Exhibition: Piranesi at the Hermitage
From the Hermitage:
Ruins, Palaces and Prisons: Piranesi and Italian Eighteenth-Century Architectural Fantasies
State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, 7 December 2011 — 25 March 2012
Curated by A.V. Ippolitov, M.F. Korshunova, and V.M. Uspenskiy
Piranesi, Title page of the 'Carceri' series, 1749-1750
On December 7th, 2011, Saint Catherine’s day, the State Hermitage Museum welcomed an exhibition entitled Ruins, Palaces and Prisons: Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Italian Eighteenth-Century Architectural Fantasies, dedicated to the early period of Piranesi’s work. This exhibit is being held as part of the Year of Italy in Russia and Year of Russia in Italy 2011 program, which continues tradition of partnership and cooperation between the two countries in the fields of art and culture.
This exhibition, presenting about 100 drawings and prints from the collection of the Hermitage, is divided into two parts: the first is dedicated to Piranesi and will present the series entitled Prima Parte (“Prima Parte “), Grotteschi (“Grotesques”) and Carceri (“Dungeons”) in their rare original condition, which have never been published in Russia before. All of them are from the 1750 album Opere Varie, which was acquired by the Empress Catherine the Great in 1768 as part of the collection of Count Bruhl and became the basis of the graphic arts collection of the Hermitage. The Carceri is presented in two conditions; the early one, from the Bruhl
collection, and a later one which was extensively revised. This is the first
time this sort of juxtaposition has been presented in Russia.
Piranesi, "Drawbridge," A page from the 'Carceri' series, 1749-1750
The second part consist of drawings by Italian artists of the 18th century who worked as scene decorators, designers and architects and created the unique genre of imaginative Veduta, which is important for understanding the style of the settecento, as the 18th century is called in Italian, a unique and complex phenomenon. Imaginative Veduta is represented by the work of the Galli Bibiena family, G. Valeriani, Pietro Gonzaga, G. Barbari, G. Mannocchi, many of which are being published for the first time. The phenomenon of Piranesi’ early fantasies is put in the context of a unique genre, and is examined at this exhibit as original sources, as is the influence of the Piranesi phenomenon on the later development of imaginative Veduta.
Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) has an enduring place in the history or art as an artist who defined European art in the mid 18th- early 19th century. Piranesi is acknowledged as a reformer of public taste and one of the progenitors of neoclassicism, which might be called the Avant Garde of the 18th century, and as such his name is associated with this movement. However, while the series of etching entitled Carceri (dungeons), a procession of frightening, inexplicable and obscure images was not well known in the artist’s life, was many decades ahead of its time. Carceri become of the works of art most beloved by modernism. This series, which was not particularly popular during Piranesi’s life, a rediscovery of Romanticism attracted writers, architects, directors then and continues to do so now not only with its unusual subject matter, but also with its unusual spatial construction, which reminds one not of real architecture, but of the unreal space of a dream or hallucination. (more…)
Exhibition: Herculaneum at the Hermitage
From the Hermitage:
Herculaneum Antiquities
State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, 16 December 2011 — 12 February 2012
Curated by Stefano de Caro, Anna Trofimova, and Elena Borisovna Ananich
"Architectural Landscape," fresco from the Augusteum in Herculaneum, 65-79 (National Archaeological Museum of Naples)
On 17 December 2011, as part of the Year of Italy in Russia and Year of Russia in Italy, an exhibit entitled Herculaneum Antiquities opened in the State Hermitage Museum in the General Staff Building; it was jointly organized by the State Hermitage Museum, the Ministry for the Preservation of the Cultural Heritage of Naples and Pompeii with the support of the Italian embassy in Moscow, and Consulate General in St. Petersburg. This is the first exhibit to give the Russian public a chance to view these world-famous works of classical sculpture, discovered at the ancient city of Herculaneum, which like Pompeii and Stabia, perished during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, and was also well preserved.
