new approaches to south asian art || style louis-philippe

Style Louis-PhilippePainting Politics for Louis-Philippe: Art and Ideology in Orléanist France, 1830-1848 byMichael MarrinanReview by: Donald A. RosenthalArt Journal, Vol. 49, No. 4, New Approaches to South Asian Art (Winter, 1990), pp. 423-426Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/777144 .

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Book Reviews

Style Louis-Philippe By Donald A. Rosenthal

Michael Marrinan. Painting Politics for Louis-Philippe: Art and Ideology in Orlea- nist France, 1830-1848. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988. xxiii + 310 pp.; 8 color ills., 239 black-and- white. $45.00

M ichael Marrinan's ambitious book belongs to the trend in recent years

toward intensive examination of French painting of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from the points of view of artistic training, exhibition practice, and private or state patronage. Focusing on a relatively brief political regime and on one patron -the Citizen King, Louis-Philippe d'Orleans-Marrinan seeks to demon- strate how the political goals of govern- mental patronage can influence not only the content but also the style of history painting. Going beyond the transitory political agendas of the July Monarchy, Mar- rinan hopes to establish an important role for what he calls juste milieu history painting, or the style Louis-Philippe, in the evolution of French nineteenth-century Realism.

Marrinan's study is limited to a narrow range of the art produced during the July Monarchy: to paintings of the contemporary or moder (that is, since 1789) history of France, as well as officially commissioned royal portraiture. Such paintings formed only a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of works shown at the Paris Sa- lon between 1830 and 1848, though they were the most important in terms of scale, prestige, and financial reward. The paintings discussed by Marrinan are still little known outside scholarly circles, despite the fact that many are displayed in the much-visited Musee National du Chateau, Versailles. The author gives these unloved works the close attention that has previ-

ously been reserved for such familiar icons of July Monarchy art as the Orientalist and historical pictures of Eugene Delacroix, the portraits of J.-A.-D. Ingres, or the landscapes of Jean-Baptiste Corot.

In an introductory section Marrinan states the scope of his inquiry, which is not only restricted largely to history painting but "more specifically, to those official commissions which cast the events of French history after the Great Revolution in a way that might explain and legitimize the ideology of the July Monarchy" (p. 2). He demonstrates his method with an analysis of officially commissioned portraits of Louis-Philippe, correlating changes in the mode of presentation with fluctuations in the king's political fortunes and desired self-presentation. Marrinan then surveys the declining market for large history paintings in the years around 1830, while noting the popularity during the preceding decade of highly finished, small-scale paintings of postmedieval European history. Iconographically, the July Monarchy re-valorized scenes from the history of the Revolution and Empire, which had been out of official favor under the Bourbon Restoration (1814/15-1830). The new era was also characterized by increasing criti- cal acceptance of small-scale history painting, though Marrinan can trace only to 1835 the use of the term genre historique to describe this artistic trend. Louis- Philippe's sharing of this taste for detailed, historically accurate painting, combined with the vast spaces at his disposal at Ver- sailles, led to commissions for large-scale works in which the stylistic characteristics of genre historique could be turned to propagandistic effect. It is in these larger royal commissions that Marrinan finds a new style, an expansion of genre historique, which he calls juste milieu history paint-

ing; the termjuste milieu is borrowed from a characterization by Louis-Philippe of his middle-of-the-road political policy.

he next three sections of the book deal with the iconography of the great po-

litical events that had shaped moder France; they also provide an increasingly detailed definition of genre historique. The second section analyzes images of the Trois Glorieuses, the revolutionary days of July 1830 that brought Louis-Philippe to power. Here Marrinan concentrates on the influence of cheap, popular prints of these events on early painted depictions, such as Amedde Bourgeois's Capture of the Hotel- de-Ville (Salon of 1831; Musee National du Chateau, Versailles). These and related works by such artists as Hippolyte Lecomte, Jean-Abel Lordon, and Jean- Alphonse Roehn are characterized by their stagelike, shallow space; flattened back- grounds; fragmented narrative; diffusion of dramatic interest; profusion of detail; and avoidance of grand-manner rhetoric in favor of journalistic accuracy. Marrinan sees in this the development of an entirely new picture type, later to be described as genre historique.

As popular unrest grew, the regime, seeking to solidify its power, began to dis- tance itself from scenes of violence on the barricades of 1830, concentrating on the role (initially minor) played in these events by Louis-Philippe. Such preoccupations rendered an important work like De- lacroix's The 28th of July: Liberty Leading the People (1830; Louvre, Paris)-to be sure, a high-art, grandly scaled history painting-politically unfashionable, and it was soon put out of sight. In the vast can- vases the king commissioned and installed in the Salle de 1830 at Versailles in the mid-1830s, the importance of key figures

Winter 1990 423



like the Marquis de Lafayette in the events of July 1830 was played down, while Louis-Philippe consistently occupied center stage. Despite the enormous size of these works, the dominant mode, as Mar- rinan demonstrates, remained a genre- based literalism.

n the third and longest section of the book, Marrinan recounts the revival of

themes from the Revolution of 1789 for contemporary political purposes in gov- ernmental or royal commissions of the July Monarchy. An extended discussion is given to the concours of 1830 for three large paintings for the Salle des Seances of the Chambre des Deputes in the Palais- Bourbon, Paris. The program selected by the powerful minister Francois Guizot, in Marrinan's interpretation, emphasized legislative resistance to tyranny and anar- chy. Two scenes from the Revolution, Mir- abeau and the Marquis de Dreux-Breze and The Head of the Deputy Feraud Shown to Boissy dAnglas, were to flank an Oath of Louis-Philippe. Marrinan's analysis of the strategies adopted by different artists in the concours is masterly. The series was never installed in the Chambre des Deputes, probably because, after the insurrections of 1834, the violence of the Boissy dAnglas was considered to be in poor taste. The same fate befell the program organized in 1830 by Odilon Barrot, the leftist prefect of the Seine, for four paintings to hang in the Hotel-de-Ville. The rapidly changing political situation made the four scenes from the revolutions of 1789 and 1830 seem too republican in orientation to be displayed by the increasingly conservative monarchy.

Marrinan devotes considerable attention to Louis-Philippe's plans for a Salle de 1792 at Versailles, announced in the trou- bled year of 1834. Not surprisingly, the king favored such "positive" subjects (from his point of view) as Leon Cogniet's The Parisian National Guard Leaves for the Front in September 1792 (Salon of 1836; Musee National du Chateau, Ver- sailles), avoiding the scenes of revolutionary violence that also marked the events of 1792. Less convincing is the author's interpretation of another room at Versailles of pictures of the Revolution and Restoration, commissioned around 1838, the center- piece of which was to have been Auguste Couder's huge Federation of National Guardsmen and the Military on the Champ-de-Mars at Paris, 14 July 1790 (Sa- lon of 1844; Musee National du Chateau, Versailles). In Marrinan's view, had the room been completed as planned, its theme would have been "the changing power relationships between elected legis- lators and the chief executive in France" (p. 124). The constitutional monarchy and national unity briefly in place in 1790 would have been seen, according to Mar-

rinan, as a precedent for the government of reconciliation eventually established under Louis-Philippe in 1830. It should be pointed out, however, that such a complex interpretive program, while not inconceiv- able, would have called for exceptional so- phistication on the part of both the patron (probably Louis-Philippe himself) and the viewing public.

he final iconographically oriented section chronicles the official revival of

Napoleonic imagery by the Orleanist government. This development is described by Marrinan as another attempt to co-opt popular imagery in support of a fragile centrist regime. The images most fre- quently encountered stress Bonaparte's lack of pretension as a soldier ("the little corporal"). Discussing the Salle du Sacre at Versailles, which included celebrated pictures by Jacques-Louis David and Baron Gros, Marrinan asserts that the room depicts two Bonapartes: the patrio- tic, victorious general contrasts favorably with the ostentatious, autocratic emperor. The iconographic analysis again is complex and would have strained the interpretive powers of many visitors to the gallery, despite the well-known political threat to the Orleanist regime posed by Bonapartist dynastic claims.

