionists and Postimpressionists’ at the Stiftersaal of the museum. The keynotes of the event were information on the current state of scholarship and interdisciplinary exchange between conservators and art historians. The symposium started on Thursday, 12th June with a keynote lecture by Richard Brettell (University of Texas, Dallas). On Friday, 13th June and Saturday, 14th June sixteen talks will be given. The symposium was conducted in German and English, all German talks being translated simultaneously into English. It was held by the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud in co-operation with the Cologne Institute of Conservation Science (CICS) and the Association of German Conservators (VDR, and was generously sponsored by the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung and the RheinEnergieStiftung Jugend, Beruf und Wissenschaft. Full details of the symposium are available on the exhibition website (go to www.impressionismus-wallraf.de and click symposium).

‘Félicia Mallet, femme mime en Pierrot (Autour de la représentation du Pierrot à la fin du XIXe siècle) is the subject of a lecture by Petra Kolářová at the Galerie Colbert, Salle Jullian, 2 rue Vivienne, 75002 Paris, on 19th June 2008
17h30-19h30

La Parodie : Art et réflexivité (XIXe-XXe siècles)

Organised by EA 4100 - Histoire culturelle et sociale de l’art (composante CIRHAC), université Paris I.

25th June 2008

Galerie Colbert, Salle Jullian, 2 rue Vivienne, 75002 Paris

For the programme, click here.

Artistry and Industry: Representations of Creative Labour in Literature and the Visual Arts c. 1830-1900 is a major conference being held at the University of Exeter, 18th-20th July 2008. Among those giving papers are two of THE OSCHOLARS editors, Andrew Eastham and Sondeep Kandola. The organisers are Dr Sunie Fletcher (University of Exeter), Dr Kyriaki Hadjiafxendi (University of Exeter), Sally-Anne Huxtable (University of Bristol) and Dr Patricia Zakreski, University of Exeter). It is packed with papers that abut upon the subjects we cover. Speakers and papers are:

Liz Adams, University of Nottingham: The Woman Writer: Mary Elizabeth Braddon and professional authorship.

Elena Anastasaki, Athens School of Fine Arts: The Madonna of the Future or the painter of words.

Anne Anderson, University of Exeter: The China Painter: Amateur Celebrities and Professional Stars.

Charlotte Boyce, University of Portsmouth:The Art of Dining: the Exhibition of Taste in the Victorian Dining Room.

Alexander Bove, SUNY-Buffalo: “Pickwick Sits for his Portrait”: The Caricaturist’s Struggle in the Battle For Representation.

Jacky Bratton, Royal Holloway, University of London: ‘Just for a handful of silver’ ? - Dickens as the lost leader of mid-Victorian theatre.

J.B. Bullen, University of Reading: Aesthetic Dress and Its Origins.

Gilli Bush-Bailey, Royal Holloway, University of London: A Woman of the Theatre – Missing the Moment: Miss Kelly’s Theatre in Dean-st, Soho 1840-1849.

Brooke Cameron, University of Notre Dame: Michael Field’s Sight and Song: the Production of a Lesbian Aesthetic.

Kate Campbell, University of East Anglia: ‘Free Creative Activity’ in Late Nineteenth-Century Literature and Journalism.

Lin Chang, University College London: Manufacturing Landscape: Birmingham Topographic Prints, 1830-1850.

Elpida Christianaki, Canterbury College: The figure of the Painter in Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White.

Sara Clayson, The Open University: ‘Heaven had given her a hero-soul’: The Artist and Sublime Androgyny in Dinah Craik’s Olive.

Catherine Delyfer, University Montpellier, France: ‘The Lay Figure Speaks’: fashioning artistic personae in The Studio (1893-1900).

Andrew Eastham, Royal Holloway, University of London: ‘The new, living art of the body’: Arthur Symons, the ideal actress, and the labour of performance.

Liz Farr, University of Plymouth: Amateurism, Aesthetic Production and Professional Life: The Nineteenth-Century Toy Theatre and the Psychology of Masculine Play.

Peter Faulkner, University of Exeter: The Artist as Artisan or Master.

Catherine Flood, Victoria and Albert Museum: Women drawing on wood: the role of graphic work for mid nineteenth-century female artists.

