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Subject:

Fwd: VICTORIA Digest - 3 Nov 2003 to 4 Nov 2003 (#2003-98)

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Wed, 5 Nov 2003 15:08:57 +0000

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----- Forwarded message from Automatic digest processor 
<[log in to unmask]> -----
    Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 00:00:40 -0500
    From: Automatic digest processor <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: VICTORIA 19th-Century British Culture & Society 
<[log in to unmask]>
 Subject: VICTORIA Digest - 3 Nov 2003 to 4 Nov 2003 (#2003-98)
      To: Recipients of VICTORIA digests <[log in to unmask]>

There are 21 messages totalling 634 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. The Renaissance of Academic Art? (2)
  2. Renaissance of Academic Art
  3. The Renaissance of Academic Art? - Alma-Tadema
  4. nosegay and bouquet (3)
  5. Victorian Article references (5)
  6. Last Set of Queries
  7. William Morris Exhibition and Conference
  8. Academic art
  9. Academic art, contd
 10. Attorneys (2)
 11. "brown like an old fiddle" (2)
 12. partant pour la syrie

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 4 Nov 2003 11:14:51 -0000
From:    lee field <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: The Renaissance of Academic Art?

Martin, I don't know the website, and there's something wrong with my
computer so that I can't gain access to the net to check it out. However...
to the extent that they allow their personal preferences to skew their work
as historians your 'Pre-Picassoans' are surely unprofessional. It's not the
job of historians to 'rehabilitate' an artist even when they recognise a
need for extra research and study into the artist and their work (but I
think you overstep the same mark when you 'pillory' Alma-Tadema in class)
and if they denigrate Modernism and Post-Modernism in toto they're as silly
as the establishment they oppose. We've still got a problem with the
Victorians, though, haven't we? I'm amazed that it persists. It's been
obvious in the responses to the Andrew Lloyd Webber exhibition in London.
Critics shamelessly said 'What can you expect from someone like that?'.
That is, he writes that ghastly vulgar music so it's no surprise he
collects this ghastly vulgar art. And vulgarity is the point, isn't it?
Victorian painting has been popular right through its long critical
eclipse. Waterhouse's Lady of Shalott has been (according to the reliable
index of postcard sales) among the Tate's most consistently popular
pictures since it arrived at the gallery. Lloyd Webber remembers as a
teenager passing through echoing empty galleries lined with respectable
paintings on his way to the Pre-Raphaelites (still a critical and
historical no-go area in those days) and finding that gallery full of
fellow enthusiasts. I had much the same experience (I'm 50 years old). The
mandarin distaste for the Victorians is just snobbery. Nearly a century on,
people are still
hypnotised by Bloomsbury. Snap out of it!

Shed the inherited baggage of critical prejudice, if you can, and compare
Frederic Leighton with Cezanne, as we were able to do when both were
accorded major retrospectives in London in 1996. They are almost exact
contemporaries, and if their critical position has flip-flopped, the
benefits of hindsight rob us of the excuse their original audiences had.
I'm no crackpot, and I don't want to try and boost Leighton (whose work I
love) by slighting Cezanne (whose work I admire more than I can enjoy), but
you'd have to be wearing strong sunglasses to miss Leighton's technical
mastery of colour, of composition, and of drawing. If his symbolism and
reference to classical myth baffle a modern non-specialist audience it's
the job of historians and educators to remedy this.

I'm now researching Roddam Spencer Stanhope, an under-rated (though I would
say that, wouldn't I?) post-Pre-Raphaelite painter. The enthusiasm that led
me to this work probably started when I read William Gaunt's trilogy (The
Pre-Raphaelite Tragedy, The Aesthetic Adventure and Victorian Olympus) when
it was reissued in paperback in the early seventies. I don't know whether
it's still in print, and I wouldn't recommend that students read it
unsupported by anything more scholarly as I did then, but it's still
tremendously readable and engaging and I'd certainly direct my students'
attention towards it if I were you.

With best wishes, Simon Poë.