All of these artifacts, which once decorated the so-called Basilica or Augusteum (a building for ceremonies of the Imperial cult), are now held in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. At this exhibit, they have been brought together in one place, as a united whole, with additional cartographic materials, reconstructions, data from archaeological and historical research, which make it possible to get a sense of how Augusteum might have looked two thousand years ago and in what sequence and part of the building the exhibit items were placed. (more…)
Exhibition: Eighteenth-Century Verona — Tiepolo, Cignaroli, Rotari
The following comes from the Comune di Verona website. There’s also a fine site dedicated to the exhibition.
Il Settecento a Verona: Tiepolo, Cignaroli, Rotari
Palazzo della Gran Guardia, Verona, 26 November 2011 — 9 April 2012
Curated by Fabrizio Magani, Paola Marini, and Andrea Tomezzoli
La mostra è incentrata sulle peculiarità che la cultura e la tradizione pittorica assunsero nel Settecento a Verona, città che riuscì a mantenere sempre autonomia e originalità rispetto alle correnti dominanti nella vicina Venezia.
Sono esposti 150 capolavori tra dipinti, disegni, stampe e documenti, provenienti da importanti musei stranieri come l’Ermitage di Pietroburgo, il Prado di Madrid, il Victoria and Albert di Londra, la Gemäldegalerie di Dresda, il Kunsthistorisches di Vienna, lo Szépmuvészeti di Budapest, oltre che dai principali musei italiani.
Ampio spazio sarà dedicato a due importanti artisti veronesi: Pietro Antonio Rotari, definito il “pittore della corte russa” per aver lavorato a lungo a servizio degli zar e dell’imperatrice Elisabetta, e Giambettino Cignaroli, fondatore dell’Accademia di Pittura che porta il suo nome. I due furono emblemi di un classicismo di grande innovazione e modernità che, grazie al patrocinio di un altro grande veronese, Scipione Maffei, ha dominato la pittura dell’intero secolo.
Le sezioni della mostra daranno conto anche della ricchezza e della varietà dei risultati conseguiti a Verona nell’età dei Lumi, nonché della rete di committenti prestigiosi – anche internazionali (del calibro di Stanislao Augusto Poniatowsky di Polonia, dei principi di Sassonia, di Clemente Augusto di Baviera o Carlo Firmian, plenipotenziario di Maria Teresa) – che richiesero opere veronesi.
Nell’esposizione avrà un posto speciale la sezione dedicata ai vedutisti come Bernardo Bellotto, così come il nucleo di opere realizzate per la città scaligera da Giambattista e Giandomenico Tiepolo. Con modalità assolutamente innovative, grazie all’ausilio delle nuove tecnologie, il pubblico avrà il privilegio esclusivo di scoprire il lavoro di recupero che ha portato alla restituzione virtuale del soffitto dipinto da Giambattista Tiepolo per Palazzo Canossa a Verona, andato in parte distrutto al termine della seconda guerra mondiale.
La mostra sarà integrata da itinerari che guideranno il visitatore alla scoperta, da un lato, di opere d’arte sacra conservate nelle chiese di Verona, dall’altro, di straordinari interventi pittorici realizzati per palazzi e ville signorili della città e della provincia che sveleranno il secolo d’oro della decorazione delle ville venete.
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Three of the five lectures associated with the exhibition took place in October and November. Two more take place in January and February. Click on the image to the right for more information.
31 January 2012, 5:30
Giuseppe Pavanello (Fondazione Giorgio Cini), Il “Monumento funerario di Maria Cristina d’Asburgo-Lorena” di Antonio Canova: dal patetismo alla compassione
28 February 2012, 5:30
Catherine Whistler (Ashmolean Museum), Fantasia e realtà: Giambattista Tiepolo a Würzburg, Verona e Madrid
Happy New Year!