Writing about the great Galerie des Batailles, begun in 1835 and still an impos- ing presence at Versailles, Marrinan largely ignores the depictions of earlier French victories from the time of Char- lemagne on, concentrating instead on the moder scenes. The latter inevitably deal mainly with Napoleon's victories, but center on the leader and his staff rather than on the battles themselves. Marrinan charac- terizes these works as colossal examples of genre historique that capitalize on the popularity of Napoleon's image while draining it of its potency. The hastily prepared and somewhat offhand ceremonies marking the return of Napoleon's remains from St. Helena to Paris in 1840 are cited as another example of the regime's ambivalent attempts to co-opt popular nostalgia for the emperor.

n a summation, Marrinan seeks to situ- ate the official history painting of the

juste milieu within the history of nineteenth-century painting. Marrinan rejects a recent view, which he ascribes mainly to Albert Boime, of the juste milieu as an eclectic compromise between Classicism and Romanticism that parallels the regime's goal of political consensus. The author likewise questions some opinions expressed in 1914 in Leon Rosenthal's in- fluential study Du Romantisme au realisme, a book recently reissued with an introduction by Marrinan.2 To Rosenthal, the official history painters of the July

Monarchy were marginal; Marrinan, on the contrary, views the development of genre historique as "an intervening step between the Romantics of the 1820s and the Realists of 1848" (p. 213). According to this view, the co-opting of popular art forms, often associated with Gustave Courbet, was already well under way in juste milieu history painting. Courbet was therefore less progressive in this area than as an exemplar of "neo-Romantic individ- ualism" (p. 215) who reasserted personal content and facture on a grand scale after the sudden extinction of the anonymous juste milieu style with the demise of Louis- Philippe's personal patronage.

Thus, despite his seeming disinterest in formalist histories of moder avant-garde art, Marrinan nevertheless finds an important place for thejuste milieu in the stylistic evolution from Romanticism to Realism. The thesis is a challenging one for students of French Realism and has the advantage of making the energetic, expansive years between 1830 and 1848 more than merely an art-historical lacuna between the grandly scaled achievements of the Romanticists and those of Courbet. Perhaps juste milieu history painting was indeed a current flow- ing into the development of Realism, but the sources of the latter movement remain highly complex. The organizers of the recent exhibition "The Art of the July Mon- archy: France 1830 to 1848," for example, locate sources of Realism in very different aspects of painting in the 1830s: in "so- cially concerned" genre paintings, some quite large, by artists like Philippe- Auguste Jeanron (dismissed by Marrinan as a retardataire purveyor of Greuzian sen- timentality) and Louis-Joseph Trimolet, or in some unadorned pictures of France's budding capitalists and their factories.3

he greatest strength of Marrinan's study is in his interpretation of the

political intentions behind the content and mode of presentation in many modern history paintings officially commissioned by the July Monarchy. One reviewer has sug- gested that, in the absence of documentary evidence to the contrary, there is no reason to assume that Louis-Philippe's frequent meddling in commissioned works was due to anything more than the king's sincere taste for accuracy of artistic detail;4 but in the majority of cases Marrinan's readings of subtle propagandistic intent are convincing. The author also seeks, however, to place the works he is studying within the historical evolution of nineteenth-century art, and here it seems to me that he does not discuss adequately the relation of this material to the modern history paintings exe- cuted in the period immediately prior to the July Monarchy.

Although genre historique precedes juste milieu history painting (or style

424 Art Journal



Louis-Philippe), which develops from it, the precise division between these catego- ries, based mainly on size, ideology, and royal patronage, is never fully outlined. In comparing the genre historique of the 1830s to earlier paintings of "modem" history (since 1789), Marrinan most often contrasts its journalistic mode and diffusion of interest to the hyperbole and bom- bast of Napoleonic painting of contemporary history. But he fails to note that even under the Empire, large genre-based depictions of pageants from contemporary history were already being produced that bear comparison with the genre historique of the July Monarchy.

Marrinan provides an extended discussion of Couder's immense Federation of National Guardsmen and the Military, mentioned above. The picture, with its deemphasis of the role of Louis XVI and other prominent figures in this historical event, is cited as a prime example of the development of juste milieu history painting and of the direct intervention of Louis- Philippe, who insisted that Couder repaint the work with a broader and less tumul- tuous view of the surging crowd. The author illustrates some of the many contemporary prints of the Fete de la Federation that could have been known to Couder, as well as a small painting by Hubert Robert. This by no means exhausts the repertory of contemporary images of this event, which was also depicted by the history painter Charles Thevenin and twice by Philibert- Louis Debucourt in a genre-based style, though in a small format.5 The main dis- tinction of Couder's composition from the earlier ones of Robert or Debucourt is in the application of an anonymous genre treatment, used as well by the earlier artists, to a painting of enormous scale. Among earlier large-scale works of this kind, however, one may cite Nicolas- Antoine Taunay's Entry of the Imperial Guard into Paris, 25 November 1807 (Sa- lon of 1810),6 now at Versailles, a picture Louis-Philippe admired sufficiently to pur- chase in 1835. This generously propor- tioned easel painting (71/2 x 87 inches), with its journalistic approach to a subject from contemporary history, suggests that the elements of genre historique were already in place a generation before the ad- vent of the July Monarchy.