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 4 Nov 2003 12:17:15 -0000
From:    lee field <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Renaissance of Academic Art

Further to my last posting, here is some of the critical (if you can
dignify it with such a serious word) response to Leighton/Cezanne in 1996.
Karen Wright's is particularly interesting. I don't believe the attendance
for the Leighton exhibition was all that good. It was virtually empty the
day I went. I think Wright is ASSUMING that the show will be well-attended,
and if she'd called the visitors 'the mob' or 'hoi polloi' she could hardly
have made her attitude clearer. And though the Independent on Sunday's
'what to see' guide characterised Leighton's show as 'not much fun' and
Cezanne's as the one 'everyone wants to see' the admittedly vast crowds at
the National Gallery didn't seem to me to be enjoying themselves much. The
most fun thing on offer was the speciality sandwich laid on by the NG's
cafe, the 'Cezannewich', which was filled with scrummy roast Provencal
vegetables:

The Leighton experience creaks on at the Royal Academy until 21 April.
Apparently the incense they're using is good for colds, so let all germy
people go along and take the cure. The critics may hate it, but the crowds
are taking no notice of the critics (Karen Wright, Modern Painters, Spring
1996).

This has been a rotten year for the Royal Academy. First the RA had to
abort its scheme for 'Art of the 20th Century'. This left a hole in its
autumn schedule, a period when blockbuster shows are supposed to bring in
massive revenue. Then two senior members of staff applied for jobs
elsewhere. Next, the bursar was arrested following investigations into
allegations of theft. The public hasn't liked the exhibition devoted to a
former President, Lord Leighton; and I fear that the Gustave Caillebotte
retrospective will also disappoint... Caillebotte was not an actively bad
artist in the way that Leighton was, principally because he was never an
academic (Tim Hilton, The Sunday Review, The Independent on Sunday, 31
March 1996).

CEZANNE. Glorious, demanding survey of the master's career, the show
everyone wants to see.
FREDERIC LEIGHTON, 1830-96. Not much fun, but all you need to know about
this former RA President's academic, classical and basically phoney art
(The Five Best Exhibitions, The Sunday Review, The Independent on Sunday,
31 March 1996).

Simon Poë

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 4 Nov 2003 12:39:35 -0000
From:    Chrissie Bradstreet <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: The Renaissance of Academic Art?

I agree with Lee that a more balanced approach is needed. Victorian art
deserves a second look but it should not be to the detriment of all that
has come since.

Whether our passion is for European modernism or the work of the PRB we
need to be able to look with unprejudiced eyes at the merits and
weakness of an individual work of art as well as the successes and
failures of a movement as a whole. Both an Alma-Tadema painting or a
Cezanne have the potential to reward, both aesthetically and
intellectually. Likewise, both can fail. I've been passionate about
Victorian art for some time, but the Lloyd Webber exhibition brought
home to me, that not all Victorian art is high quality. Amongst the many
wonderful works on show, there were some that were simply not well
painted.  And Picasso had his off days too!

Yes, Victorian art is often seen as vulgar due to its popularity but I
think the idea of a 'chocolate box' image also contributes to this
perception. Whilst researching my recent masters thesis on Alma-Tadema I
came across some letters in 'The Nation' by Roger Fry (early-mid
twentieth century art critic and great advocate of European modernism)
in which he dismissed Alma-Tadema's art as 'mere scented soap' compared
to the more intellectually substantial works of Picasso. I think it is a
shame that this idea still lingers. My discussion of Alma-Tadema went
much deeper than a description of superficial 'scented soap' imagery. I
was looking at the way in which nineteenth century ideas about
cleanliness of the skin and pores in relation to moral evaluation are
inherent in Alma-Tadema's bath scenes. Interestingly my supervisor (a
great devotee of Victorian art) advised me to remove a paragraph in
which I took issue with Fry, because she felt that other readers would
find the idea ludicrous that an Alma-Tadema painting could be important.
But then, I guess there is a difference between a work that is injected
with the intellectually weighty ideas of the artist, and a 'pretty
picture' that nevertheless, (consciously or unconsciously) reflects the
ideas and attitudes of its own time  -- ideas that now stimulate
intellectually weighty study, for us historians.

By the way, who is behind the controversial ArtRenewal website?

