My favourite books 2006 Vs now

I can remember nearly every novel set by English teachers in high school (1960-65) . But when I recently found a 2006 newspaper article discussing my reading preferences, I couldn't remember the era when my children still lived at home. This newspaper article covered the books I most loved in the decades from 1975-2005.

  

Book column

Australian Jewish News

Melbourne March 2006

 

The Women's Room is the first novel

by American author Marilyn French,

published in 1977.

These days I read big, beautifully written and glossy books that I leave on the family room table to impress family and friends. And because they are too heavy and expensive to carry around. My three best current examples are: Palazzi of Rome, by Cresti and Rendina, published by Konemann, 1998; Patrons and Painters, Art and Society in Baroque Italy by Haskell, published by Yale UP 1980 and The Library, a World History, by Campbell and Pryce, Chicago UP, 2013. 

If any reader is interested in the book I would like for my next birthday, I suggest Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes by Le Corbusier, Mardges Bacon, Prof Barry Bergdoll (contribs) et al, Museum of Modern Art, 2013  :)

Kroyer's loveliest art in France & Denmark

Kroyer, Hip, Hip, Hurrah! 1888, 
Gothenburg Museum of Art, Sweden

Impressionism was at first a French art movement, starting in the second half of the C19th. Impressionist techniques included visible, thick brush strokes of pure colour, creating a vibrant effect, and capturing the essence of the subject matter rather than focusing on minute details. Impressionists often painted outdoors to capture the effects of sunlight on their subjects, favouring natural poses and domestic scenes, creating a sense of freshness and normalcy. Even after thousands of artists from other nations flooded into France to learn from the Impressionists, these artists took French Impressionist techniques back home with them.

Peder Krøyer (1851-1909) was a Norwegian born lad who moved to Copenhagen for school and then studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Art. In his 20s, Krøyer travelled widely in Europe. While  in Paris, Kroyer was particularly impressed by the Impressionists who were already making a name for themselves - Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas and Sisley. Kroyer spent his formative years travellng in France from 1877-81 but then he had to go back to Denmark in 1882, where his taste for Impressionism stayed with him.

Kroyer, Artists' Luncheon at Skagen, 1883,
Granger Collection, New York

The group of Scandinavian artists formed an art group in Skagen at the tip of Denmark’s Jutland in the 1880s-early 1890s. I wonder what the rather conservative fishermen of this remote fishing village thought about the big city artists, with their alcohol and their women. Anyhow, because of Kroyer’s experience as a well travelled, well trained artist in French taste, he became leader of the Skagen community. His work during the 1880s was fresh, often showing a peaceful life on the beach, often celebrating art with all his artist friends, usually with food and drink at hand. Consider for example The Artists' Luncheon 1883. Here you can see the Skagen artists eating a convivial, boozy lunch at Brøndum's Hotel. His art was also influential.

Denmark does not have a hot climate, so I wondered why so many paintings had summer picnics, summer outdoor lunches and summer walks on the beach. The answer was that Kroyer divided his time between a holiday home in Skagen each shortish summer and his flat in Copenhagen where he worked on his large commissions each longish winter.  So see his famous works depicting local fishermen working along Skagen beach, including Men of Skagen setting out for night fishing (1884) and Fishermen hauling nets North Beach, Skagen (1883), which highlighted the tough Danish conditions and physical labour of coastal life.

Fishermen hauling nets North Beach Skagen, 1883

Wiki

Anna Ancher and Marie Krøyer on Skagen beach, 1890s,

Private collection. Wikimedia

I am very loyal to my favourite artists. And now another Kroyer painting has grabbed my attention and I need to annouce my newest Favourite Painting Of All Times. At least for now! Hip, Hip, Hurrah! 1888 is a large work that is in the Gothenburg Museum of Art in Sweden. The painting shows members of the guild of Skagen Painters, socialising as they were wont to do, in the open gardens. For me, Hip, Hip, Hurrah! is typical of the work produced by the Skagen Painters, focusing as it does on the play of light in the rather limited landscape. Gothenburg Museum asks people to compare Hip, Hip, Hurrah! with Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party, and in both composition and subject matter. And another comparison. Hip, Hip, Hurrah! had many of the same people we saw in Artists' Luncheon at Skagen 1883.

Summer evening at Skagen - painter and wife,1899

Artvee

Because the 1888 work took some years to paint, Swedish art collector Pontus Fürstenberg bought the painting before it was completed. Fürstenberg later donated his treasure to the Gothenburg Museum of Art, where it remains today.

The film PS Krøyer - What A Life! was made in Denmark in 2008. I have not seen the documentary so my summary comes from MUBI. Krøyer was the undisputed centre of the Skagen painters. He was famous; lionised and married to the most beautiful woman in Copenhagen. The film was a tribute to an artistic prodigy whose excellence brought Danish art to an international level. Krøyer brought a whole new way of life to Skagen; as the artists’ colony was created, so the party could begin. Everybody wanted to go there. Hip Hip Hurrah! became the symbol of the two decades of happiness and unity in the 1880s-90s.

Only when his mother’s insanity started to manifest itself did Krøyer's beautiful life start to unravel. His wife left him and with her, the foundation of his idyllic existence disappeared. But he had to live on. Fortunately he had steady, loving support until the very end. Kroyer died in 1909.