ainting under the Bourbon Restoration is much less often examined by Mar-

rinan than the art of the Empire, despite the obvious fact that many artists worked for both the Bourbons and the July Monarchy. In instances in which works by one painter for both regimes are illustrated, it is sug- gested that the artist's style changed radi- cally to suit the new government. Thus the first work discussed, Louis Hersent's Full- Length Portrait of the King (Salon of 1831;

destroyed), is described as a model of Louis-Philippe's desired image of ap- proachability and lack of royal pomp. Her- sent's Louis XVI Distributing Alms to the Poor (Salon of 1817; Musee National du Chateau, Versailles), in which the mon- arch is centrally but accessibly placed among some unfortunate peasants in a genre setting, is on the other hand dismissed as "transparently propagandistic" (p. 79). Still, this royal commission in its modem subject and restrained presentation already demonstrates many of the qualities Marrinan attributes to genre historique in the 1830s.

The propagandistic needs of the Resto- ration were, of course, different from those that would later characterize the July Mon- archy. The unpleasant historical realities of the Revolution and Empire, and the un- heroic character of the Restoration itself, discouraged the painting of what Marrinan would define as modem history, though actions of such popular Bourbons as the duchesse d'Angouleme were sometimes depicted. As a "legitimate" dynasty, the Bourbons felt less need to justify their power than did the Orleanists, who had benefited from a popular revolt. For the Restoration, then, "modern" subjects would have included the period immediately before the Revolution of 1789, as in Hersent's Louis XVI.

arrinan traces the development of the genre historique of the July Mon-

archy ultimately to the small, neo-Gothic historical scenes of the style troubadour of the first decade of the century, then to such artists of the Restoration period as Pierre Revoil, Ingres, and Paul Delacroche, all of whom painted small pictures from medi- eval or Renaissance history in a minutely detailed, archaeologically correct style. He asserts, however, that the style had not, "with few exceptions" (p. 22), been used before 1830 to depict recent or contemporary French history, defined as events that had occurred since the Revolution of 1789. If, however, one defines "modem" history slightly more broadly, in order to include subjects that were politically acceptable to the Bourbons, there were many modem pictures of this kind at the Salons. One example is the troubadour painter Fleury- Franqois Richard's Madame Elisabeth de France Distributing Milk (Salon of 1817; Musee National du Chateau, Versailles).7 Like Hersent's picture of Madame Elisa- beth's brother, Louis XVI, this is a large easel painting in which the royal personage (who did not survive the Revolution) is centrally but democratically portrayed in the middle ground among a group of peas- ant children. Many characteristics of these paintings (modem historical subject, genrelike presentation, accuracy of cos- tume and detail, diffusion of interest, clear

readability) do not differ appreciably from those of the works produced fifteen years later and discussed by Marrinan under the category of genre historique.

In addition to these "modem" scenes, the restored Bourbons also favored scenes from their dynastic history, an option not available to the arriviste Orleans dynasty. Works supporting the current Bourbon rulers through references to their illus- trious ancestors had been in vogue since at least the later years of Louis XV, as in the series of paintings of the life of Saint Louis for the Chapelle de l'Ecole Militaire, Paris, shown at the Salon of 1773. A typical Bourbon historical commission of the Res- toration is Franqois Gerard's Entry ofHenri IV into Paris (Salon of 1817; Musee Na- tional du Chateau, Versailles; reduced versions: Musee des Beaux-Arts, Chartres, and art market, New York).8 Though not a "modem" subject, the analogy between the difficult accession of Henri IV and that of the current ruler, Louis XVIII, would have been widely understood at the time.9 In this large-scale history painting we already find the inclusion of diverse social classes, united in their support of the monarchy, that Marrinan sees as an important propagandistic innovation in genre historique paintings of the Revolution of 1830. In Gerard's painting members of the bourgeoisie, the military aristocracy, and the king are depicted on an approximately equal scale. The artist pays careful attention to distinguishing the varied social ori- gins of the figures by means of the cos- \tumes. This presentation mirrors the social policies of Louis XVIII's regime: the inclusion of the bourgeoisie within the ruling class, already well advanced under Napoleon I, was continued under Louis XVIII, who ennobled far more bourgeois families than Louis-Philippe was later to do. Although a "bourgeois" monarchy and its related artistic tastes are usually associated with the Citizen King, these develop- ments may already have been under way during the reign of Louis XVIII. While the working classes, included in some of the paintings later commissioned or purchased by Louis-Philippe in the early days of his regime, are not given prominence in Ger- ard's work, the propagandistic device of depicting the supposed solidarity of different social classes behind the king seems to have been established well before the ad- vent of the style Louis-Philippe described by Marrinan. O

arrinan's claim for a unique historical role forjuste milieu history paint-

ing within the evolution of nineteenth- century art remains inconclusive; and since many of the works he discusses do not have what traditionally has been described as exceptional aesthetic "quality" (which indeed he does not claim for them), their

Winter 1990 425



demand on some readers' attention inevitably will be compromised. Marrinan's study remains nevertheless a valuable in- vestigation of the influence of highly fo- cused state patronage on both the iconography and style of large-scale history painting.

Donald A. Rosenthal is associate director and curator of collections at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. He is the author of La Grande Maniere: Historical and Religious Painting in France, 1700-1800 (1987).

Notes

1 The Galerie des Batailles project is analyzed in detail in Thomas W. Gaehtgens, Versailles, de la residence royale au musee historique: La Galerie des Batailles dans le musde historique de Louis-

Philippe (Antwerp: Mercatorfonds, 1984).

demand on some readers' attention inevitably will be compromised. Marrinan's study remains nevertheless a valuable in- vestigation of the influence of highly fo- cused state patronage on both the iconography and style of large-scale history painting.

Donald A. Rosenthal is associate director and curator of collections at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. He is the author of La Grande Maniere: Historical and Religious Painting in France, 1700-1800 (1987).

Notes

1 The Galerie des Batailles project is analyzed in detail in Thomas W. Gaehtgens, Versailles, de la residence royale au musee historique: La Galerie des Batailles dans le musde historique de Louis-

Philippe (Antwerp: Mercatorfonds, 1984).

2 Leon Rosenthal, Du Romantisme au realisme: Es- sai sur l'evolution de la peinture en France de 1830 d 1848, introduction by Michael Marrinan (Paris: Macula, 1987).

3 Gabriel P. Weisberg, "Early Realism," in The Art

of the July Monarchy: France 1830 to 1848, exh. cat. (Columbia: Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri-Columbia, 1990), 101-15. Michael Marrinan reiterates his opinions on Jeanron in a negative review of The Art of the July Monarchy that is devoted largely to the catalogue and the "intellectual structure" of the exhibition; see Art Journal 49, no. 3 (Fall 1990): 301-5. Works by Trimolet and the "factory painter" Ignace-Francois Bonhomm6, also proposed by Weisberg as "proto-realist," are not discussed by Marrinan. For an alternative reading that focuses more specifically on the visual aspect of this exhibition, see the review by Joseph Rishel in Bur-

lington Magazine 132 (April 1990): 295-96. 4 Jon Whiteley, "The King's Pictures," Oxford Art

Journal 12, no. 1 (1989): 57-59

2 Leon Rosenthal, Du Romantisme au realisme: Es- sai sur l'evolution de la peinture en France de 1830 d 1848, introduction by Michael Marrinan (Paris: Macula, 1987).

3 Gabriel P. Weisberg, "Early Realism," in The Art

of the July Monarchy: France 1830 to 1848, exh. cat. (Columbia: Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri-Columbia, 1990), 101-15. Michael Marrinan reiterates his opinions on Jeanron in a negative review of The Art of the July Monarchy that is devoted largely to the catalogue and the "intellectual structure" of the exhibition; see Art Journal 49, no. 3 (Fall 1990): 301-5. Works by Trimolet and the "factory painter" Ignace-Francois Bonhomm6, also proposed by Weisberg as "proto-realist," are not discussed by Marrinan. For an alternative reading that focuses more specifically on the visual aspect of this exhibition, see the review by Joseph Rishel in Bur-

lington Magazine 132 (April 1990): 295-96. 4 Jon Whiteley, "The King's Pictures," Oxford Art

Journal 12, no. 1 (1989): 57-59

5 On Debucourt's versions of 1790, see 1789: French Art during the Revolution, exh. cat. (New York: Colnaghi, 1989), 134-37 and pl. 13.

6 See French Painting 1774-1830: The Age of Revo- lution, exh. cat. (Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1975), 209, 627-28, no. 174.

7 Ibid., 251, 588-89, no. 155. 8 The large Versailles version is illustrated in color

in Gaehtgens, Versailles, 182. 9 The propagandistic aspect of this picture is dis-

cussed in Ruth Kaufmann, "Francois Gerard's

'Entry of Henri IV into Paris': The Iconography of Constitutional Monarchy," Burlington Magazine 117 (December 1975): 790-802.

10 In the foregoing observations I am indebted to comments made to me by Guy Stair Sainty, who is

preparing a study of ennoblements of families under French regimes of the early nineteenth

century.

5 On Debucourt's versions of 1790, see 1789: French Art during the Revolution, exh. cat. (New York: Colnaghi, 1989), 134-37 and pl. 13.

6 See French Painting 1774-1830: The Age of Revo- lution, exh. cat. (Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1975), 209, 627-28, no. 174.

7 Ibid., 251, 588-89, no. 155. 8 The large Versailles version is illustrated in color

in Gaehtgens, Versailles, 182. 9 The propagandistic aspect of this picture is dis-

cussed in Ruth Kaufmann, "Francois Gerard's

'Entry of Henri IV into Paris': The Iconography of Constitutional Monarchy," Burlington Magazine 117 (December 1975): 790-802.

10 In the foregoing observations I am indebted to comments made to me by Guy Stair Sainty, who is

preparing a study of ennoblements of families under French regimes of the early nineteenth

century.

French Art Nouveau By Gabriel P. Weisberg

French Art Nouveau By Gabriel P. Weisberg

Silverman, Deborah. Art Nouveau in Fin-de-Siecle France: Politics, Psychol- ogy, and Style. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989. xv + 415 pp.; 15 color ills., 73 black-and-white. $50.00

Ever so rarely a book appears that is destined to establish new parameters

for intellectual discourse as it challenges and dissects old views through its inter- pretations. Art Nouveau in Fin-de-Siecle France: Politics, Psychology, and Style by Deborah Silverman is such a work. Silver- man, a cultural historian, examines varied aspects of the art nouveau period in France during the 1890s by meshing the meth- odology of a social historian with the per- ceptions of a stylistic analyst. The result: a book that continually opens new territo- ries, although the visual images do not always completely bear out the concepts expounded by the author. Hence, the book is useful for a second reason. It demonstrates some of the pitfalls and issues that a cultural historian can encounter when his/ her sensitivities toward works of art are not well defined.

From her introductory chapter, "The Transformation of Art Nouveau, 1889- 1900," Silverman confirms that she pos- sesses a sweeping historical command of the period as she elucidates the startling changes that occurred within those few years. Noting that art nouveau was to emerge as much more than a surface deco- ration, Silverman also makes it clear that the major artists of the era shared funda-

Silverman, Deborah. Art Nouveau in Fin-de-Siecle France: Politics, Psychol- ogy, and Style. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989. xv + 415 pp.; 15 color ills., 73 black-and-white. $50.00

Ever so rarely a book appears that is destined to establish new parameters

for intellectual discourse as it challenges and dissects old views through its inter- pretations. Art Nouveau in Fin-de-Siecle France: Politics, Psychology, and Style by Deborah Silverman is such a work. Silver- man, a cultural historian, examines varied aspects of the art nouveau period in France during the 1890s by meshing the meth- odology of a social historian with the per- ceptions of a stylistic analyst. The result: a book that continually opens new territo- ries, although the visual images do not always completely bear out the concepts expounded by the author. Hence, the book is useful for a second reason. It demonstrates some of the pitfalls and issues that a cultural historian can encounter when his/ her sensitivities toward works of art are not well defined.

From her introductory chapter, "The Transformation of Art Nouveau, 1889- 1900," Silverman confirms that she pos- sesses a sweeping historical command of the period as she elucidates the startling changes that occurred within those few years. Noting that art nouveau was to emerge as much more than a surface deco- ration, Silverman also makes it clear that the major artists of the era shared funda-

mental goals, no matter in which country they were working. These included the to- tal disruption of the traditional hierarchy of media in order to reunite arts and crafts; the creation of a "modem design style" (p. 1) that had little, if anything, to do with ac- cepted canons of historical tradition; and the preeminence of individual vision over the "function of material" (p. 1). The last goal holds the greatest significance for Sil- verman. Through discussions of this area she detects the wellsprings of creative imagination that allow her to unlock the workings of psychology as a crucial ingre- dient in modem interior design.

In order to pursue these aims, Professor Silverman recognized early on that she had to limit and focus her examination of these aims. Otherwise she would have produced nothing more than a general survey book on art nouveau. She realized that a series of pertinent issues had been raised but not fully resolved for France, so she devoted her attention to that country. Also, the least amount of scholarly attention had been directed toward understanding the ways in which art nouveau interiors had evolved in France.1 The author describes how the term "art nouveau" did not always signify a relationship with the bulbous, plantlike forms used in interior design. To bolster her argument, she establishes that in 1889, at the time of the World's Fair in Paris, these words correlated with "advanced in- dustrial production" (p. 4). Thus from the start Silverman makes the point that "art nouveau" held different connotations.

mental goals, no matter in which country they were working. These included the to- tal disruption of the traditional hierarchy of media in order to reunite arts and crafts; the creation of a "modem design style" (p. 1) that had little, if anything, to do with ac- cepted canons of historical tradition; and the preeminence of individual vision over the "function of material" (p. 1). The last goal holds the greatest significance for Sil- verman. Through discussions of this area she detects the wellsprings of creative imagination that allow her to unlock the workings of psychology as a crucial ingre- dient in modem interior design.

In order to pursue these aims, Professor Silverman recognized early on that she had to limit and focus her examination of these aims. Otherwise she would have produced nothing more than a general survey book on art nouveau. She realized that a series of pertinent issues had been raised but not fully resolved for France, so she devoted her attention to that country. Also, the least amount of scholarly attention had been directed toward understanding the ways in which art nouveau interiors had evolved in France.1 The author describes how the term "art nouveau" did not always signify a relationship with the bulbous, plantlike forms used in interior design. To bolster her argument, she establishes that in 1889, at the time of the World's Fair in Paris, these words correlated with "advanced in- dustrial production" (p. 4). Thus from the start Silverman makes the point that "art nouveau" held different connotations.

Due to the shift in the term's meaning during the 1890s, the Paris World's Fair of 1900-when plantlike shapes were ac- cepted as synonymous with art nouveau- marks the apex of her historical survey.

In effect, from the beginning of her book Silverman indicates that the period between the last two World's Fairs of the nineteenth century will receive her attention. She contends that art nouveau forms moved from public spaces to an essentially interiorized vision that was most dramati- cally expressed in designs intended for private residences. By following the flow of history and concentrating on design issues that affected people's reactions to interior spaces, Silverman attempts to explain the phenomenon of the "retreat to the interior" (p. 8). The remainder of her book concentrates on the interlocking cultural and political reasons for such changes.

Crucial to her thesis was the location of models or precursors of this realignment toward the interior, personal space, espe- cially those dating from the early 1890s, prior to the art nouveau period. Silverman uses as an example Jules and Edmond de Goncourt, who were among the earliest advocates of Japanese art and were staunch revivalists of eighteenth-century Rococo art and design.2 The author posits that the Goncourts, particularly the crusty Ed- mond, who outlived his brother, were ad- dicted to the social hierarchy and aesthetic grace of France under the ancien regime. Their aristocratic tastes and pretensions were given full play through their collec-

Due to the shift in the term's meaning during the 1890s, the Paris World's Fair of 1900-when plantlike shapes were ac- cepted as synonymous with art nouveau- marks the apex of her historical survey.

In effect, from the beginning of her book Silverman indicates that the period between the last two World's Fairs of the nineteenth century will receive her attention. She contends that art nouveau forms moved from public spaces to an essentially interiorized vision that was most dramati- cally expressed in designs intended for private residences. By following the flow of history and concentrating on design issues that affected people's reactions to interior spaces, Silverman attempts to explain the phenomenon of the "retreat to the interior" (p. 8). The remainder of her book concentrates on the interlocking cultural and political reasons for such changes.

Crucial to her thesis was the location of models or precursors of this realignment toward the interior, personal space, espe- cially those dating from the early 1890s, prior to the art nouveau period. Silverman uses as an example Jules and Edmond de Goncourt, who were among the earliest advocates of Japanese art and were staunch revivalists of eighteenth-century Rococo art and design.2 The author posits that the Goncourts, particularly the crusty Ed- mond, who outlived his brother, were ad- dicted to the social hierarchy and aesthetic grace of France under the ancien regime. Their aristocratic tastes and pretensions were given full play through their collec-

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