Christina Bradstreet

Birkbeck College, London
[log in to unmask]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 4 Nov 2003 07:39:54 -0600
From:    Martin A Danahay <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: The Renaissance of Academic Art? - Alma-Tadema

I should clarify my offhand reference to my treatment of Alam-Tadema. I
don't criticize Tadema's art for being "bad" or lacking in aesthetic value -
my students and I agree that they are beautiful paintings. I'm not an art
historian so I don't pretend to be able to address such issues. Instead I
use paintings about baths, and especially the "In the Tepidarium" painting,
to underline how the Victorians did not have an absolute prohibition against
nudity, but did have class-based attitudes toward bodies. It was acceptable
to have naked women in a Classical setting, surrounded by marble, whereas a
realist, or even worse working-class, use of the body (as in music hall for
example) was "vulgar" and licentious. So, I use Tadema as an example of the
use of the nude in Academic art.


Martin Danahay
[log in to unmask]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 4 Nov 2003 13:44:32 -0000
From:    Robert Ward <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: nosegay and bouquet

On Tue, 4 Nov 2003 00:00:01 -0500, Automatic digest processor
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>
> Date:    Mon, 3 Nov 2003 21:34:21 -0000
> From:    Michel Faber <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: nosegay and bouquet
>
>
> Another possible reason is poetic euphony. 'Bouquet' is a smoother word
> to sound out than 'nosegay', which has that tricky consonant cluster of
> 'sg'. Additionally, the initial sounds of the syllables in 'bouquet' are
> a mirror-image of those in  'cabbage' -- b/k, k/b.
>
The other problem is that the stress on "bouquet" falls in the wrong place
to act as a parody of Hiawatha. Perhaps whoever revised it wasn't familiar
with the original and didn't think to say it out loud

RW

--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 4 Nov 2003 10:09:48 EST
From:    [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: nosegay and bouquet

Perhaps I came from the wrong sort of family, but I was brought believing
that the stresses in the word bouquet (on the rare occasions that we needed the
word) were exactly the same as those in nosegay. It is only more recently that
I have heard the stress on the second syllable. This makes me feel that Michel
Faber is right about the sound of the revision being more satisfactory.  How
did the Victorians pronounce the word? Was Carroll poking fun at a particular
class?

Elizabeth Williams

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 4 Nov 2003 15:56:46 +0000
From:    Andrew Maunder <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Victorian Article references

I am hoping that the list will be able to clarify some statements from some
mid-Victorian reviews which are proving rather slippery.
Any suggestions or pointers would be very welcome, either off or on the List.

Andrew Maunder


 From `Madness in Novels' (Spectator, 1866)
Gilles de Retz would simply be disgusting in a modern novel.


 From `Homocidal Heroines,' (Saturday Review 1866)
A murderer called `Dove'

`The murderess of romance nowadays wears Balmoral boots, and goes
religiously to kettle-drums.'  [Kettle drums?]


 From `Literary Culture' (The Period (1870)):

The Period set itself up as a rival to Punch. This excerpt makes fun of
Rhoda Broughton (amongst others) at an imagined public meeting of notable
literary celebrities of the time who are debating morality and Literature
(with a capital L).. But does anyone know what the  final two lines refer to?

`The authoress of Red as a Rose is She said that she was considered as an
objectionable writer, but that she didn't care. If the Ideal was to be
sought in Art, what better could she do than describe an ideal man, -- the
most magnificent ideal of all? Any woman who respected the glorious passion
of love, and had any ability, would do the same. For her part, she was so
well convinced of the truth and propriety of her opinions, that she begged
leave to conclude her remarks with a quotation from a poet whose works only
required to be better known to be thoroughly appreciated. (The lady, after
quoting the concluding stanza of Les Aroyades, and accenting the final
monosyllable with much vigour, resumed her seat amidst loud applause.)'

The same article then mocks GWN Reynolds. In this case I've been unable to
locate the reference to Zatani. Another term for the devil and/or hell?

`For his part, with such titles to consideration as the Mysteries of the
Court, Mary Price, the Swell's Night Guide, and Robert Macaire in England,
he was ready to propose any resolution having for its object the entire
abolishment of Lord Campbell's Act. This would, he thought, have the
desired effect, and, by removing all restraint from evil, allow mankind to
go headlong whither they were intended -- to Zatanai. (Loud cheers, amidst
which the respected and venerable Chairman sat down.)'