Isabelle Flour, Université de Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne: The Royal Architectural Museum and the art-workman : patronising architectural production in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Fanny Gillet, Université de Toulouse-Mirail : Weaving and Embroidering: ambiguities in the representation of the creative woman in Pre-Raphaelite art.

Ashley C. Givens, Courtauld Institute of Art: Painted and Photographic Portraits of Napoléon III.

Kyriaki Hadjiafxendi, University of Exeter: Romancing with Solitude: Emily Brontë, George Eliot and Literary Lionism.

Keren R. Hammerschlag, Courtauld Institute of Art: ‘You must either make a tool of a creature, or a man of him. You cannot make both’: Ruskin and Leighton on the Gothic.

Katie Lee Hanson, CUNY: Visionary Woman: Fin-de-siècle Female Portraiture.

Antonia Harland-Lang, University of Cambridge: ‘Dealing in metaphors’: Thackeray’s myth of the prose labourer.

Trevor Harris, Université François-Rabelais, Tours: New from Old: William Morris and the Worker-Artist

Imogen Hart, Yale Center for British Art, ‘Self-helpful Art-knowledge’: the industries of home decoration.

Michael Hatt, University of Warwick: Chants of Labour: Socialism and the Visual Culture of Song.

Louise Hurrell, University of Plymouth: Narrative templates for the black and white illustration of the 1860s; viewed through examples by John William North, 1842-1924, George John Pinwell, 1842-1875 and Frederick Walker, 1840-1875.

Sally-Anne Huxtable, University of Bristol: ‘Beautiful and Useful’: Dress, Artistic Identity and Aestheticism, 1831-1890.

Alison Inglis, University of Melbourne: The triumph of ‘loving handiwork’ - Ceramic Decoration and the Refreshment Rooms of the South Kensington Museum.

Vlad Ionescu, Catholic University of Leuven: Reproducing an image: Riegl and the design of art theory

Jennifer Diann Jones, University of California, Davis: Can Art Teach Sympathy?: George Eliot's ambivalent attitude toward music in Daniel Deronda.

David Jeremiah, University of Plymouth: 1884 – Art Schools and the Art and Industry Debate.

Sondeep Kandola, University of Leeds: The Anxiety of Influence in Vernon Lee’s ‘Lady Tal’ (1892).

Mikela Karayianni, University of Essex: The artist as a moral teacher: Hogarth and his Victorian commentators.

Andrew King, Canterbury Christ Church University: Art, Artists and Artistry in Ouida’s Italy, 1873-7.

Elizabeth Kramer, Newcastle University: Art or Tat? Japanese and Women’s Embroidery during the Japan Mania in Britain (1875-1900).

Béatrice Laurent, Université des Antilles et de la Guyane/IUFM de Martinique: William Morris, art, “work-pleasure” and Industry.

Martina Lauster, University of Exeter: ‘Black Art’ in the Service of Enlightenment: Portraits of the Nineteenth-Century Print Trade (1830-50).

Kristin Mahoney, Western Washington University: Labor, Detail, and Perpetually Unfulfilled Desire: Rossetti and the Working Men’s College.

Susie Needham, University of Exeter: Making Appearances, The early women photographers, Anna Atkins and Julia Margaret Cameron.

Pamela Nunn, University of Canterbury, New Zealand: Ethel Rivers' Ambition, Miss Angel, Dorothy's Career and other Cautionary Tales.

Margaret Godbey O'Brien, Temple University: Myth and the Artist: Literary Representation and the Painter.

Claire I. R. O'Mahony, Kellogg College and the Department of Continuing Education, University of Oxford: Beguiling bibelots: creativity, commerce and conjugality in Henri de Régnier's ‘Le Mariage de Minuit’.

Gemma Palmer, De Montfort University: Art, Amateurism and Antimacassars: Augusta Webster’s creative solution to the Woman Question.

Amy Criniti Phillips, Duquesne University: ‘This is not a sensation novel’: Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Quest for Literary Fame in The Doctor’s Wife.

Christopher Pittard, University of Exeter: Obscure Arts: The Victorian Magician and the Amateur.

John Plunkett, University of Exeter: Light Work: Feminine Leisure and the Making of Transparencies.

Matthew C Potter, University of Plymouth: Work in Process/Work and Progress: Rhetorics of Labour in British Art 1870-1900.

Andrea Wolk Rager, Yale University: An Image of Labor: Edward Burne-Jones’s ‘When Adam delved and Eve span’.

