Regrettable Discoveries

In a moment of obsessiveness, I thought perhaps it would be a good plan to get up to date on exactly which dissertations I had downloaded (over the past couple of years or so) for future reading. After all, most of them have file titles made up solely of numbers, which is not very informative at first glance.
The danger inherent in a project like this, of course, is that one can't resist starting to read, and it would be better to read and grade student papers, or read something for fun. But when I saw that one of these dissertations had a chapter on Devětsil, I didn't see how there could be any harm in reading just that one chapter, in case I learned something new and exciting.
Yet I am feeling unhappy rather than excited. While overall the chapter has reasonable things to say--it deals with Devětsil as a precursor to the main topic of the dissertation, which I will refrain from mentioning here as a courtesy to the author--it is riddled with unfortunate factual errors.
First off, the author calls surrealism a late phase of Devětsil. This is either backwards or just wrong, depending on how you think Prague surrealism came to be. While the original Prague surrealist group did more or less emerge from the ashes of Devětsil, the two groups were not the same. Nezval liked to claim that Devětsil was an embryonic stage of Prague surrealism, as when in 1934 he told Jindřich Chalupecký that Poetism (an aspect of Devětsil thought) was "latent surrealism." Very few members of Devětsil, however, became surrealists. Devětsil was over and disbanded by the time the Prague surrealist group formed.
Next, the author calls Josef Váchal a Devětsil poet. This startled me considerably. Váchal was a writer as well as an artist, but he was pretty independent and for that matter really the wrong generation to belong to Devětsil. Váchal was born in 1884 and the vast majority of Devětsil members were born around 1900. Váchal was more of a Symbolist or Decadent. It is possible that the dissertation author's source on Váchal was misleading (there is plenty of incorrect information published in English on Czech modernists), but it would not have been difficult to look up a well-known figure like Váchal, especially if one reads Czech, which apparently the author does.
The next unfortunate moment involved the author's failure to pick up on 1920s popular culture references. Namely, that the Jiří Voskovec picture poem Skyscraped Doug refers to Douglas Fairbanks. I don't think that this would have bothered me unduly had it been a lone bit of ignorance; I certainly don't claim to know what everything in Skyscraped Doug is all about either. But Douglas Fairbanks was an honorary Devětsil member and the photo in the lower right corner is definitely of him, never mind that I couldn't say what the precise source of the photo was or if the work refers to a specific Fairbanks film. The author was puzzled why "Doug" would appear, and this is something that shouldn't have been hard to track down.
Alas, the muddling goes on. Jan Mukařovský is identified as a poet as well as a member of the Prague Linguistic Circle. Reading that, I thought "Did I somehow fail to notice that Mukařovský was a poet?" However, a quick jaunt around the internet suggested that if Mukařovský ever wrote a line of poetry, it was probably during his teens. Oh well. The author then confuses Jan Neruda with Pablo Neruda by stating that Mukařovský's quotation of F.X. Šalda's words about Jan Neruda at the beginning of "Poetic language as a Functional Language and as a material" was Mukařovský's praise of Pablo Neruda's poetry. I'm sorry to say this, but we both read the same page in English in the volume On Poetic Language (1976) and even if it might be all right to naively confuse the dead Czech writer (subject of Mukařovský's academic thesis) with Mukařovský Chilean contemporary, it's pretty sloppy to take the Šalda quote, which Mukařovský uses in discussing poetic use of unlovely language, for Mukařovský praising anyone.
I didn't notice any other errors in the Devětsil chapter, fortunately. I hope the author was more careful in checking the bulk of the dissertation, because it's on a topic I'd like to learn more about.
And I certainly hope that no one reading my own dissertation is finding any lamentable obvious errors of fact there. I daresay there are probably a few, but I hope they are few and forgivable.

And We Go to CAA...