**

I went on a history cruise in the past and loved it. Avalon Cruises’ special interest trips have lectures and cultural activities on board that relate to the towns that art buffs love. In deference to Kroyer I would most like to spend time on the “Seine River Cruise” that leaves Paris, sailing to Vernon, for a guided visits to Claude Monet’s gardens at Giverny. On to Joan of Arc’s historic Rouen, where the excursion is to the Normandy land­ing beaches. There is an optional excursion to the Impres­sion­ists’ coastal town of Honfleur. In the medieval town of Conflans, visit  Vincent van Gogh’s gateway to Auvers-sur-Oise. In Paris see Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Opéra, Madeleine, Champs Elysées and the Eiffel Tower.  Enjoy a cabaret show at Toulouse Lautrec’s Moulin Rouge. The 8-day cruise leaves Paris regularly throughout April-August.

Old Harbour, Honfleur

Honfleur was where Monet, Courbet, Dubourg, Boudin, Bazille, Corot, Sisley and others painted. It was also the home of Musée Eugène Boudin.

Map of France and Denmark

note Honfleur to Skagen to Copenhagen 

Triangle Shirt Fact­ory NY fire tragedy 1911.

Shirtwaist designs, The Modern Priscilla Needlework Magazine, 1906

5 Minute History

Russians Max Blanck and Isaac Harris immigrated to the U.S in the early 1890s and, like hundreds of thousands of other impoverish­ed Jew­ish im­migrants, they began working in the garment industry in sweat­shops. Har­ris became familiar with popular fashion designs while Blanck became a garment contractor. They made a partner­ship, founding the Triangle Waist Co in 1900. In time, The Triangle Shirt­waist Fact­ory was located in the top 3 floors of the Asch Building in Manhattan. They hired 500 work­ers, mostly female Jewish and Italian immigrants, half of them teens. It was a true sweat­shop; the immigrants worked in a cramped space at lines of sewing machines for 12 hours a day. These young women worked 6-7 days a week for tiny wages and little ventilation. The male owners gave male workers the higher-paid jobs, ass­uming women were less skilled.

In 1909, the USA was advancing towards greater mass production and in­creasingly dangerous working conditions. That year the Uprising of 20,000 Strike was organised mainly by Yiddish-speaking garment workers female due to their horrid conditions, long hours and low wages. Their primary motive was to get attention paid to the mist­r­eat­­ment of imm­igrant work­ers. While there were short term agreements to meet their dem­ands, the strike ultimately failed. How­ever it DID succeed some­what in exposing poor working conditions. Progressives and unionists cal­l­ed for different reforms, but Tammany Hall opposed them; the polit­ical machine stalled any legislation that might have benefitted the workers.

Fire danger in factories was common, but corruption in both the industry and city government generally ensured that few useful precautions were taken. The Triangle factory was burned in 1907 and in 1910, the owners appar­ently torching their own work­places before business hours in order to collect on the large fire-insurance policies they purchased, a not unknown practice in the early C20th. While this did not cause the 1911 fire, it contr­ibuted to the tragedy, as Blanck & Harris refused to install sprinkler systems.

Women workers pre-fire

Barbara's Bookstore

 

In 1911 Triangle Shirt­waist Fact­ory had 4 elevators accessing the fact­ory floors, but only one was fully operational and the workers had to go along a narrow corridor to reach it. There were two stairways down to the street, but they were locked from the outside to prevent the workers steal­ing.

The fire escape was so narrow, it would have taken hours for all the workers to use it, even if it had not burned down.

In Mar 1911, there were 600 workers at the Triangle Shirtwaist Fact­ory when a fire began in a material bin. The manager tried using the fire hose to extin­guish it, but the hose was rotted and its valve rust­ed shut. The fire spread and panic ensued. The young workers tried to exit the building by the elevator but it only held 12 people and the operator could only make four trips before it stopped in flames. Young women bec­ame trapped by bulky equipment as flames enveloped the 8th, 9th and 10th floors of the Asch Building. As people struggled to escape, sev­eral fell into the flames, their bodies piling by blocked exits. In a desper­ate at­tempt to escape, the girls still waiting for the elev­ator plunged down the shaft to their deaths. The girls who fled via the stairwells found the locked door at the bottom of the stairs, and were burned alive.

Fire­fighters arrived & saw their lad­ders reached only 7 floors high but the fire was on the 8th floor. So the girls who did not make it to the stairwells or elevator were trapped by the fire inside the fact­ory; they began jumping from the wind­ows to es­cape and died on the conc­rete below. Within 20 mins they found 49 workers burned to death, 36 died in the elevator shaft, 58 died from jumping from the 8th floor and 3 more died in hospital. 146 people were killed altogether.

The International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union had fought for better working con­dit­ions for all sweatshop workers. The union didn’t gain real attention until after the Triangle Waist Co owners were indicted for first degree manslaughter, but were found to be not guilty by the grand jury. To settle lawsuits against them, the owners DID pay $75 in compen­sat­ion to each victim’s family, a frac­t­ion of the $400 per death that they were paid by their insurer.