Richard Read, University of Western Australia: The Reversed Canvas in Nineteenth-Century Myths of Commerce.

Angelique Richardson, University of Exeter: Basic Instincts.

Zachary Rose, University of Cambridge: Commercial Liverpool in the Nineteenth-Century Traveller’s Imagination.

Richard Salmon, University of Leeds: The Physiognomy of the Lion: Encountering Literary Celebrity in the Nineteenth Century.

Valerie Sanders, University of Hull: ‘Mady’s tightrope walk’: The career of Marian Huxley Collier.

Cherry E Sandover, University of Essex, Southend Campus: ‘Delivering Down the Name with Glory’: The Significance of the Palette and Brush as Identifier of Profession Rather than Trade.

Talia Schaffer, CUNY: Salvaging Craft, Crafting Salvage: Aesthetic Labor in Our Mutual Friend.

Nicholas Schonberger, Independent Scholar: Ship to Shop: The Professionalization of Tattooing in New York.

Kathleen Slaugh-Sanford, University of Delaware: George Gissing, New Grub Street, and the Problem of the Literary Genius.

Sonia Solicari, Victoria and Albert Museum: The Cult of the Artist–Potter 1860–1910.

Abbie N. Sprague, University of Cambridge: Art in the Humblest of Objects: The Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society Catalogue of 1888 - Evidence of a Movement Realized.

Anne L. B. Terrill, University of Texas-Austin: Utopian Aesthetics: The Literary Museum in Morris, Rossetti, and Eliot.

Melanie Vandenbrouck-Przybylski, Courtauld Institute of Art: Painting at the gallop : Horace Vernet and his critics.

Miho Wako, University of Warwick: Figured in Lively Paint: Japanese Decorative Arts in Vernon Lee’s Miss Brown

Julie Watt, Independent scholar: Playing the Market: The Case of Letitia Landon, Poetess.

Sharon Aronofsky Weltman, Louisiana State University: ‘Arcadias of Pantomime’: Ruskin, Theater, and The Illustrated London News.

Marcelle Wong, University of Edinburgh: From Studio to Courthouse: Whistler, Wilde, and the Performance of Self.

Matthew Young, Independent Researcher: From Stickphast to Shagreen: Andrew W. Tuer and the Leadenhall Press.

For the full Conference programme, with registration details, abstracts of papers, and more, click here.

ICAF, the International Comic Arts Forum, will hold its thirteenth annual meeting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, from Thursday, October 9th, through Saturday, October 11th 2008. Nothing fin-de-siécliste about that, but we are preparing a bibliography of Oscar Wilde in comic book (or graphic novel) form, and will follow this up with others that relate to the fin-de-siècle – Proust, for example. All contributions welcome. To learn about ICAF's mission, click here.

Envisioning Utopia: British Art and Socialist Politics, 1870-1900: A Walter Crane Study Day at the Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester.

Friday, 5th December, 17:30 keynote address followed by reception.

Saturday, 6th December, registration begins at 11:00; programme begins 11:30.

On 5th and 6th December, 2008, the Whitworth will host a conference, “Envisioning Utopia: British Art and Socialist Politics, 1870-1900.” This conference will examine the dynamic between the urban and the pastoral in utopian visions of a socialist future and explore the role of visual art in formulating and articulating these political ideals.

Keynote address Friday at 5:30 by Professor Tim Barringer (History of Art, Yale University). Speakers include Dr Matthew Beaumont (English, UCL), Dr. Jo Briggs (Yale Center for British Art), Professor Michael Hatt (History of Art, Warwick), Dr Ruth Livesey (The Victorian Centre, Royal Holloway, University of London), Sarah Turner (Courtauld Institute), and Dr Anna Vaninskaya (King’s College, Cambridge University Victorian Studies Group).

Registration fee £20, concessions £10. Registration includes reception on Friday and refreshments and lunch on Saturday. For more information, email waltercranearchive@gmail.com.

