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Overview
In this fascinating look at the creative power of institutions, Jonah Siegel explores the rise of the modern idea of the artist in the nineteenth century, a period that also witnessed the emergence of the museum and the professional critic. Treating these developments as interrelated, he analyzes both visual material and literary texts to portray a culture in which art came to be thought of in powerful new ways. Ultimately, Siegel shows that artistic controversies commonly associated with the self-consciously radical movements of modernism and postmodernism have their roots in a dynamic era unfairly characterized as staid, self-satisfied, and stable.
The nineteenth century has been called the Age of the Museum, and yet critics, art theorists, and poets during this period grappled with the question of whether the proliferation of museums might lead to the death of Art itself. Did the assembly and display of works of art help the viewer to understand them or did it numb the senses? How was the contemporary artist to respond to the vast storehouses of art from disparate nations and periods that came to proliferate in this era?
Siegel presents a lively discussion of the shock experienced by neoclassical artists troubled by remains of antiquity that were trivial or even obscene, as well as the anxious aesthetic reveries of nineteenth-century art lovers overwhelmed by the quantity of objects quickly crowding museums and exhibition halls. In so doing, he illuminates the fruitful crises provoked when the longing for admired art is suddenly satisfied. Drawing upon neoclassical art and theory, biographies of early nineteenth-century writers including Keats and Scott, and the writings of art critics such as Hazlitt, Ruskin, and Wilde, this book reproduces a cultural matrix that brings to life the artistic passions and anxieties of an entire era.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781400849826 |
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Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
Publication date: | 05/11/2021 |
Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
Format: | eBook |
Pages: | 328 |
File size: | 21 MB |
Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Table of Contents
LIST OF FIGURESACKNOWLEDGMENT
PREFACE: The Apparent Permanence of the Museum as Against Its Actual Permanence: The Nineteenth-Century Culture of Art
What People are Saying About This
Desire and Excess marks the emergence of a powerful and distinctive critical sensibility, remarkable both for its range of erudition and for the extraordinary quality of reflection brought to bear on the works explored here. Jonah Siegel mingles exacting close analysis and broad, confident historical and cultural reference in a manner that is almost unfailingly persuasive. The book will appeal to readers interested in the intellectual, artistic, literary, and cultural histories of Britain from the eighteenth through twentieth centuries, as well as to those engaged in postmodern critical reflection on art institutions and artistic agency.
James Eli Adams, Indiana University
A timely book on the relationship of art and experience to the hallowed sanctuaries of museum collections. Jonah Siegel is right on target in dealing with this hugely important issue. I can only admire the vast range of themes and the quiet display of learning so apparent in this text. The book kept me constantly alert and informed.
Robert Rosenblum, New York University
This ambitious and fascinating work traces the relations between the development of the museum, the history of taste, and the figure of the artist/author in nineteenth-century England. Here Jonah Siegel reads the long collapse of neoclassicism as a productive crisis in the modern conception of originality. His argument is remarkably rich, subtle, learned, and provocative.
Ian Duncan, University of Oregon
"Desire and Excess is one of the most exciting and sophisticated books I have read for some time. It is capaciously learned, sensitively researched, and wonderfully graceful and witty. By reconsidering the institutions and aesthetics responsible for the culture of the museum in modernity, it offers a new history of art-historical discourse."—Isobel Armstrong, Birkbeck College, London"Desire and Excess tells about the time a dazzling company of poets got lost inside the Louvre, and only got out once they had together created the giant figure of the Artist. Jonah Siegel's brilliance is continually breathtaking, so it's lucky that he has placed such solid ground beneath our feet by his luxurious, intricately wrought scholarship."—Elaine Scarry, author of On Beauty and Being Just"A timely book on the relationship of art and experience to the hallowed sanctuaries of museum collections. Jonah Siegel is right on target in dealing with this hugely important issue. I can only admire the vast range of themes and the quiet display of learning so apparent in this text. The book kept me constantly alert and informed."—Robert Rosenblum, New York University"This ambitious and fascinating work traces the relations between the development of the museum, the history of taste, and the figure of the artist/author in nineteenth-century England. Here Jonah Siegel reads the long collapse of neoclassicism as a productive crisis in the modern conception of originality. His argument is remarkably rich, subtle, learned, and provocative."—Ian Duncan, University of Oregon"Desire and Excess marks the emergence of a powerful and distinctive critical sensibility, remarkable both for its range of erudition and for the extraordinary quality of reflection brought to bear on the works explored here. Jonah Siegel mingles exacting close analysis and broad, confident historical and cultural reference in a manner that is almost unfailingly persuasive. The book will appeal to readers interested in the intellectual, artistic, literary, and cultural histories of Britain from the eighteenth through twentieth centuries, as well as to those engaged in postmodern critical reflection on art institutions and artistic agency."—James Eli Adams, Indiana University
Desire and Excess tells about the time a dazzling company of poets got lost inside the Louvre, and only got out once they had together created the giant figure of the Artist. Jonah Siegel's brilliance is continually breathtaking, so it's lucky that he has placed such solid ground beneath our feet by his luxurious, intricately wrought scholarship.
Elaine Scarry, author of "On Beauty and Being Just"
Desire and Excess is one of the most exciting and sophisticated books I have read for some time. It is capaciously learned, sensitively researched, and wonderfully graceful and witty. By reconsidering the institutions and aesthetics responsible for the culture of the museum in modernity, it offers a new history of art-historical discourse.
Isobel Armstrong, Birkbeck College, London
Introduction
PART ONE: ART IN THE MUSEUM: ARTIST AND FRAGMENT AT THE TURN OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
CHAPTER ONE: David and Fuseli: The Artist in the Museum, the Museum in tHe Work of Art
CHAPTER TWO: "Monuments of Pure Antiquity": The Challenge of the Object in Neoclassical Theory and Pedagogy
CHAPTER THREE: "United, Completer Knowledge": Barry, Blake, and the Search for the Artist
PART TWO: THE AUTHOR AS WORK OF ART: ACCUMULATION, DISPLAY, AND DEATH IN LITERARY BIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER FOUR: Hazlitt, Scott, Lockhart: Intimacy, Anonymity, and Excess
CHAPTER FIVE: Keats: In the Library, in the Museum
PART THREE: ABSENCE AND EXCESS: THE PRESENCE OF THE OBJECT
CHAPTER SIX: Outline, Collection, City: Hazlitt, Ruskin, and the Encounter with Art
CHAPTER SEVEN: Vast Knowledge/Narrow Space: The Stones of Venice
PART FOUR: THE DEATHS OF THE CRITICS
CHAPTER EIGHT: Modernity as Resurrection in Pater and Wilde
NOTES
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
INDEX