Michael Paul Driskel's Books

As Befits a Legend

Building a Tomb for Napoleon, 1840-1861

By: Michael Paul Driskel

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As Befits a Legend

Building a Tomb for Napoleon, 1840-1861

By: Michael Paul Driskel

This work is an examination of the tomb of Napoleon - its construction process, historical context, and political and social meanings. It documents the problems inherent in building an appropriate monument and the debate it generated.

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Page Count

284

Publisher

Kent State University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0873384849

ISBN 13

9780873384841

Representing Belief

Religion, Art, and Society in Nineteenth-Century France

By: Michael Paul Driskel

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Representing Belief

Religion, Art, and Society in Nineteenth-Century France

By: Michael Paul Driskel

Representing Belief provides a detailed discussion and analysis of the forms and meanings in religious art of nineteenth-century France. This genre, usually assigned minimal importance by writers on the period, turns out to occupy a central place in the cultural history of the era, touching the core of the century's conflict between tradition and modernity, science and faith, ultramontanism and naturalism. Although it was generally assumed that this kind of art was of little importance in the evolution of modern painting, Driskel demonstrates that in reality it played a crucial role. Many of the artists discussed are firmly installed in the present canon (Delacroix, Ingres, Manet, Gauguin), while others (Flandrin, Orsel, Gleyre, Cazin) were major figures in their own time, though largely forgotten today. Writing from an interdisciplinary perspective and employing concepts derived from structuralist and poststructuralist theory, Driskel moves beyond simple formalism to restore a category of once-important works to a meaningful context, thereby offering others a model by which to discuss and interpret these paintings. Carefully charting the genealogies of hieraticism and naturalism, he demonstrates that a dramatic shift occurred in the 1860s and 1870s as naturalism gained acceptance among ultramontanes and the hieratic mode began to attract the interest of adherents to the belief system of modernism. Representing Belief is the first book to situate this art in its social and historical contexts and to approach it from this point of view.

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Page Count

248

Publisher

Penn State Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0271042702

ISBN 13

9780271042701

Conservative Echoes in Fin-de-Si_cle Parisian Art Criticism

By: Michael Marlais

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Conservative Echoes in Fin-de-Si_cle Parisian Art Criticism

By: Michael Marlais

While the painting of the 1880s and 1890s in Paris has been studied in great depth, the concurrent art criticism has not been given the attention it deserves. Conservative Echoes examines previously unexplored aspects of the symbolist criticism of art, revealing its conservative nature, and thus providing a new view of the art criticism of one of the most significant periods in the development of modern art. Art historians tend to focus on a small body of criticism written by authors who championed one or more of the artists recognized today as leaders of the avant-garde. In essence, it is the art that directs most studies of criticism rather than the criticism itself. Michael Marlais has studied late nineteenth-century criticism on all levels, from popular press to esoteric review, in order to understand the context in which avant-garde art criticism appeared. He focuses on the critics Félix Fénéon, Albert Aurier, Alphonse Germain, Camille Mauclair, and Maurice Denis, noting both conservative and modernist features of their writing, while attempting to situate them within the antinaturalist intellectual trends of the period. Marlais emphasizes the relationship of avant-garde critics to the broader cultural milieu, thus providing both a valuable corrective in the study of fin-de-siècle art history and another way of understanding the cultural climate in Paris during that time.

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Page Count

280

Publisher

Penn State Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0271041978

ISBN 13

9780271041971

"French Sculpture Following the Franco-Prussian War, 1870?0 "

Realist Allegories and the Commemoration of Defeat

By: Michael Dorsch

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"French Sculpture Following the Franco-Prussian War, 1870?0 "

Realist Allegories and the Commemoration of Defeat

By: Michael Dorsch

French Sculpture Following the Franco-Prussian War, 1870-80 investigates the role played by the trope of the 'strong woman, fallen man' in re-establishing morale among the French people following the Franco-Prussian War. The study explores how certain French sculptors - including Falgui?, Merci?Barrias, and Rodin - presented this recent history of defeat in commemorative monuments that increasingly dominated public space across France during the final decades of the nineteenth century. Though it focuses on French nationalism and the commemoration of war (or, as is the case with the French following the Franco-Prussian War, the commemoration of defeat), this volume also examines shifts in gender roles in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and the impact of military defeat on relations between the sexes. The book probes the aesthetic discourse of the period concerning the merits of traditional allegorical sculpture versus new-fangled realist sculpture in depicting modern life. Drawing on extensive archival research, Michael Dorsch gives a voice to the sculptures he discusses, restoring these often ignored works to their proper place in history.

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