Nochlin - Style and Civilization

style and Civilization

Penguin Books

PENGUIN BOOKS
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First published in Pelican Books 1971
Reprinted in Penguin Books 1990
12
Copyright Linda Nochlin, 1971
All rights reserved
Designed by Gerald Cormon
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

978-0-14-193702-1

The series to which this book belongs is devoted to both the history and the problems of style in European art. It is expository rather than critical. The aim is to discuss each important style in relation to contemporary shifts in emphasis and direction both in the other, non-visual arts and in thought and civilization as a whole. By examining artistic styles in this wider context it is hoped that closer definitions and a deeper understanding of their fundamental character and motivation will be reached.

The series is intended for the general reader but it is written at a level which should interest the specialist as well. Beyond this there has been no attempt at uniformity. Each author has had complete liberty in his mode of treatment and has been free to be as selective as he wished for selection and compression are inevitable in a series such as this, whose scope extends beyond the history of art. Not all great artists or great works of art can be mentioned, far less discussed. Nor, more specifically, is it intended to provide anything in the nature of a historical survey, period by period, but rather a discussion of the artistic concepts dominant in each successive period. And, for this purpose, the detailed analysis of a few carefully chosen issues is more revealing than the birds-eye view.

I should like to thank my friends and colleagues in the field of nineteenth-century studies for their generous gifts of information and ideas. Among those with whom I have discussed problems or from whom I have received information are: Professors Albert Elsen, Ann Coffin Hanson, Robert L. Herbert, Fred Licht, Theodore Reff, Robert Rosenblum and Allen Staley. I should like to extend special thanks to Robert Rosenblum for opening my eyes to some of the hidden splendours of Victorian painting in the course of visits to several exhibitions undertaken in his company. Many of the ideas, and the basic insights, developed in the course of these pages go back to my days as a graduate student at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts, where I was privileged to study under the late Walter Friedlaender and to write a doctoral dissertation on Courbet and Realism under the direction of Professors H. W. Janson and Robert Goldwater. In addition, I am indebted to the various people who helped me to obtain photographs or information about the current whereabouts of works of art, particularly the staff of the Witt library in London, and M. Pierre Rosenberg in Paris. My gratitude to my loyal and industrious assistants, Sherry Chayat Nordstrom and Alison Hilton, knows no bounds. Edith Tonelli helped with the task of proof-reading. Special thanks must go to my husband, Richard Pommer, who provided moral support and sound advice at every stage of the way, especially on architectural matters. My mother, Mrs Elka Heller, and my mother-in-law, Mrs Reba Pommer, my daughter Jessica and my housekeeper, Mrs Eleanor Lezon, offered invaluable domestic assistance. I can only add that my warmest thanks must be reserved for my two editors, John Fleming and Hugh Honour, who were models of patience, attentiveness and encouragement at all times during the preparation of this manuscript.

L.N.
Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
November 1970

Realism, as an historical movement in the figurative arts and in literature, attained its most coherent and consistent formulation in France, with echoes, parallels and variants elsewhere on the Continent, in England and in the United States. Preceded by Romanticism and followed by what is now generally termed Symbolism, it was the dominant movement from about 1840 until 1870-80. Its aim was to give a truthful, objective and impartial representation of the real world, based on meticulous observation of contemporary life. This definition will determine the direction of the present study, but it inevitably raises a number of questions. For whereas such terms as Mannerism, Baroque or Neo-classicism whatever difficulties they may present are generally used to define stylistic categories, proper to the visual arts, the word Realism is also closely connected with central philosophical issues. In order to isolate the peculiar implications of Realism, considered as an historical, stylistic movement or direction in the arts, we must first consider some of the problems arising out of the different and sometimes diametrically opposed senses in which the term can be used.

A basic cause of the confusion bedevilling the notion of Realism is its ambiguous relationship to the highly problematical concept of reality. A recent exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and at the Tate Gallery in London, for example, was entitled The Art of the Real and consisted not as the uninitiated might have expected of recognizable views of people, things or places, but of large striped or stained canvases and mammoth constructions of plywood, plastic or metal. The title chosen by the organizer was neither wilfully mystifying nor capricious. It was a contemporary manifestation of a long philosophical tradition, part of the main-stream of Western thought since the time of Plato, which opposes true reality to mere appearance. All things have two faces, declared the sixteenth-century theologian, Sebastian Franck, because God decided to oppose himself to the world, to leave appearances to the