Nonetheless the tragedy led to the growth of a series of laws and regu­l­ations that better protected workers’ safety. The fire unified organised labour and reforming polit­icians like N.Y Gov. Alfred Smith and Sen Ro­b­­ert Wagner, a le­g­isl­ator in Pres Franklin D Roosevelt’s (1933–45) New Deal agenda. And the Factory Investig­ating Comm­ission in N.Y was set up af­t­er the fire. The workers union set up a march on 5th Ave NY to prot­est the conditions that had led to the fire, attended by 80,000 people.

The huge death toll for which they were responsible DID finally compel the city to enact reform. The Fire Prevention Law passed, and N.Y Democrats took up the workers’ cause; both were crucial in lim­iting similar disasters in the future.

Desperate women threw themselves down from the 8th storey to death

New York Herald

March 1911

Conclusion 

In this era, progressive movements sought to red­uce the impacts of the deplorable working conditions brought by industr­ial­­is­ation and inequality between rich and poor. The 1911 day became the deadliest indust­rial disas­ter in Manhattan history, when 123 women and 23 men died. Workers, union leaders, progressive reformers and political lead­ers all begged for higher environmental standards fitting for US. The Triangle Factory fire DID help create laws for a better workplace to keep employ­ees safer, but at an unthinkable cost for the immigrant families.

favourite U.K suffragette: Leonora Cohen

Police court summons and photo, Nov 1911

Photo credit: Leeds Museums & Galleries

Leonora Throp Cohen (1873–1978) was born in Leeds to Canova & Jane Throp. Her father was a stone carver but died in 1879 when Leonora was only 5, after he devel­op­ed TB of the spine. This left her widowed mother to raise the 3 young children. Her seamstress mother worked to provide for the family, especially difficult since Leonora also developed TB

Leonora apprenticed as a milliner and while she was working as a mil­l­inery buyer, she met Henry Cohen. He was a jeweller's assistant in central Leeds and the son of Jewish immigrants from Warsaw. Married in 1900, the couple's first child Rosetta died on her first birthday but thankfully in 1902, they had a healthy son Reginald. For the next nine years, the small family enjoyed a peaceful life as Henry's business as a jeweller and watchmaker flourished. 

Because her mother Jane had been a widowed seamstress struggling to raise the children alone, it was obvious to Leonora that her mum had few rights as a woman living in Britain. Life was hard because women had little control over their own lives. So it was her mother's lack of empowerment that had radicalised the young woman. 

At the time of Cohen's first job as a milliner, there was a campaign for better working conditions for women. This affected Cohen and her view of the treatment of women in the working world. Thankfully husband Henry was supportive of her fight for women's rights. 

Cohen later donated her scrapbook, many papers, craftwork, photos and other momentos to Abbey House Museum Leeds. Her scrapbook provided an insight into what inspired her to become a suffragette and indicated her interested in current affairs via an article about Nurse Edith Cavell's death

One cabinet from the Leonora Cohen section of Abbey House Museum.

The green dress is covered in Suffragette symbols, and the logo of the Women’s Social & Political Union

In 1909, she joined Leeds branch of Women's Social & Political Union/WSPU, founded by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903. Later, Cohen was in The Bodyguard to Mrs Pankhurst.

In 1911, Cohen joined in a rally that was packed out with support­ers. And the mounted police. When she protested by throwing a rock at a government-building window, she was promptly arrested and placed in Holloway Prison for seven days. Spending time behind bars only in­creased her passion to fight for women’s right to vote. She de­fend­ed herself in court and even though found guilty, the authorities re­leased her. As Cohen began to take bolder steps as a suffragette, her family supporting her allegiance.

In 1913 Cohen took more vigorous action. At a protest at the Tower of London, she followed a group of school children inside, acting as a teacher. Hidden under Leonora’s coat was an iron bar, taken the night before and filed off for the purpose. Leonora used this bar to smash a glass showcase containing in­signia of the Order of Merit in the Tower’s Jewel House. She tied a note to the bar: My Prot­est to the Government for its refusal to Enfranchise Women, but continues to torture women prisoners. Deeds Not Words. 100 years of Constitutional Pet­ition, Resolutions, Meetings & Processions have Failed. Lenora Cohen 

Cohen was re-arrested, but decided to make a stand by going on a hunger strike, & not speaking out in anger. Because of the Cat & Mouse Act, Cohen was released from prison after a few days to allow her to recover from her hunger strike.

In 1913 suffragettes Annie Kenney & Flora Drummond asked for WSPU members to speak to leading politicians David Lloyd George and Sir Edward Grey at Westminster. The delegates described the terrible pay and working conditions that they suffered and their hope that a vote would enable women to challenge the status quo. Voting women would have power to demand higher wages, just as men had done.

During WW1 Leonora threw herself into the war effort, without other distractions. She worked in a munitions factory where she set up a trade union branch for women workers and defused strikes. She also established a charity, raising money for surgical appliances for women who had been injured in munitions factories.

A coalition government passed the Representation of the People Act 1918, enfranchising all men, and women over 30 who met minimum property qualifications. The Conservative gov­ernment passed the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928, giving the vote to all women over the age of 21 on equal terms with men. 