This event is supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Artists’ Writings 1750-present

Courtauld Institute of Art, 6th-7th June 2009

Despite Matisse’s warning that ‘he who wants to dedicate himself to painting should start by cutting out his tongue’, artists in the modern period have frequently expressed themselves in writing (whether memoir, fiction or theory). This conference will ask what motivates artists to write, how they view the relation between their visual and textual practice, and how they use writing to manipulate or challenge the public reception and critical interpretation of their work. Challenging the myth of the visual artist as an intuitive anti-intellectual, it will demonstrate the extent and diversity of artists’ contributions to modern literature and criticism in various languages. It will also investigate how scholars interpret these texts: are they works of art in themselves or simply evidence about the artist’s life and craft? Do they conceal as much as they reveal? How has the role and perception of artists’ writings changed over time?

Topics could include, but are not limited to: Questions of genre; Public versus private writing; Authorship, authority and intention; Writing as justification / explanation / polemic ; Writing as obfuscation; Self-expression versus silence; Fact and fiction; Life-writing; The politics of identity (ethnicity, gender, sexuality); Travel writing; Ekphrasis / transposition d’art / synaesthesia; Interchange and rivalry between the arts; The artist as critic; Artists’ interviews; Public lectures, instruction and guidance; Manifestos and treatises; Text-based art works and artists’ books; Writing and visuality; Writing and performance.

Contributions are invited from art historians, literary scholars and artists. Please send proposals (maximum 300 words) for presentations of 20 minutes to Linda Goddard @ by 15th September 2008.

JOURNALS

The Art Book

Volume 15 Issue 2 (May 2008), published on behalf of the Association of Art Historians and edited by Sue Ward & Marion Arnold, is now available. Article and reviews include Pictures of Millais, by Colin Cruise.

Art History

Published on behalf of the Association of Art Historians and edited by David Peters Corbett and Christine Riding, Art History (ISSN 0141-6790) is a refereed journal that publishes essays and reviews on all aspects, areas and periods of the history of art, from a diversity of perspectives, 5 issues per year. Founded in 1978, it has established an international reputation for publishing innovative essays at the cutting edge of contemporary scholarship. At the forefront of scholarly enquiry, contributors to Art History are opening up the discipline to new developments and to the interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approaches that are increasingly important in this globalised world. 'Art History' publishes a thematic ‘special issue’ each year.

Art History offers a diverse reviews section for those involved in the history of art and related fields. You can get online information about the journal directly from Blackwell’s website. This includes a listing of contents, the aims and scope of the journal, notes for contributors, subscription information for non-members.

The latest issue is that of April 2008 (Vol. 31 /2). This contains no article that falls within our interests.

Arts & Crafts Newsletter

The latest issue of Mark Golding’s Arts and Crafts Newsletter, no 75, May 2008, has now been published and can be found on-line by clicking its banner. Notice of each monthly issue of this very useful and informative journal is available by e-mail from mark@achome.co.uk.

British Art Journal

The British Art Journal (‘The research journal of British Arts Studies’, founded in 1999), maintains a website at www.britishartjournal.co.uk, but no Table of Contents is as yet published and the website seems unchanged since 2003. One cannot tell from the website what was its most recent issue, and the Archive page has been suspended ‘for lack of funds’. Submissions are still being invited and we will continue to monitor the site in case articles on fin-de-siècle artists should appear.

The North American Victorian Studies Association has published its latest on-line newsletter, no 7: http://www.purdue.edu/NAVSA/newsletters/2007Winter/
Among other things, the newsletter includes news of interest to Victorianists (prizes, conferences, etc.); the contents of the forthcoming special issue of Victorian Studies dedicated to the 2006 Purdue conference; and news about future NAVSA conferences, including the 2007 meeting in Victoria, British Columbia.

Nineteenth Century Art Worldwide

Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide is the world’s first scholarly, refereed e-journal devoted to the study of nineteenth-century painting, sculpture, graphic arts, photography, architecture, and decorative arts across the globe, and functions as the journal of Association of Historians of Nineteenth Century Art. Open to various historical and theoretical approaches the editors welcome contributions that reach across national boundaries and illuminate intercultural contact zones. The chronological scope of the journal is the ‘long’ nineteenth century, stretching from the American and French Revolutions, at one end, to the outbreak of World War I, at the other.

