Enfilade

Many of you will have seen this announcement (2 July 2012) regarding Eighteenth-Century Studies (I’ve inserted the links). -CH

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It is a pleasure to inform you that the Executive Board of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies has appointed Steven Pincus, Yale University, as Editor of Eighteenth-Century Studies for a five-year term effective 1 July 2012. We want to thank the Yale University community for their willingness to assume this important responsibility and to provide support for this flag-ship journal.

Finally, the officers and Executive Board of ASECS wish to thank Julia Simon for her outstanding service as editor of ECS, and wish her the best of luck on her retirement from the journal.

Byron R. Wells
Executive Director, ASECS

A cooperative project involving the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art (INHA), and the Centre d’Anthropologie et d’Histoire des Mondes Anciens (Centre ANHIMA), this online resource provides a wealth of information on Caylus (biographical and bibliographical) as well as digital access to the seven volumes of the Recueil d’Antiquités. There is also a searchable catalogue of the collection of objects. Thanks to Hélène Bremer for noting such an important resource.

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From the website:

Le comte de Caylus (1692-1765) a été un personnage clé du XVIII^e siècle, à la fois homme de lettres aux talents multiples, dramaturge, romancier fin observateur des mœurs de son temps, conteur, traducteur, mais aussi antiquaire érudit, collectionneur, mécène, graveur, membre de l’Académie de peinture et de sculpture en 1731, de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres en 1742, de l’Académie de France à Rome, ardent défenseur de la grande peinture et du goût à l’antique.

Ce site explore une de ces multiples facettes, son rôle de pionnier de l’archéologie, par l’édition numérique commentée et enrichie de son œuvre majeure, le Recueil d’antiquités égyptiennes, étrusques, grecques, romaines et gauloises, publiée en sept volumes entre 1752 et 1767.

Dans ce recueil, Caylus a étudié et fait dessiner près de 2900 objets, provenant majoritairement de ses collections, offertes au roi au fur et à mesure de l’avancement de ses travaux. En effet, sa collection n’était pas un but en soi, mais un laboratoire d’étude et d’expérimentation, ainsi qu’il l’écrit : « Je ne fais point un cabinet, je fais un cours d’antiquité, et je cherche les usages, ce qui les prouve, les pratique, ce qui les démontre. » (lettre à Paciaudi, 1758). L’objet, si modeste soit-il, devient un moyen de connaissance du passé et la base d’une réflexion sur l’histoire des arts

L’exégèse et le dépouillement systématique du recueil ont pour but de mettre en lumière la démarche de Caylus, qui apparaît comme un précurseur de la méthode typologique, de proposer un panorama du savoir antiquaire au XVIII^e siècle et du réseau intellectuel européen.

Le site s’articule autour de trois axes :

• La personnalité du comte de Caylus, sa biographie, sa bibliographie ainsi qu’une bibliographie de ses œuvres relatives à l’art et à l’archéologie.

• Le Recueil d’Antiquités avec accès à la version numérisée – tout d’abord en mode image, puis, dans un futur proche, en mode texte ; une analyse du Recueil et de la méthode de Caylus ; le recensement des sources utilisées dans le Recueil, qui forment en quelque sorte la « bibliothèque » de Caylus.

• Le catalogue des objets(« base Caylus »), qui présente en vis-à-vis l’analyse de Caylus et celle que nous pouvons faire aujourd’hui. Cette confrontation de deux fiches , la fiche « ancienne » qui reprend en les synthétisant les notices de Caylus – qui peuvent s’étendre de quelques lignes à plusieurs pages – et classe le riche matériel fourni, et la fiche moderne qui propose datation, attribution et bibliographie, est complétée par la mise en regard de la gravure faite pour le Recueil et de la photographie de l’objet dans son état actuel. Les photographies, encore peu nombreuses, seront insérées peu à peu . 60% environ des œuvres ont été retrouvées, nous espérons que cette publication permettra de faire ressurgir de l’oubli celles qui ont été dispersées

Des enrichissements sont prévus :

• une base de données biographiques et bibliographiques sur les érudits mentionnés dans le Recueil, qui permettra de mieux appréhender le réseau intellectuel de Caylus

• l’accès direct à la numérisation des ouvrages utilisés par Caylus, de ses sources manuscrites et iconographiques

Le site est le fruit d’une coopération entre la Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), l’Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art (INHA) et le centre d’Anthropologie et d’Histoire des Mondes Anciens (ANHIMA).