Cohen, a dedicated trade unionist, became the Leeds district org­aniser of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers and served a term as president of the Leeds Trades Council. By 1923, Cohen became the first woman president of the Yorkshire Federation of Trades Councils. In 1924 she was appointed a magistrate, one of the first women appointed to the bench and a JP for decades. In 1928, she was awarded the Order of the British Empire.

Blue Plaque on Leonora Cohen's home 

Leeds, Wiki

Suffragette Memorial honoured those fighting for women's suffrage,

unveiled in 1970

in the Christchurch Gardens, London

Leonora Cohen retired to north Wales. In 1970, she attended the unveiling of the Suffragette Memorial in London, along with other famous suffragettes and Labour politicians. Since Cohen lived to 105, long enough to become a role model for the 1970s feminists and Coh­en was brought back into the public eye. Brian Harr­ison inter­viewed 200+ people, including Cohen, as a part of his project Oral Evidence on the Suffragette and Suffragist Movements.

Before she died in 1978, Cohen donated all her mem­orabilia to Abbey House Museum, Leeds. The Times newspaper pub­lished her obit­uar­y, covering The Tower Suffragette’s imprisonment and hunger strike, and long career as a trade unionist and magistrate. She was seen as a regional act­ivist who was willing to be gaoled for the cause. And that later she became a very important trade unionist and magistrate

Edgar Degas, impressionist or modernist?

Edgar Degas (1834-1917) was born in Paris, son of banker Augustin De Gas. At 11 Degas enrolled in Lycée Louis-le-Grand, graduating in 1853. He was painting seriously and by 18, his bedroom became an artist's studio. He began making copies in the Louvre, but his father wanted him to study. So Degas enrolled in Law at Paris Uni in Nov 1853 but was bored. In 1855, Degas met Jean Auguste Ingres whom he revered. In Ap that year, Degas enrolled at Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he studied drawing & flourished. In Jul 1856 Degas moved to Italy for 3 years, copying Renaissance art.

After returning home, Degas continued copying paintings at the Louvre, still remained a keen copyist. He first exhibited at the Salon in 1865, when the jury accepted his painting Scene of War in the Middle Ages, attracting little attention. Although he exhibited annually in the Salon for 4 years, he submitted no more history paintings; his Steeplechase: The Fallen Jockey (1866 Salon) signalled a new commitment to modernity. The change in his art was influenced by Édouard Manet who he met in the Louvre.

Degas, Cotton Office in New Orleans, 

1873, Wiki

`

When the Franco-Prussian War erupted in 1870, Degas enlisted in the National Guard, defending Paris. During rifle training, his eyes were damaged. Post-war Degas enjoyed a long stay (from 1872) in New Orleans LA where his brother René and other relatives lived. One of Degas' New Orleans works, Cotton Exchange at New Orleans, won positive notice in France. Note it was his only work purchased by a museum during his lifetime!

Impressionism emerged in the 1860s, and grew in part from the realism of men like Courbet and Corot. The Impressionists painted the world's realities using notable colours, concentrating mainly on light effects. Degas hurt the Impressionists when he constantly belittled their en plein air art. He was anti-Impressionism, just like the critics who reviewed their shows, saying: What I do is the result of reflection and of the study of the great masters; I know nothing of spontaneity. See his Parisian scenes, off-centre compositions, experiments with colour & form, and friendship with key Impressionists.

Degas returned to Paris in 1873. Alas his father died and in settling the estate, it was found that brother René had amassed huge business debts. To preserve the family name, Degas had to sell his house and a collection of art he’d inherited. He suddenly found himself dependent on his own art sales for income. By now very unhappy with the Salon, Degas joined forces with young artists who were organising an Independent Art Society. Their first Impressionist Exhibitions started in 1874,  and they later held 7 additional shows until 1886.

Degas’ distinct style showed his respect for the old masters and his admiration for Ingres and Eugène Delacroix. And he liked the vigorous realism of popular illustrators. When he became famous for horses and dancers, his treatment of traditional historical subjects became less idealised. Degas already showed the mature style that he would later develop more, by cropping subjects awkwardly and by choosing unusual views. By late 1860s, Degas had shifted from his initial history paintings to contemporary life.

 
The artist organised the shows and displayed his style in all of them, despite conflicting with other group members. He had little in common with Monet & other landscape artists whom he mocked for painting outside. Conservative socially, he disliked the scandal created by the shows, plus the publicity that his colleagues sought. He rejected the name Impressionist that the press popularised, and his insistence on having traditional artists in the shows annoyed the group, disbanding in 1886. As his financial situation improved via selling his own works, he was keen to collect works by old masters eg El Greco, and moderns eg Manet, Pissarro, Cézanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh. Loved artists, Ingres & Delacroix, were well represented.

The Ballet Class, c1875

Wiki

The Dancing Class, 1870s

The French Desk

Degas became isolated, due partly to his belief that an artist could have no personal life. The Dreyfus Affair (1894->) brought his anti-Semitism to the fore and he separated from all his Jewish friends. His interest in portraiture led him to study the ways in which peoples’ social stature and employment type were revealed in their features, posture & dress. In Portraits At the Stock Exchange 1879, he anti-Semitically showed a group of Jewish businessmen. With his athletic dancers and solid laundresses painting, he revealed their occupations by their dress, activities and body type.