The Spring 2008 edition (Volume VII Number 1) is now published. The leading articles for late nineteenth century scholars are listed below (hyperlinked):

ARTICLES

Cléo de Mérode's Postcard Stardom by Michael Garval

Reflections of Desire: Masculinity and Fantasy in the Fin-de-Siècle Luxury Brothel by Gina Greene

REVIEWS

Jean-Jacques Henner, Le dernier des romantiques. Reviewed by Gabriel P. Weisberg

Georges Seurat: The Drawings. Reviewed by Michael Dorsch

The Painted Face: Portraits of Women in France, 1814-1914, by Tamar Garb. Reviewed by Amy Freund

Model and Supermodel: The Artist's Model in British Art and Culture, Jane Desmarais, Martin Postle, and William Vaughan, eds. Reviewed by Susan Waller

Odalisques and Arabesques: Orientalist Photography, 1839-1925 by Ken Jacobson. Reviewed by Radha Dalal

Victorian and Edwardian Responses to the Italian Renaissance, John E. Law and Lene Østermark-Johansen, eds. Reviewed by Joel Hollander

The Review of the Pre-Raphaelite Society

First issued in the Spring of 1993, The Review has appeared three times a year (except in 1998, 2000 and 2003), when special issues on Burne-Jones, Ruskin and Millais each represented two numbers. The latest issue whose details are given on line is Vol. XVI, No.1, Spring 2008. Click the image for the Table of Contents.

WORD & IMAGE

Word & Image concerns itself with the study of the encounters, dialogues and mutual collaboration (or hostility) between verbal and visual languages, one of the prime new areas of humanistic criticism. Word & Image provides a forum for articles that focus exclusively on this special study of the relations between words and images. Themed issues, guest-edited by internationally acknowledged scholars, are a regular feature of the journal. Recent examples include reading ancient and medieval art, the picture and the text, and artists in two media. 4 issues per year; print version only. It is not easy to find its Table of Contents on-line. We gave up.

PUBLICATIONS

Emily Weeks & Nicholas Tromans (eds): The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting. London: Tate Publishing 2008.

This book has been published to accompany the exhibition currently on at Tate Britain. The narrative focuses on the British artists who went to the Middle East between the 1830s and the 1920s. Some of them went out of curiosity, others in the hope of finding a new utopia. Yet more were in search of new subject matter. According to Caroline Bugler, reviewing the book for The Art Newspaper, some were even inspired by the idea that the Orient might offer a ‘modern’ version of the Greek and Roman world. Thus another renaissance might be born based on that classical period. It is clear that there was very little knowledge about this world and the Western ideas about the Orient were often fanciful. Indeed there were artists paintings this type of picture from the comparative safety of his own studio. S.B-L.

Alfred Weidinger: Klimt. Prestel, Munich, Berlin, London, New York: Prestel 2007. £89.00/ $165.00.

This is the definitive complete catalogue of the paintings of Gustav Klimt. A sumptuous volume, it is a must for all devotees of the Austrian Symbolist painter who was one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Art Nouveau. S.B-L.

Pierre Sanchez, Stéphane Richemond : La société des peintres orientalistes français (1889-1943). Editions L'Echelle de Jacob, ISBN-EAN13 : 9782913224735, 110 €.

‘This is an abridgment of 31 booklets with around 15,000 notes on artworks, giving the names of the painters alphabetically followed by their dates, and place of birth and death; followed by catalogue entries grouped according to category: painting, sculpture, drawing, print, decorative art and architecture.’ D.C.R. (tr.)

Vanessa Lecomte, Sarah Burns, Olivier Meslay: Portrait of a lady, peintures et photographies américaines en France (1870-1915). Editions Le Passage. ISBN-EAN13 : 9782847421170. 38 €. ‘Portrait of a Lady brings together a remarkable selection of American paintings gathered from French public collections and so relates a certain narrative of artistic exchange between France and the United States.’ D.C.R. (tr.)

SOCIETIES

(click on their colophons to reach their websites)

THE ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS

This English Association ‘represents the interests of those involved in all aspects of the discipline, including art, design, visual culture, architecture, film, photography, conservation and museum studies.’ Its publications, February issues of Art History and The Art Book are available, April issues will be out shortly, as of 17th June. For more information about these issues please follow the link above. The next issue of Bulletin will be published in June. There is also a new AAH eBulletin.

THE IRISH ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS

The IAAH is the representative association for art historians in Ireland and is responsible for the election of the Irish National Committee of the Comité International d'Histoire de l'Art (CIHA).

Since its foundation, the IAAH has maintained a programme of lectures, events, seminars and tours to significant sites in Ireland and abroad. The range of lecture subjects has been broad and varied. Visits are also arranged to important collections and exhibitions at home and abroad. Financial assistance is given from time to time for research, publications and restoration projects and the IAAH funds an essay prize for History of Art undergraduates.