A VIEW of the FIRE-WORKES and ILLUMINATIONS at his GRACE the Duke of RICHMOND’S at WHITEHALL and on the River Thames on Monday 15 May 1749. Performed by the direction of Charles Fredrick Esq.
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This image was used for Simon Werrett’s article “Fireworks: The Power of Pyrotechnics,” which appeared in History Today, volume 60 (November 2010).
Souvenir fan of the Royal Fireworks, hand-coloured etching on paper, with ivory sticks, 1749 (London: British Museum)
Organized to mark the signing of the treaty at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, which ended the War of Austrian Succession, a fireworks display in Green Park on 27 April 1749 proved disastrous as a stray rocket set ablaze one of the pavilions and killed a number of spectators. Far more successful was Handel’s musical contribution.
The print shown above documents fireworks from the following month. Pictorially, it fixes in time these bursts of color that are otherwise so fleeting. It asks us to hover just a bit longer in these moments of temporal suspension — and with such vibrant joy. Perhaps an appropriate way to usher one year out and another in. And if the print piques your curiosity about the history of fireworks, you’ll just need to get a copy of Werrett’s book, Fireworks: Pyrotechnic Arts and Sciences in European History. All the best for a magnificent 2012! -CH
Exhibition: Microscopes from the Golub Collection
Eighteenth-century news from an airport press release? A first for everything. This exhibition of sixty microscopes looks like a fine way to pass an hour or two during a layover. From the San Francisco Airport:
A World Examined: Microscopes from the Age of Enlightenment to the Twentieth Century
SFO Museum, San Francisco International Airport, 24 December 2011 — 24 June 2012
Curated by Steven Ruzin
George Adams, detail of New Universal Microscope, ca. 1746
(The Golub Collection, University of California, Berkeley)
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The microscope is a relatively young invention. Although magnifiers and “burning glasses” are referenced in ancient Chinese texts and in the first-century CE writings of Roman philosophers, the use of an optical instrument for observing microscopic specimens dates only to the sixteenth century when European scientists first used lenses to magnify objects. Englishman Robert Hooke, one of the most important scientists of his age, modified the compound microscope in the mid-seventeenth century and documented his observations in vivid descriptions and extraordinary copper-plate illustrations of dozens of minuscule phenomena—animal, vegetable, mineral, even man-made objects such as the point of a needle or a razor’s edge. His work stands as a remarkable testament to the keen and curious minds operating at the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment.
John Marshall, Great Double Microscope, London, 1710. Wood, brass, cardboard, leather, and gilt (The Golub Collection, University of California, Berkeley)
From mid-seventeenth-century simple microscopes to the modern compound optical devices by German makers during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, these are the instruments that revealed the long-held secrets of the natural world—the existence of microorganisms, the structure of biological cells, and the composition and operation of a variety of previously unseen life forms. Nearly 350 years after Robert Hooke introduced a “newly visible world,” we continue to rely on the microscope in our eternal quest to better understand the world we inhabit and the challenges posed by that which remains invisible to the unaided eye.
A World Examined: Microscopes from the Age of Enlightenment to the Twentieth Century is located pre-security in the International Terminal Main Hall Departures Lobby, San Francisco International Airport. The exhibition is on view, free of charge, to all Airport visitors from December 24, 2011 to June 24, 2012.
This exhibition was guest curated by Steven Ruzin, Ph.D., Director of the CNR Biological Imaging Facility and Curator of The Golub Collection at the University of California, Berkeley. A selection of images are available here»
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SFO Museum was established by the Airport Commission in 1980 for the purposes of humanizing the Airport environment, providing visibility for the unique cultural life of San Francisco, and providing educational services for the traveling public. The Museum has been accredited by the American Association of Museums since 1999, and has the distinction of being the only accredited museum in an airport. Today, SFO Museum features approximately twenty galleries throughout the Airport terminals displaying a rotating schedule of art, history, science, and cultural exhibitions, as well as the San Francisco Airport Commission Aviation Library and Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum, a permanent collection dedicated to the history of commercial aviation.
