ISBN:
9780226809960
Language:
English
Pages:
1 online resource (276 pages)
Parallel Title:
Erscheint auch als Sayre, Henry M., 1948 - Value in art
DDC:
759.4
Keywords:
Art-Political aspects-France
;
Slavery-United States-Foreign public opinion
;
France-Civilization-American influences
;
Art and literature-France
;
Electronic books
;
Manet, Edouard 1832-1883 Olympia
;
Geschichte 1850-1900
;
Geschichte 1850-1900
;
Frankreich
;
Schwarze
;
Sklaverei
;
Künste
Abstract:
Olympia's value -- Prostitution and slavery -- Sand/Baudelaire, Couture/Manet -- "La femme" de Baudelaire -- Le sud de Manet -- Poe -- Two wars -- Zola's Olympia -- Value in art -- Coda.
Abstract:
"How did art critics come to speak of light and dark as, respectively, "high in value" and "low in value." In this book, Henry Sayre traces the origins of this usage in one of art history's most famous and racially charged paintings, Manet's Olympia. Masterfully researched and argued, this bold study reveals the extraordinary weight of history and politics that Manet's painting bears, and the presence of slavery at modernism's roots. Sayre shows that it was Émile Zola who introduced a new "law of values" to art criticism in an 1867 essay on Manet. Unpacking the intricate contexts of Zola's essay and of several related paintings of Manet, Sayre argues that Zola's use of the economic metaphor of "value" was doubly coded. On the one hand, it was a feint that deflected attention away from Olympia's actual subject and toward the painting's formal qualities. On the other, Sayre argues, "value" for Zola was a trope for the political economy of slavery and the Second Empire's complicity in the ongoing slave trade in the Americas. Value in Art is a surprising and necessary intervention in our understanding of modern art's emergence in relation to issues of race"
Note:
Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources
