Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide: Spring 2005

Manet's Oceanic Feeling
by Nancy Locke
Painting seascapes in Boulogne in the summer of 1864, Manet discovered a new kind of compositional space that would have a profound impact on his art. This essay examines some psychological writing from the 1860s that can be seen to prefigure Freud's idea of the "oceanic feeling," and argues that a new conception of human freedom in Manet's art ultimately emerges from the radical mobility of the subject that was first constructed in the seascapes.

Symphonic Seas, Oceans of Liberty: Paul Signac's La Mer: Les Barques (Concarneau)
by Robyn Roslak
In 1891, Signac painted a series of five seascapes picturing boats afloat on the water off the coast of Brittany. The artist assigned each canvas an opus number and a musical title, creating a pictorial symphony in five "movements." This article explores the artistic and political significance of Signac's use of music in the construction of his seascapes.

A History of Modern Design by David Raizman
Reviewed by Elizabeth Guffey

Painting the Dark Side: Art and Gothic Imagination in Nineteenth-Century America by Sarah Burns
Reviewed by Sarah Newman

De Grünewald à Menzel: L'Image de l'art allemand en France au XIXe siècle, Uwe Fleckner and Thomas W. Gaehtgens, editors
Reviewed by Pamela J. Warner

Soil and Stone: Impressionism, Urbanism, Environment, Francis Fowle and Richard Thomson, editors
Reviewed by Marnin Young

Dieux et Mortels: Les thèmes homériques dans les collections de l'École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris
Reviewed by Brooks Beaulieu

From Homer to the Harem: The Art of Jean Lecomte du Nouÿ
Reviewed by Alan C. Braddock

Fernand Khnopff
Reviewed by Sura Levine

John Scott Bradstreet and the Decorative Arts Revival in America
by Sarah Sik
This article traces the life, work, and artistic vision of the turn-of-the-century Minneapolis interior designer John Scott Bradstreet, from his beginnings as a furniture merchant through his development into a self-fashioned American Aesthete. It looks especially at his trademark method of Jin-di-sugi woodworking.

Alexandre Cabanel's Portraits of the American 'Aristocracy' of the Early Gilded Age
by Leanne Zalewski
Alexandre Cabanel was one of the most fashionable portraitists of the late nineteenth-century, both in Europe and the United States. This essay investigates the reasons why wealthy women of the early Gilded Age chose Cabanel to paint their likenesses.