Although the Association itself is still active, its website site promising quarterly updates on its news and events has been abandoned. The last event announced was for September 2004. Our attempt to contact them at the address given on the website (iaah@ireland.com) brought the reply ‘User unknown’.

· We wrote the above in the spring of 2007; in April 2008 for the first issue of VISIONS the website had not changed but in May 2008 work began on re-opening the site, and it can now be visited for information. We will report further in our Autumn issue.

THE SCOTTISH SOCIETY FOR ART HISTORY

The SSAH was founded in 1984 to promote Art History in Scotland. It is open to everyone interested in art, from people with a general interest to specialist scholars, and from students to teachers, museum curators, collectors and dealers. The Society aims to be relevant to all fields of art, including applied art, architecture and design, as well as fine art. It also embraces the art of all periods and countries, though of course it has a strong commitment to Scottish art. The Society publishes both a Newsletter and an annual Journal, and Tables of Contents are available on the Society’s website (the latest Journal there being Vol. 12, 2076). THE OSCHOLARS on our Publications page will note articles covering our concerns that appear in the latter. The website was upgraded in Spring 2008.

THE ARTS & CRAFTS SOCIETY OF NEW YORK

The Arts and Crafts Society of Central New York is a non-profit organization dedicated to the study of the Arts and Crafts Movement through a schedule of lectures, symposia, tours and other educational programs for the purpose of increasing awareness of this rich cultural heritage and stimulating interest in its preservation.

The Society's website maintains a number of fora dedicated to different aspects of Arts and Crafts, and its latest newsletter (Vol. 10 no 1, Spring 2008) can be downloaded as a .pdf.

The objectives are:

· To preserve, document, and understand the artifacts and ideals of the Arts & Crafts Movement.

· To accomplish these objectives, the society encourages study groups in such areas as architecture, ceramics, glass, furniture, books, and other topics.

· Support conferences, seminars, publications and exhibitions relating to the Arts & Crafts Movement.

· Sponsor research and publication of Arts and Crafts material.

· To work toward the establishment of an Arts & Crafts research center to serve as a place of study, exhibitions, meeting, and collection.

THE CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH SOCIETY

The Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society is an independent, non-profit making charity, established in 1973 to promote and encourage awareness of the Scottish architect and designer, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The Society has over 1600 members across the world with active groups in Glasgow, Bath, London and the SE, North of England and Japan, and an associate group in Port Vendres. The Director is Stuart Robertson.

In 1999, the Society became owner and long-term custodian of the Mackintosh Church at Queen’s Cross. Membership of the Society provides a unique opportunity to support the only church built to Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s design.

The CRM Society, Queen’s Cross Church, 870 Garscube Road, Glasgow G20 7EL. Tel: :-(44) 0141-946-6600. FaxL44) 0141-945-2321. E-mail: @.

The website (click below) was recently redesigned and is extremely useful. Its News & Events section can be accessed directly at http://www.crmsociety.com/eventlist.aspx, and one can now subscribe to an e-newsletter.

THE DECORATIVE ARTS SOCIETY

Founded in 1975, The Decorative Arts Society encourages the study and appreciation of the applied arts, architecture and interior design on an international basis throughout Europe and America from 1850 to the present. In its activities and publications the Society embraces all the different media – furniture, ceramics, glass, metalwork, textiles, jewellery and fashion as well as industrial design, stage and film design and the graphic arts. Membership is international and is open to all who are interested in any aspect of this vast field. No specialist knowledge is required. Existing members comprise collectors, dealers, libraries, museum curators, teachers, students, artists and designers, as well as those from other walks of life, all of whom wish to share their enthusiasm with others.

The DAS has an international reputation for its scholarship on the decorative arts which is disseminated world-wide through the annual journal, sent free of charge to all members. This illustrated publication contains authoritative articles based on original research usually collected around a particular theme or topic. With at least 100 pages and over 100 illustrations, many in colour, the Journal is of permanent scholarly value to both institutions and collectors. The current journal’s Table of Contents is published on the Society’s website.

