Looking and Listening in Nineteenth-Century France

Different eras experience art in different ways – often dramatically so".Looking and Listening in Nineteenth-Century France", the catalog to an exhibition at the Smart Museum of Art, uses a selection of prints, paintings, drawings, sculptures, and recorded music to demonstrate how new technological developments and changing social settings transformed the French experience of art in the nineteenth century. Treating a disparate range of subject matter from Joan of Arc to Homer, from concert audiences to comet sightings, the contributors provide a cultural context for this flowering of imagery concerned with looking and listening. They also explore how artists and composers sought to better capture the attention of their beholders and listeners. Presenting the achievements of both well known artists (Daumier, Degas, Fantin-Latour, Vuillard) and lesser known figures in a fresh light, "Looking and Listening in Nineteenth-Century France" cuts to the heart of debates about the function of art and the role of audiences. The catalog includes a special CD compilation of music relating to the works in the exhibition, along with two bonus tracks of early recordings.


Contents:

Preface and Acknowledgements
Color Gallery

Anne Leonard
Varieties of Attention: A (Mostly) Nineteenth-Century View

Martha Ward
Looking and Listening in emile-Rene Menard's "Homer"

Julia Langbein
Cham, Daumier, and Sky Gazing in Nineteenth-Century Paris

Josephine Landback
A Vision of Beauty: Jules-Adolphe Breton's "The Song of the Lark"

Elayne Oliphant
Voices and Apparitions in Julse Bastien-Lepage's "Joan of Arc"

Michael Tymkiw
Pictorially Transcribing Music: The Wagner Lithographs of Henri Fantin-Latour and Odilon Redon

Eleanor Rivera
Listening with Your Eyes: "Le petit solfege illustre" and French Children's Songbooks

Allison Morehead
A Certain "Tour d'esprit": edouard Vuillard's "The Lerolle Salon"

Checklist of the Exhibition
CD Listener's Guide