From the editor

Edward Collier, “A Trompe l’Oeil of Newspapers, Letters and Writing Implements on a Wooden Board,” ca. 1699 (London: Tate Collection)

Last year I planned to run a piece on Pinterest — just before everyone seemed to know about it. Well, I put it off for a few weeks, which turned into a few months, and then suddenly there was no need. Now, however, with Pinterest recently in the news for raising $100 million, bringing its start-up value to $1.5 billion, I decided to weigh in. For although a good portion of people now know about Pinterest (its users having soared from 1 million in 2011 to 20 million last month), I’m not sure anyone has a handle on how varied uses of the site will be, even in the near future.

A recent Wall Street Journal article (17 May 2012) describes it as a “scrapbooking site,” but from my experience (I starting ‘pinning’ a few months ago), the characterization is inaccurate and disregards the metaphor altogether: it’s a pinboard, after all, not a scrapbook (how interesting are all of these metaphors for how we interact with computers, going back to files and the desktop — hardly anything new with Pinterest in that regard).

So why raise the issue on a site dedicated to the art and architecture of the eighteenth century? For two reasons: 1) to extend an invitation to brainstorm and 2) to suggest a few preliminary ideas.

On the first front, I’m eager to hear of scholarly or at least ‘cultural’ uses for Pinterest. Are there examples of academics already using the site in such a manner? And if Pinterest isn’t going to help you write your next book, might there be any pedagogical function? By all means feel free to weigh in with examples or ideas.

As for my own suggestions, it seems to me that a genuinely engaging Pinterest presence could particularly serve the interests of museums. By way of comparison, I’ve been fascinated to see how House Beautiful uses the site (full disclosure: I’m afraid one of my Pinterest boards is given over to an upcoming bathroom renovation). Realizing, I imagine, that Pinterest users are inevitably going to ‘pin’ images from the magazine, House Beautiful ‘pins’ images itself. If you ‘follow’ the magazine, a photograph or two will appear on your Pinterest site each day, and with one click, you’re able to add it to your own board. The advantages? First, the magazine controls the text under the image (it’s easy enough to make changes, but most people don’t take the time). Second, it provides a steady stream of contact between magazine and its followers. Rather than getting an issue once a month in the mail, you get updates each day (no matter that it’s mostly the same content). Third, and this seems crucial, the magazine is able to tell precisely what photos resonate most fully with users (in terms of which ones are ‘liked’ and ‘repinned’). Presumably (for better or worse), this can be mapped onto all sorts of analytic data about individual users’ preferences more generally, with huge marketing and advertising potential (hence the $1.5 billion start-up value).

It seems that these advantages would apply equally well in the case of museums; and indeed, major institutions are already well represented. But surely the possibilities have only begun to be tapped.

For instance, at House Beautiful, I’m able to choose from 22 different ‘boards’ to follow — from ‘mixing patterns’ to ‘living rooms’ to ‘bookshelves’ (or I can ‘follow all’). At The Met, there are currently just nine boards, and they tend to be arranged by silly themes — treating letters or dogs, for instance — rather than the kind of information people presumably want from The Met, i.e. upcoming exhibitions, lectures and scholarly events, children’s programming, new acquisitions, &c. (by contrast, The Met has invested considerably energy in its Facebook presence). In some ways, The Art Institute of Chicago is better with its generally more sensible eight boards, addressing topics like ‘News & Views’, but again a lot is missing. Remarkably, what gets posted all too often does look more like a scrap for a book than than a poster for a pinboard. On the other hand, both institutions look like models of progress in comparison to MoMA, which has a profile and 660 followers but not a single pin posted. The British Museum’s experimental approach is interesting. There are just three boards so far — ‘pattern and texture’, ‘jewelry’, and ‘architecture’ — but it’s easy to see how both the groupings and the things the’ve pinned so far would find a keen audience. I’ve no idea about the going rates for advertising in The New York Times or The Times Literary Supplement, but it must be astronomical compared to the 2-minutes it takes to add that same image to Pinterest. Museum goers have long covered their walls with exhibition posters, why wouldn’t they do the same to their Pinterest boards?