********************************************************
Dr Andrew Maunder
English Literature Group
University of Hertfordshire
Faculty of Humanities and Education
de Havilland Campus
Hatfield
AL10 9AB

Tel: +44 (0)1707 285641
Email: [log in to unmask]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 4 Nov 2003 11:58:25 -0500
From:    [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Victorian Article references

"Gilles de Retz"="Gilles de Rais" (1404-1440).  15th c. French soldier better 
known for murdering a heck of a lot of kids.  He's the historical original for 
Bluebeard.

MEB

Prof. Miriam Elizabeth Burstein
Dept. of English
SUNY Brockport
Brockport NY 14420
http://www.itss.brockport.edu/~mburstei
[log in to unmask]
[log in to unmask]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 4 Nov 2003 12:41:44 EST
From:    [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Last Set of Queries

Definitely, if by Anglican Church you mean Church of England, it would have
been the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. There was controversy in the 1860s over
attempts to amend it, and also over attempts to ensure that Clergymen obeyed 
its
instructions.
Rosemary Oakeshott
(Research student -- [log in to unmask])

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 4 Nov 2003 08:39:16 -0800
From:    "Kendall, Steven" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: William Morris Exhibition and Conference

> The following may be of interest.
>
> The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San
> Marino, California will host a two-day conference, "William Morris and His
> Legacy: Art, Design, and Politics," on December 5 and 6, 2003 to
> coincide with the exhibition "The Beauty of Life: William Morris and the
> Art of Design." Bringing together an international group of art, design,
> and architectural historians and curators, the conference will provide a
> forum for new scholarship on the work of William Morris and his
> continuing significance in the history of design in Britain and America.
> A public lecture, "William Morris: From Red House to Pasadena," will also
> be given by Richard Guy Wilson on December 4 at 7:30 p.m. To receive a
> brochure with more information and a registration form, please contact
> Carolyn Powell at (626) 405-2194 or [log in to unmask] Registration
> is $25.00 (graduate students free) with optional lunches available at
> an additional cost.
>
> The exhibition "The Beauty of Life: William Morris and the Art of
> Design" examines William Morris's place in the history of design drawing
> upon The Huntington's extensive Arts and Crafts holdings, which include
> the largest collection of Morris materials outside of the United
> Kingdom. The exhibit will feature over 200 works, including a ten-panel
> stained glass window, wallpaper and textile samples, original designs
> for stained glass, wallpaper, textiles, embroidery, tapestry, and books,
> as well as manuscripts, correspondence, and a selection of rare books
> published by Morris's Kelmscott Press. The exhibition will be on view at
> The Huntington from November 8, 2003 - April 4, 2004 and will then travel
> to the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, from
> October 14, 2004 - January 2, 2005.
>
>
>
>
>

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 4 Nov 2003 14:28:24 -0500
From:    Heather Schell <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Victorian Article references

>From `Madness in Novels' (Spectator, 1866)
>Gilles de Retz would simply be disgusting in a modern novel.

A little more from Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1894),
under "Bluebeard":  "Hollinshed calls Giles de Retz, Marquis de
Laval, the original Bluebeard.  This Giles or Gilles who lived at
Machecoul, in Brittany, was accused of murdering six of his seven
wives, and was ultimately strangled and burnt in 1440."
However, I'm not sure what would make this character more disgusting
in 1866 than he was previously...
--

Dr. Heather Schell
University Writing Program
George Washington University
Washington, DC  20052
[log in to unmask]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 4 Nov 2003 13:37:41 -0600
From:    Kristine Garrigan <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Academic art

You might wish to take a look at  the website of the Dahesh Museum in New 
York: www.daheshmuseum.org.  Opened only (I want to say) about 6 or 7 years 
old as an institution specializing in 19th and early twentieth century 
academic art, it has already moved to more spacious, upscale quarters. Though 
the emphasis of their collection and exhibits is mainly French, they do 
feature English artists as well, and its new director is Peter Thrip, a 
Waterhouse scholar.