His subject matter & his technique changed. The dark palette displaying Dutch art’s influence gave way to colour use and bold brush strokes. Place de la Concorde 1875 “froze” to portray them accurately, seeing movement. The changes to his palette, brushwork & composition displayed the influence that both Impressionism’s & photography’s natural images had.

Jockeys, 1881

all that's good

Race horses, 1884

While visiting a childhood friend in Normandy, Degas made his first studies of horses. Then his treatment of traditional historical subjects became idealised. Degas did racing scenes throughout his career, using his horses and jockeys from one picture to the next. All the figures had been in earlier works and some of the poses were quite distinguished. The prancing mount and rider derived from Benozzo Gozzoli's Journey in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi Florence, which Degas copied earlier. Yet this picture was unusual for its medium—pastel, colouring the sky and landscape, & giving a warm undertone in front. Race course scenes allowed Degas to depict horses and riders in a modern context.

Laundry Girls Ironing, 1884

WikiArt

When he painted working women eg milliners & laundresses, his treatment of traditional historical subjects became less idealised. Portrait of Mlle Fiocre in Ballet La Source, in the 1868 Salon, was his first major work to introduce his favourite models: dancers. In many later paintings, dancers were shown backstage or rehearsing, focusing on their status as working professionals. Degas also began to paint café life. He urged other artists to paint real life instead of traditional mythological or historical art, and his few literary scenes were modern. By the later 1870s Degas had mastered not only the traditional oils, but also pastels. The dry medium enabled him to reconcile his interest in line and in expressive colour. In the mid-1870s he returned to etching and less traditional printmaking.

These changes in media engendered the paintings that Degas produced in later life. Degas drew and painted women drying themselves with towels, combing their hair and bathing. The backgrounds were simplified.

Except for his skilled draftsmanship and obsession with figures, his later work bore little resemblance to his early era. Ironically the works created after the heyday of the Impressionist movement that most obviously used the colouristic techniques of Impressionism. Certain features of Degas's work remained for life. He always painted indoors, working IN his studio using models. The figure remained his primary subject; his landscapes were produced from memory or imagination. His works were prepared, calculated, practised and developed in stages.

Public reception of Degas' work included both admiration to contempt. As a promising artist in the conventional mode, Degas had a few works accepted in the Salon in the early years. These works received praise from some French critics. But Degas soon joined forces with the Impressionists and rejected the rigid rules, judgements, and elitism of the Salon. The Salon initially rejected the experimentalism of the Impressionists!

Degas' work was controversial, but in time it was admired for its draftsmanship. The nudes Degas exhibited in the 8th Impressionist Exhibition in 1886 produced "the most concentrated body of critical writing on the artist in his lifetime. ... The overall reaction was positive and laudatory." Little Dancer of Fourteen Years was probably his most controversial piece, with some critics said they saw ugliness.

He was a key artist late in life, esp by his great admirer Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec; it was his lively creation of daily activities and his bold colours that urged him into late Impressionism. But his paintings, pastels, drawings & sculptures weren’t intended for exhibition. Degas had no formal pupils, although he did influence painters like Mary Cassatt & Walter Sickert. He was working more, only ceasing his art in 1912. With demolition of his home, he spent the last years of his life, single and nearly blind, wandering Paris streets. Degas died in 1917. His paintings were discovered only after post-death, now prominently displayed in important museums.

The best Art History texts to read

ARTNEWS ass­emb­led a list of 11 must-haves books that cover art history, from class­ical antiquity to now. Art history is a flexible discipline, subject to revisions as things change. Below I have included the books I know and found excellent.

Gombrich

The Story of Art

1. Penelope & Davies et al, Janson’s History of Art For 60+ years, Horst Janson’s large book was the key text for first Art History courses, promising a wide overview of painting, sc­ulpture and architecture from earliest history on. For the most part, only women artists were criticised. $250.

But a 2006 revision largely wrote Janson out of his own book, though the title remained. Works cited as masterpieces eg James Whistler Whis­t­ler’s Mother (1871) were ignored, while  ignored arts (photo-graphy, decorative arts) were added. As were female artists. And it replaced Janson’s focus on the male artist as genius with a more comprehensive reading that considers race, class and gender. Though this most recent edition (2013) is now old, it remains useful.

2. Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss et al, Art Since 1900 Compiled by contributors associated with October, the art-critical quarterly known for its dense writing, Art Since 1900 was published in 2005 as a corrective to st­and­ard art histories, while being aimed at a broad­er readership. Now published as a 2-volume set, the book retains Oc­t­ober’s thorny attit­ude; it is sceptical of the notion that art em­bodies indiv­idual ex­p­res­sions that transcend time. So the book does­n’t follow the develop­ment of modernism, anti-modern­ism and post-modernism through movements or artists. Rather it treats C20th art to a textual deconstruction with short essays tied to cultural or hist­oric­al events for each year 1900-2003, starting with the publication of Sig­mund Freud’s Interpret­ation of Dreams. $160

3. Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists.  Vasari (1511-74)’s biographies of the Italian Renaissance’s key players introduced the concept of art history we know. Many of his subjects were his near contempor­aries, making the text a primary source for studying the era that ushered in art’s Western tradition. First published in 1550, Lives covers the period bracketed by Cimabue (1240–1302) and Mich­elangelo (1475–1564) and is prefaced with a gen­eral treatise on ar­chitecture, sculpture and painting. Later historians faulted Vas­ari for being too focused on Florence’s and Rome’s artists, though the book was enlarged in 1568 to include Venetian artists like Tit­ian. But while Lives didn’t look beyond Italy, its influence sp­read rap­idly in Europe, the first translation being in the Dutch Republic (1604).