It being February, it's College Art Association time again. The agony (sometimes) of choosing among sessions, and all that.
For the opening set, I was torn between a panel on Pre-Columbian art (after all, I don't know much about it, and CAA is a good opportunity to sample the less-known-to-me) and a panel on The Afterlife of Cubism. I was less interested in hearing about cubism given that I already know a fair amount about it, but last quarter I taught a course on cubism and other heavily abstracted or nonobjective movements, and it went well enough that I think I'll repeat it, so I felt this was a panel that would directly benefit my teaching.
My reaction to the lineup of papers was that it looked rather francocentric, but the first paper, by David Cottington, introduced the audience to cubism from Central and Eastern Europe, focusing on Czech and Polish cubism. As introductory papers go, it was well done, and posed some interesting questions about how we should theorize cubism in its various forms and locations. Still, it didn't really tell me much of anything new. I've read most of the English-language literature on Central and Eastern European cubism, after all, as well as a certain amount in other languages.
Papers on Gris and Léger went into much more depth, and I particularly enjoyed the exploration of Gris, but when we reached Sonia Delaunay-Terk, suddenly we were back to the introductory. At that point I began to get angry. Why is it that in a standing-room only panel on the Afterlife of Cubism, canonical artists like Gris and Léger get (naturally) the in-depth, subtle analysis while we're still on ground floor with cubism outside France and with a fairly canonical female artist like Delaunay-Terk (or Terk-Delaunay)? Delaunay-Terk is an artist whose obscurity ended thirty years ago, for heaven's sake. There should be no need to present introductory papers on her at CAA, where all of the modern specialists and a large percentage of the other attendees ought to be familiar already with everything that was said about her Wednesday. We should have gotten as in-depth a look at her work as we got at that of Gris and Léger and Miró. As for the Central and Eastern European cubists, it is true that they are not as well known as ought to be the case, but modern specialists ought to be aware by this time of at least the major names, particularly those of the Czech cubists, who are the best represented in English-language scholarship.
There was, unfortunately, time for only one audience question, but several of us did comment to David Cottington that it was time for a panel focused on the Central/Eastern European side. As my roommate commented later in the day, the art-historical literature in English is still fairly introductory and it's time to start dealing with some of the issues broached by Cottington.

Modernist Housing

The students in my 1850-Present course have turned in proposals for their modern house projects, in which they invent a client or clients who commissions a spiffy house.
We have:
An Art Nouveau house probably situated in Brussels
A house in Barcelona inspired by Gaudi's Park Guell
An Arts & Crafts house in Dayton, Ohio
A Prairie School house in Springfield, Illinois by Frank Lloyd Wright
A Prairie School house in Springfield, Ohio for the son of former governor Asa S. Bushnell (whose mansion is nearby)
A Prairie School house in Albany, New York, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright
A Cubist house (group is large, may need to split and do two houses)
A 1950s Southern California house for a wealthy bachelor, complete with music room
A mid-century house in Pacific Palisades (also Southern California) influenced by the work of Craig Ellwood, Pierre Koenig, and Charles & Ray Eames
A mid-century house in Greenwich, Connecticut for a French fashion designer
This sounds good to me, although I am sorry not to see any Art Deco in the mix.

Another Czech Art Course Begins

It's Spring Quarter and that means (among other things) that the Czech Modernism class is underway again. Last year it was an advanced seminar designed to teach students how to write research papers. This year it's a lecture class with fewer readings but weekly Discussion Board postings and a design-an-exhibition project. And 30 students instead of 6.
Libuše, 1893, by Karel Vítězslav Mašek (1865-1927)

Publish, Perish, or ....?

This just came in the mail. Looks like a step in the right direction. Since when does quantity equal quality?

ERIH and Art History - a joint resolution of RIHA

RIHA, the International Association of Research Institutes in the History of Art, sharply criticizes the clandestine way in which the European Science Foundation (ESF) has developed and monitored the European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH) since 2001, and is extremely concerned about its present and future application.

See:
http://www.esf.org/research-areas/humanities/erih-european-reference-index-for-the-humanities/erih-initial-lists.html


Following discussions at the General Assemblies in Rome (Nov. 6-8, 2008) and Ljubljana (Nov. 6-7, 2009), RIHA has adopted the following resolution on November 7, 2009:

1. The qualities of scholarly work in the humanities cannot be assessed in simple numbers or metrics; principles which were developed in the context of the natural sciences cannot be transferred to or employed in the humanities, since these work differently, in particular with regard to the relevance of research for different audiences or readerships, and its impact on these constituencies.

2. RIHA strongly opposes the idea that, in the field of art history, the place of a publication (in a journal that has been assigned to category A, B, or C) is indicative of the quality of the individual article or contribution.

3. The categorization of journals does not reflect the needs of scholars. RIHA will not deliver data to ERIH or to any similar quantitative indices of research quality that can be used for assessing the quality of individual scholars, departments, or institutions.

4. RIHA strongly opposes the idea that a specific number of articles in any journal can serve as a means to establish the scholarly potential of a candidate for career promotion (as practised, e.g., in Poland).

5. RIHA strongly deplores the current practice of linking directly the funding of a research institute to the number of articles published by the staff of that institute. RIHA considers this practice to be meaningless with regard to the quality and impact of an institute's daily work.

6. All RIHA member institutes hereby declare that they will never use ERIH data for assessing the quality of applications for grants and fellowships, research projects, or for temporary or permanent positions as staff members. Rather, they will rely on specific criteria appropriate to the individual case.

7. RIHA strongly urges all European art historical institutions (museums, galleries, universities, cultural heritage organizations etc.) not to use ERIH, and to lobby their respective ministries to ensure that ERIH is not employed at local, regional, federal, or national level.

Geography

The first quiz of the quarter indicates that my survey students nearly all studied and paid attention in class, although of course not to an equal degree. That's not to say they scored remarkably well, but it was clear that most of them had a pretty good grip on things even if many people got the Annunciation confused with the Visitation and that sort of thing.
I'm afraid, however, that most of them do not know much geography, despite my showing maps and pointing out where things are. This was glaringly obvious in the two most geographically oriented questions.
It was not so terrible in the case of the question of which Tuscan city-state, rival to Florence, was the home of the painter Duccio. While few people correctly filled in Siena, most of the answers were Italy-related: Venice, Rome, Assisi, Pisa, and Milan were popular choices. Not correct, but not bizarre. The answers Italy and Tuscany were more strange, indicating that those people weren't clear on the concept of a city-state versus a country or region. When I saw "Vienna" and "Bohemia," however, I was perturbed.
I suppose it was stupid of me to include a question (hey, I got these from the textbook publisher, and I tried to pick questions I thought my students could reasonably answer) that involved filling in the capital of Bohemia, home of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV. But I was thinking that we did cover art from Bohemia, and that Prague is a famous city.
Well, I did give half credit to the person who put Karlštejn, because we examined the chapel and paintings there and it's just south of Prague. But nearly the whole class gave answers that included Constantinople, Dijon, "Broche" (I think this was a misspelling of Bruges), Cannes, Florence, Tuscany, Paris, "Crucia" (?), Avignon, and finally the Czech Republic.
This kind of thing makes me think I need to give map quizzes like we used to have in my 7th-grade geography class. The problem with that idea is that if they don't know where modern cities and countries are, it doesn't seem wise to confuse the issue too much with placement of the likes of Burgundy (capital: Dijon) and the Holy Roman Empire. I mean, I'll be content if they have a reasonable notion of these things and stop saying Paris and Constantinople were the capital of Bohemia.
It kind of reminds me of Neville Chamberlain's infamous 1938 remark about Czechoslovakia being a faraway land about which we know little.
On the plus side, most of my students seem clear on flying buttresses, rose windows, the purpose of the Palazzo Vecchia, and the fact that lead is used to hold stained glass windows together. This makes me happy.

Off to a Good Start

Since a significant number of my students are art majors rather than art history, I'm trying to give some assignments that aren't purely writing-oriented. This quarter I'm trying one that looks very promising--the survey students (learning about Gothic to 1850) are designing cathedrals and a mosque. (We aren't covering Islamic art this quarter, but we did last quarter, and I didn't want the assignment to force them into a specific religious outlook.)
How does it work? Well, without going into too much detail, they're in groups of 3-5 (mostly 4) and have a combination of group and individual things to turn in. Each group was instructed to choose a style and period, a geographic location, and various other details. The groups have just turned in their preliminary proposals, which are subject to change and development, and these are pretty exciting. The majority are Gothic, since that's what we've covered in class thus far, but other periods have also been chosen--one Renaissance, three Baroque, and a Mughal mosque.

French Gothic "The outer layer will be in stone + many rose windows with stained glass to accompany it. The structure will be airy + will have a high Gothic vaulting system..."

French Gothic "Stone cathedral. Started 1185. Finished 1230. 130 ft tall. Not a pilgrimage church. At least 2 rose windows. Holds approx. 3,000-4,000."

"13th century Paris. We're going to focus on the Virgin Mary for all our interior design. Our church will feature many rose windows + an ornate alterpiece."

Italian Gothic "It isn't a pilgrimage church. The patron saint is undecided still. Saint Clare or Saint Francis are our options."

Late Gothic in Monaco "The church... has both French and Italian influences throughout its exterior and interior design due to its geographic location... There will be usage of flying buttresses and other common gothic elements..."

"13th-14th century Italian Gothic. This cathedral takes its inspirations from the Siena's Duomo. Since the Duomo was the highlight of construction around this time and was looking close to impossible to finish, some of Nicola Pisano's favorite workers moved on to smaller projects... In the design marble would be throughout. The cathedral would feel more open when walking through its structure. The façade would mimick some ideas of other cathedrals in the area. Silver and mosaics would be abundant."

Renaissance (this may need to change due to England and Ireland's particular versions for the Renaissance) "It will be in honor of St. Patrick who converted the Celts to Catholicism... This cathedral will house some relics from Saints and pieces of the original cross as well."

"The location of our cathedral is the city of Genoa, Italy. It is dedicated to St. Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510)... It will be primarily in the baroque style, but as Genoa is a significant port city it may draw elements from other styles..."

A German baroque cathedral is also in the works.

Mosque in India "The main structure constructed entirely of marble sits upon a high plinth that can be reached from walk ways from the North, South, and West each leading to the three iwan, arch-shaped doorways... Four minarets frame the outer walls, one at each corner of the plinth... There is a fountain in the center of garden courtyard with paths leading to the Main dome area which begins just past the North-South axis..."

And Still Too Busy to Blog...

From a take-home final exam:

"Popular entertainment of this period were drinking and prostitution according to Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergere."

"...it is unbalanced in a very traditional manner instead of all the figures and buildings being sporadic."

"The painting depicts free love in a classless and harmonious society. [...] I also admire Renoir for fanaticizing the typical scene at the Galette."

Re Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party: "Maybe this is a luncheon after a funeral..."

The Bellelli Family by Degas: "Though the girl sitting on the chair looks like she only has one leg. Which could make her mother not pay attention to her."

"As for Cassatt’s little girl, she is placed in a dress showing her lacy undergarments, which is a great capturing of what little girls do. Or, the exposure could be a foreshadowing of what path this girl may meet later on in her endeavors."

"...the cobblestone street that continues back into the depths of the painting with the larger masculine buildings in the background as well."

Re Caillebotte's Pont de l'Europe: "Is the woman approaching the man as some sort of constituent? [...] While one asks themselves these questions they can most certainly wonder weather the dog is feral or the middle right man is the object of the previous man's gaze?"

"While the focus is arguable, I find the railroad often my priority."

"The girl at least is still fixated on the railroad..."

"Manet’s piece contains a loom of steam created by a train’s engine."

"Caillebotte is also sure to include the railroad system which was popular during this time..."

"The statement seems to be that whatever your class or gender, you were controlled by the railroad system."

"...whether your fighting a war, or sticking rocks in your shoe, I suppose you won't know if your great 'till a historian tells you!"

And when you're writing complete crap on your exam, I suppose you won't know till you get your grade. Question for self: should I not have discussed railroads as a sign of 19th-century modernity?

More Distractions from Blogging

The survey exams were for the most part encouraging, but revealed some evidence of confusion. There were also some surprising observations.