Just as blogs were long derided as being frivolous — because so much of the content was only frivolous — it’s easy to mock Pinterest (there’s far too much truth in this piece from The New Yorker). I’m not sure, however, it’s the medium that’s at fault. Who knows? A year from now, the world may have already abandoned Pinterest, in pursuit of the next new thing. But I doubt it. -CH

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Note (added 24 May 2012) — Along with the interesting comments submitted below, readers might be interested in Emile de Bruijn’s posting at Treasure Hunt, the blog he writes for the UK’s National Trust.

Note (added 8 June 2012) — Treasure Hunt pursues the subject with more interesting examples and, from Emile de Bruijn, questions about the relationships between viewers and objects.

NEH press release:

The National Endowment for the Humanities launched a comprehensive new website Monday, April 9, giving the Endowment a more user-friendly,  engaging, and transparent platform for people seeking grants and for the public interested in humanities research, scholarship, and public programs. After a complete overhaul of the site, grant guidelines and grant management information is clearer and more accessible.  A new EXPLORE section allows users to access information about more than 200 documentaries, radio programs, and apps produced by broadcasters and others with NEH grants. A prominent new rotator will showcase news of NEH and books, seminars, and other projects growing out of Endowment funding. As the Endowment launched the site, the rotator featured:

• A lesson from the EDSITEment educational website for teachers,  students, and parents about Sor Juana, a seventeenth century nun, feminist and poet,  considered the first great poet of the Americas;
• A story about a Maryland State Humanities lecturer on the Oyster Wars, when Maryland had an “Oyster Navy” in the 1890s to drive out interloping oystermen;
• A compendium of Civil War programs funded by the NEH, including reading and discussion programs being put on in 213 community and other libraries using a new anthology of important Civil War stories and documents.
• A biographical sketch of Philip Lampi, the nation’s greatest expert on the election returns from the American political campaigns of 1789-1825 and recipient of the first Chairman’s Commendation for service to the humanities;
• A story about a new NEH-funded translation of the Topography of Algiers, written by Antonio da Sosa in 1612 after he had been imprisoned for five years by the Barbary Pirates ( at the same time as Miguel da Cervantes, author of Don Quixote.)

The new NEH site showcases the award-winning HUMANITIES Magazine, now in a richly illustrated magazine format.

Each NEH division and program will have its own series of pages to feature projects, news about grants and opportunities to meet program officers in the field. The stories include:

• How a small grant from the Mississippi Humanities Council led to a traveling exhibition on the murder of 14 year old Emmett Till, the creation of the Mississippi Civil Rights Trail, and NEH-funded summer sessions on the Mississippi Delta.
• How Helen Clay Frick’s vision of documenting every work of art in the western world echos in the New York Art Resources Consortium online catalog, Arcade.
•  How Digital Humanities scholars who received “Start Up” grants to break new ground in the humanities describe their research in “Lightning Round” on the site.
• How knowledge, gleaned through NEH research grants, is freely available and shared through white papers on the site.

NEH.gov will highlight information about projects funded through collaboration with state humanities councils. Links to all 56 state and territorial humanities councils and their calendars of activities will be offered at a single location.

EDSITEment, the Endowment’s prize winning K-12 educational site  funded by a partnership between NEH and the Verizon Foundation, will offer high quality internet resources  in the subject areas of literature and language arts, foreign languages, art and culture, and history and social studies.

Users can link directly to Chronicling America, the joint project of the NEH and the Library of Congress to digitize historic American newspapers. They can also access information directly on NEH’s funded projects sorted by topics of interest, state by state and at particular universities.

The NEH.gov redesign is part of an administration effort to modernize and streamline web operations, to consolidate websites for ease of maintenance, clarity and cost savings over time, and to make the work of government more accessible to all Americans.

The new neh.gov was built in-house using Drupal, an open source content management system. It is hosted on cloud infrastructure.  It replaces an 11 year old interim site that had become outmoded. The new back-end architecture makes it possible to alter and enlarge the website’s capabilities without costly new redesigns.