Janson's History of Art: The Western Tradition

by Davies & Hofrichter, 2015

5. HH Arnason, History of Modern Art (1968) It has 650+ daunting pages, but ever since its appearance it has served as the essential account of C20th art. The book begins with C19th Paris when artists like Manet, Monet, Gaugin, Van Gogh, Seurat and Cezanne created the first modernism. It contin­ues by recounting the major move­ments: Cubism, Dada, Bauhaus, Surr­ealism, Abstract Express­ionism and Pop Art that impacted the past 100 years of painting, scul­pture and architecture. Using good illust­rations and clear lang­uage, read the story of a rev­olutionary era that trans­formed our thinking about the world and art’s place in it. History of Modern Art is often updated.

6.  Ernest Gombrich The Story of Art, 1950 He noted there was real­ly no such thing as Art; there were only artists. Thus he set the tone of what has become one of art history’s most pop­ular works. Avoiding sweeping discussions of movements, Gombrich focused on individual works of art and the figures behind them. Ex­cept for a few divers­ions into ancient and tribal art, this invar­iab­ly meant Western, male paint­ers. Still Gombrich took a re­mark­able stance for an art historian by maintaining that art his­tory can obscure, as well as clarify the experience of art by relaying inf­or­m­ation unnecessary to the act of seeing. Linking artists as diverse as Raphael and Cez­anne across time, Gombrich insists that they all faced similar chal­lenges in their work. Their intentions matter.

7. Phaidon eds, The Art Book Smart and lavishly produced, this directory of artists across history is valuable. Ranging from the Middle Ages on, the book features 500 artists, each given a lush treatment: a full-colour reproduction of a key work printed with breath-taking det­ail. Each entry has a brief text with a clear career over­view of the artist. Since the artists are pres­ented alphabet­ic­ally, meet unexpected juxtapositions of eras and styles eg one pairing C17th Dutch painter Hendrick ter Brugghen and contemporary Frenchman Daniel Buren. Though The Art Book loves painting, it also covers sculpture, photo­gr­aphy & installations.

Vasari,

Lives of the Artists

8. Richard Shone and Jean-Paul Stonard eds., Books that Shaped Art History: From Gombrich & Greenberg to Alpers & Krauss While an art history book about art history books is self-referential, this compilation of essays covering C20th milestones is a reminder of how closely de­velopments in art are tied to changes. Linking a wide-ranging group of leading sch­olars & curators, The Books that Shaped Art History examines 12 volumes that introduced critical con­cepts understand, starting with Relig­ious Art in C13th France by Émile Mâle in 1898. An early study of medieval art, Mâle’s book was one of the first to use icon­ography to unlock the mean­ing of images. Heinrich Wölfflin’s Princ­iples of Art History (1915) form­ulated the now common method of comparing artworks on style. The Books that Shaped Art History looks closely at how writing has shaped art and vice versa. 

**

To read the books I was not familiar with, go to ARTnews September 7, 2023:

Mary Beard and John Henderson, Classical Art: From Greece to Rome; 

Sharon F Patton, African-American Art; 

Charles Harrison and Paul Wood eds, Art in Theory 1900–2000; and 

Whitney Chadwick, Women, Art and Society)

Picnics from noble feasts to rural relaxing

Picnics were the very epitome of innocent pastoral delight, but allow Alexander Lee to give us the history of this form of fun. Then I will add my own histories.

The French root of picnic may derive from piquer/to peck and nique/small amount. The word first appeared in 1649, a burlesque satire on Fronde hypocrisy, an insurrection chal­l­enging French absolutism. Ironically the main character, Pique-Nique, was a guzzling millitary hero.

In any case, it caught the imagin­ation of Paris’ beau monde and soon lost any pejorative assoc­iations. As Gilles Ménage’s Dictionnaire (1694) showed, a pique-nique had become a fashionable dinner, to which each guest contributed.

Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, 
Édouard Manet, 1863 
Pushkin Museum, Moscow. 

Picnics really started to come into their own during the C18th. A favourite pastime of the aristocracy, they were indoor affairs, held at home or in hired rooms. They were contrasted with the elab­orate fêtes champêtres depicted by Antoine Watteau etc. Att­end­ees could either bring a dish or drink, OR pay a share of the cost.

Like cultural salons, picnics were linked to intellectual refinement. Typical was Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who, while rewriting the first act of Les Muses galantes in Paris, would often dine with the Abbé de Condillac ‘tête à tête en pique-nique’. At larger gatherings, there was also music or a dance, just like a party.

The French Revolution changed everything. Many aristocrats fled abroad to Austria, Prussia or America; but more chose Britain. Settling prim­arily in London without much money, they did their best to maintain their old lifestyle. But in London, the picnic became more raucous, thanks to a group of 200 wealthy young Francophiles, who founded the Pic Nic Society in late 1801. Held in hired rooms in Tottenham St, their gatherings were extravagant. Every member was required to bring a dish and six bottles of wine, and each strove to outdo the others in luxury. After dinner there was singing, dancing and gambling; but the key entertainment was always an amateur play.