On the Etruscan She-Wolf: "Though the mother is presented as a dog and the children are human, it still is betrayed as nursing the young."

The Parthenon "was one of the first and only structures to be completed before the Peloponesian War." (One hopes the student meant "after the Persian wars, atop the Acropolis," not ever in human history.)

The Hagia Sophia "is based on a Gothic style church." (As a prophecy, perhaps?)

From a student who has no facts at her command about any image seen: "The Roman building on the left [the Parthenon] is meant to be more decorative than useful since there are no walls... This buidling may have been used for meetings or gatherings when it was still used. [The Hagia Sophia] definitely has church qualities on the inside because of the apse in the center..."

"This was the orignal partheon. Found in athen's the romans highly regarded this building. It was built during the Peosipanian War. Queen Athena was found inside the partheon. She was later removed by we only have pictures of what we think she looked like, and remodeled statues."

The Pompeiian "Portrait of Menander" and an early Medieval St. Matthew "are of males dressed in togas with olive tree head dresses... One man is bearing part of his chest while the other is cloted but has the front of his toga open so women can see his chest while he relaxes and reads a book."

St. Matthew (painted 816-835) "looks as if Picasso had a hand in this."

Menander, on the other hand, "is mellow, as if he is lounging on the beach soaking up the rays."

"The painting is three dimensional." (I suppose this is meant as a tribute to the skill of medieval Islamic book illustrators...)

Complete misidentification of the Bayeux Tapestry: the Tapestry "is pretty self explanitory by the title, A poor man is being refused to enter a mosque ... Both pieces [Bayeux Tapestry & Arch of Titus] tell us a story it is trying to figure out what that story is, is the hard part." (Not if you read the textbook and came to class...)

"The top is sculpted, and the bottom is a tapastry. Both images are battle scenes." (And this is a complete essay?)

The Bayeux Tapestry "depicts the story of Moses..."

"The 'tapestry' tells the story of how the Norman ruler swims across the channel to claim the thrown of King Edward the Confessor."

"This is not quite a textile because it was knitted."

The Primaporta Augustus "could have been created by the Gods or they just loved him."

Re the Primaporta Augustus: "With cupid on his heels it makes me thing that he did not have a love, until cupid stepped in. Maybe Cupid is sending/helping him find his love."

Well, now I know what to do for Valentine's Day. I'll send cards of the Primaporta Augustus. Be Mine!

Why I Have No Time to Blog

From a recent paper assignment:

"Big patches of color are lying on their canvases like a blanket of stars on the night sky and like most art movements, comes heavy criticism. "

"It is rather more importantly the distinction from anything else, rather than conglomerating to a particular niche with the same status or mindset."

Degas "loved to paint moving bodies that were sent into peculiar angels."

"When attempting to paint an image of the modern time, artist have trouble with people staying still and remaining still."

"Dandyism is a state of idleness with an indispensable amount of money in terms of finding a sense of individuality and contentment."

Rulers "had to be perfected in a beautiful manner or the artist would have suffered severe consequences. The artist may have been jailed or even put to death because of his inability to incorporate the impressionist style into their painting. "

"Behind her is the second woman who is holding a bushel of flowers, lying on her side with her head probed up by her hand." (Courbet's Young Ladies on the Banks of the Seine)

"Art historians look back into the future and try to capture their responses to paintings, sculptures, or even photos." (Back into the future?)

Baudelaire "proved he was well informed and a prurient art critic earning respect from the art community."

"Baudelaire does not digress that painters from the past should be all together ignored..."

"I gain the sense that [T.J.] Clark is the type of guy that tells you that the young teenagers kissing are going to die first in the horror flick."

And we slog on.

A Little Hoffmeister

Why is it that my friends invariably link to me just when I haven't posted anything very remarkable in awhile? I'm afraid it is just fate (in this case, my having just moved and not yet having internet at home).
Well, for everyone's entertainment, I offer two Adolf Hoffmeister pieces:

"The Founding of Devětsil," 1927

"Pisces," 1963

Adolf Hoffmeister was a Czech artist and writer (not to mention diplomat). I'd say more, but I really must return home and continue unpacking several hundred (or is it thousand?) books. That is, I know I've unpacked several hundred, but at least 30 boxes of something or other have yet to be opened.