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More information on the exhibition, including a history of the formation of the collection and photographs of the installation at SFO Museum, are available via The Golub Collection website.
Conference: Pope Benedict XIV
The Enlightenment Pope: Benedict XIV (1675-1758)
St. Louis, 30 April — 2 May 2012
Pierre Subleyras, "Benedictus XIV" (Château de Versailles), photo from Wikimedia Commons
The conference The Enlightenment Pope: Benedict XIV (1675-1758), hosted by Saint Louis University, Washington University and the Missouri History Museum, will bring together for the first time in the United States eminent international scholars expert in Pope Benedict XIV’s lifework and papacy. During a pontificate of eighteen years, Benedict advanced experimental and medical science, women’s authority in academic institutions, urbanism, museology, and the arts and culture to a remarkable degree.
One of the symposium’s chief goals is to help integrate ecclesiastical issues in general and the accomplishments of Benedict XIV in particular into the broader stream of research on the European Enlightenment. General themes of the conference include: the question of the compatibility of faith and science, women’s place in the realm of sanctity and the public sphere, the mission of the Church in the New World, church doctrine and liturgical reforms, and papal patronage of the arts.
More information, including a complete conference program, is
available here»
Reviewed: Trio of Books on the Dilettanti and Antiquarianism
Recently added to caa.reviews:
Bruce Redford, Dilettanti: The Antic and the Antique in Eighteenth-Century England, exhibition catalogue (Los Angeles: Getty Trust Publications, 2008), 232 pages, ISBN: 9780892369249, $49.95.
Ilaria Bignamini and Clare Hornsby, Digging and Dealing in Eighteenth-Century Rome, 2 volumes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 622 pages, ISBN: 9780300160437, $85.
Jason M. Kelly, The Society of Dilettanti: Archaeology and Identity in the British Enlightenment (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 366 pages, ISBN: 9780300152197, $75.
Reviewed by Susan Dixon, University of Tulsa; posted 1 December 2011.
These three recent books explore an eighteenth-century British engagement with classical archaeology during a time when the practice was transforming from an early modern antiquarianism into a modern scientific discipline. Two of the books are monographic studies of the Society of the Dilettanti, an organization that became known for its support of unprecedented archaeological activity in Greece, while a third outlines how British subjects, some of whom were Dilettanti, undertook archaeological excavations on Italian soil and refurbished, sold, and bought the antiquities found there. In some measure, all the authors note this engagement as integral to shaping British cultural identity in the eighteenth century, and in this way add to robust scholarship on the issue. . . .
The full review is available here» (CAA membership required)
Exhibition: Chess Sets from the Past
Thanks to all of you who have helped make 2011 such a good year for Enfilade. I’m taking a few days off, but postings will resume soon. Happy holidays, and I hope the next few days bring plenty of tasty food, some extra sleep, time with friends and family, and maybe even some games around a table. -CH
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From the World Chess Hall of Fame:
Chess Masterpieces: Highlights from the Dr. George and Vivian Dean Collection
World Chess Hall of Fame, St Louis, 9 September 2011 — 12 February 2012
John Style Chess Set, India
Late 18th century, polychromed ivory
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Chess Masterpieces: Highlights from the Dr. George and Vivian Dean Collection celebrates the Deans’ 50th year of collecting together and uses outstanding selected works to trace the development of the game of chess and the design of fine chess sets from the tenth to the early twentieth century. Sets come from Austria, Cambodia, China, England, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Kashmir, Morocco, Persia, Russia, Syria, and Turkey. Among the works on display are ones owned or commissioned by Catherine the Great, Napoleon, Czar Nicolas II, and the British royal family.
