Reviewed: ‘The Intimate Portrait’
Recently added to caa.reviews:
Stephen Lloyd and Kim Sloan, The Intimate Portrait: Drawings, Miniatures, and Pastels from Ramsay to Lawrence, exhibition catalogue (Edinburgh and London: National Galleries of Scotland and British Museum, 2009). 272 pages, ISBN: 9781844543984, £25.
Reviewed by Robin Nicholson, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; posted 1 December 2010.
The 2008 exhibition that this catalogue accompanied was instigated by the British Museum’s acquisition of an important drawing by Sir Thomas Lawrence, “Mary Hamilton” (1789). Cover-girl of the catalogue and an astonishing tour-de-force by the gifted nineteen-year-old artist, this work reminded authors Stephen Lloyd and Kim Sloan of just how ubiquitous miniatures and portrait drawings were in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—particularly at the Royal Academy—and how central they were to the contemporary debates on the purpose and significance of portraiture. As Lloyd (of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery) and Sloan (of the British Museum) admit, this publication only begins to address some of the pressing issues of the genre. Their goal is “to open up the discourse . . . looking at them as physical objects as well as symbolic ones, asking how and why they were made, commissioned, whether for pleasure or as gifts, where they were kept or hung or worn—displayed, encased or bejeweled” (9). Although it can be deemed only a partial success, the catalogue is nonetheless a beautiful, erudite, and informative publication. . . .
For the full review, click here» (CAA membership required)
Call for Articles: Exoticism and Cosmopolitanism
Special Issue of Eighteenth-Century Fiction on Exoticism and Cosmopolitanism
Submissions due by 10 January 2011
Eighteenth-Century Fiction invites submissions to a special issue on exoticism and cosmopolitanism in the long eighteenth century (24:3, Spring 2012). Possible topics may include but are not confined to “tropicopolitanism,” or the relationship between cosmopolitan and colonial/postcolonial identities; the politics of cosmopolitan displays of exoticism in material and performance culture; the use of the “exotic” to mark the boundaries of the cosmopolis; the role of cosmopolitanism and exoticism as dual cultural forces in the shaping of national identities. We welcome articles that treat the topic in areas outside imaginative prose fiction. Electronic manuscripts (5,000-8,000 words) should reach the ECF office by 10 January 2011. Choose “Submit Article” at http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/ecf/
La rédaction sollicite des articles pour un numéro spécial consacré à l’exotisme et le cosmopolitisme au xviiie siècle (parution: printemps 2012). Ce numéro est ouvert à la discussion de toute sorte de représentation de l’exotisme et du cosmopoli-tisme et ne se limite pas à ses représentations dans la fiction narrative. Parmis les sujets possibles: le « tropicopolitisme », ou le rapport entre identités cosmopolites et coloniales/postcoloniales; la politique de manifestations cosmopo-lites de l’exotisme dans la culture matérielle ou dans la performativité; l’emploi de l’« exotique » pour marquer les bornes du « cosmopole »; la fonction du cosmopolitisme et de l’exotisme en tant que forces culturelles dans la formation de l’identité nationale. Les manuscrits (5000-8000 mots) doivent parvenir à la rédaction avant le 1oem janvier 2011 (par courriel: ecf@mcmaster.ca).
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