Barberini Faun Appears Unexpectedly in Pittsburgh

A colleague and I were recently (well, perhaps a month or so ago, but let's not quibble, I only just learned how to download photos from my phone) chatting in the Frick Fine Arts Library, only to find ourselves suddenly distracted by this:

We had thought that the Barberini Faun (aka Sleeping Satyr) was safely settled at Munich's Glyptothek.


But I guess not. Looks like he's had a haircut on the trip west. And gotten dressed. Too bad.

Illustrated Jocularity

For those who like old books, cartoons, and weird stuff in general, I recommend a look at the blog Wondermark!

Academic Discussions

An article in today's online Chronicle of Higher Education asks whether academic e-mail lists, notably those hosted by H-Net, are moribund. Some scholars claim that blogs, Facebook, and Twitter are taking their place.
As a scholar who's used all of these except Twitter (and I'm not a stranger to Twitter, I just don't use it), my reaction was that this was ridiculous. Why?
Blogs, due to the flexibility of the form, have an important place (or should) in the scholarly world. Individuals and groups blog on a wide variety of topics. On the other hand, I think few people really want to keep track of more than about ten active blogs. Sure, you can read your blogs via a feed, but the more blogs you track, the less likely you are to notice that any individual blog has a new post. The feed doesn't show the discussion that a post has prompted, either.
Facebook is good for keeping track of friends, and some academic exchange does take place, but the scholarly is easily lost amid the more social material. More significantly, to post something of any length on Facebook, you have to put it in a Note, and comments of any significant length have to go in other Notes because the comment field only allows a certain number of characters (I'm not sure how many, but it's not a lot). Besides, while you can group your contacts within Facebook, there isn't really any good way of separating academe from everything else. I know there are some ways around this--one person I know has a Facebook identity for use with friends and a separate one for use with students, but since many of his friends are also colleagues, I think many of the links get posted in both places.
Twitter seems particularly unsuited to take over. With a 140-character limit to each Twitter message, that's a medium with severe limitations. You can broadcast your headline news with it, but how much humanities discussion is something you want to read in capsule form?
Thus, blogs, Facebook, and Twitter all have their uses, but their uses are rather different from the uses of listservs. I think I subscribe to about six academic lists, plus a shifting number of lists relating to software and other topics, which can get me up to something like twenty simultaneous lists at times. Obviously I don't read all of these messages, and I certainly don't read them all right when they arrive. But there they are, I've got them, and the ones I don't delete are categorizable and searchable. In one of those moments of semi-brain-deadness, I can go through a batch of art history or Slavic emails and see what's happening.
This, however, gets to one of the other points made in the Chronicle piece. While listservs are great for disseminating conference announcements, job postings, and book reviews, their use as a means of actual discussion has dwindled.
The amount of discussion depends on the list, though, and this has a lot to do with the number of subscribers. Too few subscribers, and the list has nothing to say; too many, and it gets noisy until people either unsubscribe or turn it into an announcement-only list. H-ArtHist has no discussion that I can see, just announcements, most of which are of no particular interest to me. This is not surprising, considering the list tries to cover the entire field, internationally. The likelihood of my hopping on a plane at the last minute to attend tomorrow's German symposium on (I'm making this up) dog iconography in 15th century Japan is pretty small. But other lists do have discussion, particularly about books people have read or want to read. H-HistSex has pretty good discussion (as it ought to!) and often H-Women does as well. Not endless discussion, but readable.
I'm not sure how the question of scholarly discussion should be resolved. The historians have the benefit of all the littler special-interest lists, which can sustain some specific discussions, but as far as I can tell, the art historians are pretty much stuck with one non-discussion list. HGCEA sends out email to its members, but I wouldn't call that a discussion list. Likewise AAH. But perhaps I'm missing something.
Where are all those art-history discussions, anyway?