Chess has been called ‘The Royal Game’ not only because it originated in such royal courts but also because, across all eras and cultures, chess sets have been created from gold, silver, ivory, gemstones, crystal, and other opulent materials by the world’s finest craftsmen. The world-renowned Fabergé, Meissen, and Wedgewood workshops and many others were eager to join ranks with generations of elite anonymous craftsmen who worked for their ruler, church, or wealthy civil patrons to craft chess sets recognized as consummate works of art.
Just as the world’s finest craftsmen devised ever-more ingenious chess set designs, chess players plotted and planned ever-more innovative and elegant styles of play. Hence, each chess set in this exhibition is shown in a famous middle game or problem position from approximately the same timeframe and locale as the set. This enables one to view the pieces as they were intended to be viewed – in play, with the visual beauties of the designs complimented by the strategic brilliancies of the games. Hopefully, looking at pieces in the middle of a period game will bring one a step closer to the original experience of both the chess set and chess play of the time. These games were researched by curator Larry List with the help of chess scholar Myron Samsin of the Ken Whyld Association and noted chess teacher and author, Fred Wilson.
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Information on the John style set pictured above, from the exhibition checklist:
The theme of this style set is the opposition of native Indian troops to the John Company soldiers (often British mercenaries). These soldiers enforced the English control of Indian provinces and guarded the lucrative trade of the British East India Company. Such highly detailed decorative sets were made for display, not play. They were bought from skilled carvers in Berhampur by the British soldiers and traders as mementoes of their time in India serving the Crown. This prime example of the figurative polychromed designs uses the earliest Indian chess color scheme— red vs. green, with red-suited Brits facing off with green-clothed Indians.
From the December 2011 Issue of ‘Apollo Magazine’
From Apollo Magazine:
Michael Burrell, “Reynolds and Leonardo,” Apollo Magazine (December 2011)
Joshua Reynolds, "The Revd Laurence Sterne," 1760 (London: National Portrait Gallery)
Among the highlights of the National Gallery’s current exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci is his Last Supper [a near-contemporary, full-scale copy on loan from the Royal Academy]. The fresco greatly influenced Sir Joshua Reynolds’ Society of Dilettanti paintings, and is one of nine new examples of Reynolds’ borrowing from the master, revealed here for the first time.
The borrowings of the 18th-century painter Sir Joshua Reynolds are the subject of fascination and much discussion. One painting by Reynolds, The Revd Laurence Sterne, has already been identified as derived from a Studio of Leonardo da Vinci painting. This article proposes other works by Reynolds that are derived from or influenced by Leonardo: a Leonardo drawing in the Ashmolean; a painting that was at the time in the Palazzo Barberini and attributed to Leonardo or a follower; and, intriguingly, Leonardo’s Last Supper. . . .
The full article is available here»
Submissions for the Oscar Kenshur Book Prize
Oscar Kenshur Book Prize
Applications due by 31 January 2012
The Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies at Indiana University is pleased to announce its annual book prize, to be awarded for an outstanding monograph of interest to eighteenth-century scholars working in a range of disciplines. The prize honors the work of Oscar Kenshur, professor emeritus of comparative literature at Indiana University, a dix-huitièmiste par excellence, and one of the founding members of the Center.
Submissions in English from any discipline are welcome; authors can submit their work irrespective of citizenship. Multi-authored collections of essays and translations, as well as books by members of the Indiana-University-Bloomington faculty, are not eligible. The Kenshur prize of $1000 will be awarded together with an invitation to the Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies for a workshop dedicated to the winning book, in which several colleagues will discuss the book from different disciplinary perspectives. The Center will cover the author’s expenses to attend this event.
To be eligible for this year’s competition, a book must carry a 2011 copyright date. Submissions can be made by the publisher or the author: three copies must be received at the ASECS office by the 31st of January 2012. Please send the books (clearly marked for Kenshur Prize) to ASECS, 2598 Reynolda Rd., Suite C, Winston-Salem, NC 27106. For further inquiries please contact Professor Mary Favret, Director of the Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies at Indiana University (email favretm@indiana.edu).
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