There is a full cumulative index of past Journals, most of which are still available. Back numbers are available through Richard Dennis Publications, The Old Chapel, Shepton Beauchamp, Ilminster, Somerset TA19 OLE, England. Tel +44 (0) 1460240044@

For membership details contact The Membership Secretary, Decorative Arts Society, PO BOX 136, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 1TG, England. The Society maintains a website which can be reached by clicking its monogram.

THE FURNITURE HISTORY SOCIETY

1 Mercedes Cottages, St John's Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, RH16 4EH, England. @

The small, and rather reticent, webpage that used to be at http://www.iserv.net/~plucas/fhsoc.htm no longer exists, and has been replaced by a much grander site (click below). Among the information given on its various pages we cite the following:

Furniture History, the journal of the Furniture History Society, is an extensively illustrated scholarly journal issued annually to members only. It is the only journal devoted to the history of furniture from all parts of the world and is internationally recognized as authoritative. Subjects range from the work of individual makers and designers to aspects of interior decoration, domestic economy and trade practice. Contributions have been made by the foremost scholars in the field. The Table of Contents for the 2007 issue is on line, but apart from an article on Moïse de Camondo, it covers an earlier period than our own.

From time to time, single issues devoted to individual subjects or notable articles published in special editions for sale to the public. One can use the link Special Publications for a list of available back issues.

The Furniture History Society’s illustrated Newsletter, published four times a year, comprises about 24 pages of notices of the Society’s activities, news items and short articles on current matters of interest, such as recent discoveries, research topics or museum acquisitions. The Newsletter also reports on past visits, lectures and study tours at home and abroad and includes numerous book reviews.

THE HISTORIANS OF BRITISH ART

The Historians of British Art (HBA) was founded in Chicago in 1992. It is an affiliated society of the College Art Association (North America). The purpose of HBA is to foster communication and to promote the study and sharing of ideas among those engaged in any type of scholarship or other professional endeavour related to British art and architecture of every area and/or period. The membership of HBA is international in scope. HBA has affiliated sessions at the annual CAA conference, in addition to a separate business meeting. HBA also sponsors visits to area collections during the CAA meeting whenever possible.

The HBA Newsletter is published biannually, and a modest website is maintained at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.

THE ASSOCIATION OF HISTORIANS OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY ART

Founded in 1993, the Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art currently has more than three hundred members. AHNCA's goal is to foster dialogue and communication among those who have a special interest in the field of nineteenth-century art and culture. Nineteenth-century art is broadly defined as all art that was produced between the American Revolution and the Paris International Exposition of 1900, regardless of geographic boundaries.

Current members in good standing receive two newsletters annually and a directory of association members. All memberships run from January to December of the calendar year in which you join or renew. The Association’s journal, Nineteenth Century Art Worldwide, published on-line, has long been featured in the Publications section of THE OSCHOLARS.

Twice a year the Association publishes a newsletter containing information about new books and exhibitions related to nineteenth-century art and activities of scholars in the field. We also carry exhibition and book reviews and articles about trends in the field as well as how-to articles about publishing and research.

Queries and submissions about the newsletter may be sent to: Laurie Dahlberg, AHNCA Newsletter Editor, Program in Art History Bard College, Campus Box 3000 Annandale, NY 12504 @.

Rachel Chatalbash is U.S. exhibitions editor @; Cheryl K. Snay is international exhibitions editor and museum news editor @; Leanne Zalewski is fellowships and grants editor @; Karen Leader is new books editor @; Elizabeth Mix is symposia and conferences editor @.

The Association’s website (last modified 29th August 2007) can be found by clicking the banner.

THE PRE-RAPHAELITE SOCIETY

‘The Pre-Raphaelite Society is dedicated to the celebration of the mood and style of art which Ruskin recognised and preserved by his writings, and to the observation of its wide-ranging influence. In co-operation with societies of similar aims world-wide, it seeks to commemorate Pre-Raphaelite ideals by means of meetings, conferences, discussions, publications and correspondence, and to draw attention to significant scholastic work in this field. First and foremost, however, it is a society in which individuals can come together to enjoy the images and explore the personalities of the Pre-Raphaelites and their followers through the medium of fine art, the appreciation of good design and the excellence of the traditional arts.’ (Written for the Society by the late Anthony Hobson – author of J W Waterhouse.)

The Society organises a varied programme of lectures and visits to exhibitions and places of interest each year.