Before long journalist-politician  Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) , owner of Drury Lane Theatre, was alarmed at losing business to the Pic Nics. Sheridan used his influence to have the Pic Nics shut down; but not before the caricaturist James Gill­ray had ridiculed the lot of them in 1802.

Just as Sheridan was becoming furious in London, picnics were taken up by the emergent middle classes and moved outdoors. Why? Possibly the socially asp­irat­ional applied a fash­ion­ab­le French word to a pre-existing prac­t­ice, without being aware of its connotations. Anyhow picnicking ceased to be associated with music-dancing and became a simple, hosted meal. And thanks to the ideal­is­ation of the countryside, the event became more innocent.

The earliest reference appeared in John Harris' The Court­ship, Merry Marriage and Pic Nic Dinner of Cock Robin and Jenny Wren (1806), a children’s book. But such was its popularity that it soon found its way into literary works. In 1808, writer Dorothy Word­sworth picnicked with others on Gras­mere Island. In Emma (1816) Jane Austen gave a vivid port­rait of a rustic picnic on Box Hill.

James Tissot 
Holyday, aka The Picnic, c1876. 
Tate Gallery 

In the Victorian era, picnics were grand affairs! In 1861, a definitive list of upper class Victorian picnic fare appeared in Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Manage­ment. One couldn't eat outdoors without tables, linens, crystal and servants!

The development of new modes of transport (trains, cars, bikes) and the acceleration of social change made the country­ accessible to a greater proportion of the population. Be­fore long, their popularity had grown so much that picnic baskets were being produced for the mass market eg Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows (1908).

Though restoration of the French monarchy accompanied the ret­urn of picnicking to French aristocracy, the indoor version prev­ail­ed. When outdoor picnics eventually gained ground in France, they were regarded with sus­pic­ion. Perhaps because of a growing reaction against the Romantic ideal­is­ation of nature, they were not seen as innocent and whole­some. But as decadent. This was most ev­ident in Édouard Manet’s Le Dé­jeuner sur l’herbe (1862-3), depict­ing one naked and one scantily clad woman, picnick­ing with two fully dressed men.

As the outdoor picnic found its way to the USA, it remained a gent­eel pursuit of the urban middle classes. But unlike in Britain, its bucolic setting was associated more with a flight from civilisation than with childlike simplicity. Though still tinged with innocence, depictions of American picnics eg by Thomas Cole and Winslow Homer, tended to be craggier.

Pierre-August Renoir's 
Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1881 
The Phillips Collection, Washington DC 

Now allow me to add important possibilities that had noth­ing to do with France. People have been eating outside since the beginning of time. The outdoor affair was like a lucky-dip meal; a group of people got together, each contributing to the meal. Cons­id­er Robin Hood and his Merry Men who informally dined outside on bread, cheese and ale. And during the C14th, the earliest picnics were mediev­al hunting feasts in England. These pre-hunt feasts were important, specialising in hams, baked meats and pastries.

Now consider that outdoor summer meals were very popular in countries with long, cold winters. The concept of a picnic was known in Russia, Ger­­many and Sweden be­f­ore it became part of English soc­iety. Russians loved holding picnics, partially because sunny weather was a rare delight to be treas­ured. Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) cited the experience in a number of his stor­ies, usually along a river or beach. The Romanovs had elab­orate feasts that richly fed dozens of people; my grandmother had Friday night left-overs, just for the immediate family.

Picnic at Freshwater NSW,  1895, centred around cricket
photographer Arthur Phillips
Collection: Powerhouse Museum

But in Australia, the hottest, most outdoorsy time of year was al­ways Christmas to New Year, when workers were given paid hol­idays and schools were closed. See the Australian picnic with young men and women: cricket stumps and bat were visible, as were the billy and picnic hamper. Kitchen items eg cheap versions of cups, plates and picnic cases, were ad­ver­tised in the catalogues of turn-of-the-century shops eg Anthony Hordens and later David Jones.

School girls enjoying a picnic at Hanging Rock

set in 1900 in Macedon Ranges Vic
Forward

Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967) was one of Australia’s most famous books and films. The teenage girls came from a classy private boarding school in the City.

Brisbane's noble 1886 Synagogue/shule

The first Jews in Brisbane were convicts in Moreton Bay penal colony in 1824 - home to repeat offenders who moved from larger NSW convict colonies where c1% of Moreton Bay convicts were Jewish. When Brisbane’s penal colony closed, a free settlement opened in 1842 with no ex-convicts. Instead some families came north from Sydney, seeking new prospects with Qld’s 1859 separation from NSW.

Byzantine minarets & circular stained-glass window 

Beautiful white building, the twin towers soared above the nearby buildings in 1906. 

Brisbane Synagogue in State Library’s collection 

In 1859 there were just enough Jewish men to form a 10-man minyan for worship but by early 1865, services were so popular that private homes were needed. More settlers came and the community needed a proper synagogue/shule. Most of the new Jewish residents settled around North Quay, meeting in each other’s homes on Sabbaths and holy days.

Ads Brisbane Courier, Mar 1865 said: All members of the Jewish community are requested to attend a meeting at Mr B Benjamin’s Queen St to form a Congregation. A committee was created, to find a fitting site and to recruit members. For 10 years the new group used a leased rooms in Queen St business buildings each Sabbath. Bulcock’s Building Queen St even has a historical wall plaque.

Congregation leaders approached the colony’s Surveyor General to secure land but unlike many Christian neighbours, Jews lacked the infrastructure & land holdings of Anglican and Catholic churches; Jews needed to raise building funds. But young Qld colony’s economy was unstable in the 1860s, closely tied to UK banking investments and agriculture. From mid-1866, a Depression caused financial disaster for many members who returned to Sydney bankrupt; the building fund ended. The other Jews used in rented rooms, buying ritual objects and helping fellow Jews who’d suffered in the Depression. However worship in a rented hall was uncertain eg women needing to sit upstairs.

Men's seating downstairs, women upstairs

 
Rev Jonas Myers moved to Brisbane in late 1865, as President, Treasurer, teacher and kosher butcher. A George St cottage in 1867 served as a synagogue and minister’s home, plus he travelled far up north in the Qld colony to serve their needs. But members who lived in central city liked Adelaide St while members settled in a commercial district Fortitude Valley didn’t. A long weekly journey by horse-cart was too long, so Rev Myers sold Adelaide St. Another man, business man Samuel Davis, built a small shule hall in the grounds of his big North Quay home in 1870, now Mater Misericordiae Hospital. But the Committee needed a permanent site.

In the 1860-70s many churches went up in Brisbane as part of the civilising role of the new colony’s architecture. Mean-while Jewish members renovated the Masonic Hall in 1876 and stayed until the new synagogue opened. Most early gentlemen’s social clubs excluded Jews from membership; only freemasonry’s universal outlook gave the chance for Jews to socialise widely. These men from Brisbane rose in the Freemasons’ ranks, incl President Adolphus Hertzberg.

To find a architect, some men offered design proposals. But the Building Committee’s decisions led to conflicts. The official Qld Government heritage register for the shule listed British Arthur Morry, engineer-architect-parliamentarian as designer in 1884.

Alas financial struggles continued when the Shule Building Committee asked for ambitious plans. Their minutes showed plans for a schoolroom, board rooms and upper Ladies’ Gallery, plus seating for 600 people within a budget of £3,000. Morry assured the committee that he could deliver their financial requests, but by Jan 1885 when the tenders were returned, the cost blew out. Using an image of the sh-ule’s planned design to raise subscriptions, they advertised in Jewish Chronicle newspaper in London and in the British Empire. The congregation was eventually able to raise £6,450 in private donations from local and overseas Jewish donors, incl from London’s Rothschild and Mocatta banking families. In July 1885 the Building Committee led by Rabbi AP Phillips laid the foundation stone to commence building, in a grand public ceremony reported in local papers. The Brisbane Courier newspaper discussed R’ Phillips speech about the importance of a fixed shule to the Jewish community, esp for the lonely immigrants.

In July 1886 the shule was finally consecrated in Margaret St. In the history of Qld Jewry, there was no more brilliant function than the historic opening of the new synagogue. It was full to capacity with congregants and public dignitaries, including the colony’s Chief Justice, Attorney General, Mayor and members of the Qld Legislative Assembly.

Raised platform & reading table holding Torah scroll while facing the ark.

Surrounded by prayer books for congregants to read in their seats

Holy Ark, the most sacred part of a synagogue,

resting place for Torah scrolls

 

Brisbane was an ornate & exotic marker of Jewish presence. The structure’s elegant design was referred to in reports as Byzantine style, like the public architecture across Europe deriving from C13th–14th Islamic design elements eg Spanish Alhambra. See a pair of minaret-style turrets out front, octagonal columns & horseshoe-shaped buttresses supporting the Ladies’ Gallery. The exterior had a Romanesque style ornate gable & circular tracery, while the interior had a Gothic cathedral style. The members belonged both as Jews and British Subjects in the colony.

As the community grew, school rooms were added in 1906; in 1920s a newly-built hall with a retractable roof was used for Sukkot harvest festivals. Then as time passed, a large new group of Russian Jews, culturally distinct from the older Anglo-German Jews, arrived in the early C20th. They had different identities, speaking Russian and Yiddish, and not feeling comfortable in Margaret St Synagogue. So they created South Brisbane Hebrew Congregation, their own timber shule in Woolloongabba, 1915.

 

When German Nazism rose in 1930s, some cultured artistic & religious Jewish refugees fled to Brisbane. Their experiences had a profound effect on the community, esp when Brisbane became the epicentre of WW2’s S.W Pacific campaign. Hundreds of American Jewish servicemen flooded into Qld and sought the comfort of Jewish religious practice in shule.

Stained glass

In 1955 a grand 2-storey Memorial Hall opened for social events and learning. In 1986 new and elegant stained-glass windows were based on Torah stories; and a Star of David behind the Rabbi. The shule remains a testament to the early pioneers who dedicated themselves to Brisbane’s community. Thanks to Morris Ochert for History of the Brisbane Hebrew Congregation, 1984