Membership enquiries: Michael Wollaston - 18 Floyd Grove, Balsall Common, Coventry, CV7 7RP England; General enquiries: Barry Johnson - 37 Larchmere Drive, Hall Green, Birmingham, B28 8JB England

The Review of the PRS: First issued in the Spring of 1993, The Review has appeared three times a year (except in 1998, 2000 and 2003), when special issues on Burne-Jones, Ruskin and Millais each represented two numbers. Many of the issues are available for sale. Please contact for an order form. Tables of Contents of The Review of the PRS are published on the website, and are covered in our Publications section.

The Public Monuments and Sculpture Association

The PMSA was established in 1991 to further the cause of outdoor statues, sculpture and commemorative monuments nationwide. To achieve its aims – to raise public awareness, understanding and enjoyment of public art – the PMSA has undertaken a wide range of ambitious projects, described on its informative website (click the banner). The Sculpture Journal is published twice-yearly by Liverpool University Press. Launched in 1997, this is the foremost academic periodical on all aspects of sculpture (mainly in the Western tradition) from the post-medieval period to the present day.

BRUSH STROKES

Edward Burne-Jones, Magnificent Dreamer: A ‘London Adventure Walk’, http://thelondonadventure.co.uk/

Presented by Antony Clayton, Sunday 6th July, 2008, 3pm

‘I mean by a picture a beautiful romantic dream of something that never was, never will be – in a light better than any light that ever shone – in a land no one can define or remember, only desire – and the forms divinely beautiful.’

Meet at the main entrance to Kensington Central Library in Hornton Street, W8, opposite the Town Hall (nearest Underground station, High Street Kensington). Look for the man holding a Burne-Jones catalogue, who will conduct you on a walk that will stop at two of Burne-Jones’s houses in Kensington, pay homage to the artist’s colony in Melbury Road – where many of his friends lived – and conclude at the site of his house and studio, The Grange.

Edward Burne-Jones (1833-98) was born in Birmingham but spent his most productive years as an artist in London, where he worked with William Morris and was an associate of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Steeped in literary subject matter, the otherworldly and dreamlike quality of his art was enhanced by the melancholy appearance of his androgynous figures, often sensuously languorous and contemplative. Through his paintings and drawings he articulated, more than any other Victorian painter, the nostalgia for an older England, the vital mystical and psychic power of Arthurian legend and the intensity of his anti-materialist philosophy. Burne-Jones believed that from the urbanised, industrialised, degraded land a new more beautiful and spiritual world would emerge represented symbolically by King Arthur awakening from his centuries-long slumber in Avalon.

The walk will last around two hours, and a suitable hostelry will be visited afterwards.

· Antony Clayton is the author of Subterranean City, London’s Coffee Houses, Decadent London and The Folklore of London (to be published in the summer of 2008).

The Simeon Solomon Research Archive is a fully developed and regularly updated website dedicated to this important figure of the Decadence, and forms an extremely important resource.

No student of Symbolism can ignore the website of the leading French authority on the subject, Jean-David Jumeau-Lafond, whose many works on this subject are listed.

Serena Trowbridge, editor of the Review of the Pre-Raphaelite Society has been interested in contacting anyone working on the Pre-Raphaelite painter F.G. Stephens: ‘All suggestions welcome’ to Serena Trowbridge @.

NICE Paintings - the National Inventory of Continental European Paintings

Announcing the launch of a new web resource for the study of history of art, museum studies and picture research. NICE Paintings (http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/collections/NIRP/index.php) contains detailed records of nearly 8,000 pre-1900 Continental European oil paintings from 200 public collections across the United Kingdom. Over 2,500 are illustrated with digital colour images, and more images are being added regularly. This pioneering database is the first phase of a project to bring together in one searchable catalogue all 22,000 old master paintings in UK museums. The project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Getty Foundation and the Kress Foundation. NICE Paintings was produced by the National Inventory Research Project (NIRP), based at the University of Glasgow. NIRP is a partnership between the University of Glasgow and Birkbeck University of London. It is managed by a steering committee of curators from national and regional collections across the UK, chaired by Dr Susan Foster, Director of Collections at the National Gallery, London. The project is continuing to add digital images to the database, contributed by museums and the Public Catalogue Foundation, and is working to complete the project by adding to the database records on the 15,000 old master paintings in national university and other major regional museums not included in this initial research phase of the project. URL: http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/collections/NIRP/index.php; contact: Andrew Greg @

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