Kris Garrigan
[log in to unmask]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 4 Nov 2003 13:53:27 -0600
From:    Kristine Garrigan <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Academic art, contd

On my post re the Dahesh Museum, my inventive spellchecker changed Peter 
Trippi's name to Thrip. The Dahesh's capable new director and accomplished 
Waterhouse scholar (he has a gorgeous new monograph out on him) is not a 
garden insect.
Apologies,
 Kris Garrigan

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 4 Nov 2003 12:10:17 -0800
From:    "Peter H. Wood" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Victorian Article references

Andrew Maunder asked:
> `The murderess of romance nowadays wears Balmoral boots, and goes
> religiously to kettle-drums.'  [Kettle drums?]

    A name for a variety of afternoon tea in which both sexes could mingle
(afternoon tea proper being for ladies only). (Source: "The Canadian
Centennial Food Guide" quoting the Junbe 22 1872 issue of The Canadian
Illustrated News).

    "Balmoral boots" should surely be found in a History of Victorian
costume; it sounds like a style of footwear made fashionable by Queen
Victoria who made it a second home. From experience of the Scottish climate
in that district I would guess the boots were waterproof...
Peter Wood

------------------------------

Date:    Wed, 5 Nov 2003 07:13:55 +1100
From:    Ellen Jordan <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Attorneys

My apologies for having sent a message crediting "Miss Darcy" rather than Miss 
Bingley (and/or her sister Mrs Hurst - it isn't exactly clear who says what) 
with commenting on Elizabeth Bennet's "low connections" and "vulgar relations" 
noting that "their uncle is an attorney in Meryton".

In recompense (and for own records) I've scanned parts of the entries for 
Attroney and Solicitor from an early 1900s Everyman's Encyclopaedia:

In the narrower sense an Attorney., or more properly an attorney-at-law, was 
the name given prior to the Judicature Acts, 1873-5, to those members of the 
legal profession who represented litigants in the courts of common law and 
briefed council on their clients' behalf. The equivalent term for those who 
practised in the chancery or equity courts was 'solicitor.' Since the 
enactment above referred to, which extended equity to all courts, the title of 
solicitor is applied to both solicitors and As. See, therefore, article 
SOLICITOR. In the United States the term A. includes both barristers and 
solicitors.

Solicitors. The old name for an English S. was 'attorney,' a term which 
probably, grew into disfavour because used so often as a term of reproach or 
contempt. Blackstone himself spoke of them ' in a tone of haughty 
disparagement; though they were a powerful class of the community and 
numbered, in 1863, some 10,000 persons (Warren, Law Studies.) At the date of 
the Solicitors Act, 1843. the ' junior profession ' of the law (the members of 
which are now termed 'Solicitors of the Supreme Court') comprised two distinct 
branches : (a) attorneys and (b) S.. though originally the term attorney 
covered every legal agent who was not a barrister. The term attorney, later, 
was confined to 'persons who were formally appointed to prosecute and defend 
actions in the Common Law Courts whilst the term solicitor 'was applied to 
those who solicited or took care of suits, bills. and petitions in the equity 
courts before Parliament, the Privy Council. etc., or conducted private 
negotiations and !
 arrangements not Involving or arising out of litigation.' (Trevor, The 
Solicitors' Act, 1888 (1904).) The Act of 1843 was passed at the instance of 
the Incorporated Law Society and its principal provisions prohibited one from 
practising as an attorney or S. unless admitted and, enrolled and otherwise 
duly qualified to act as such. After 1843 the term  S. gradually superseded 
the term attorney, most S. being admitted In the courts of common law as 
attorneys; 'attorney' became obsolete after the passing of the Judicature Act, 
1873. The Act of 1860 was passed to amend the laws relating to attorneys, S., 
proctors (q.v.), and certificated conveyancers, the provisions of which 
related to qualifying examinations. The qualifications of a S. are - (1) 
Service under a binding contract with a practising S. for a period fixed by 
law (five years as a general rule) ; (2 ) The passing of the various 
examinations; (3) Admittance and enrollment; and (4) The obtaining of a proper 
certificate!
  to practise. The maintenance of discipline over the members of the pr
ofession is the function of the Incorporated Law Society. The Solicitors' Act, 
1888, transferred to this society as the Registrar of S. the custody of the 
roll of S., and with it the duties attached to the office of the clerk of the 
Petty Bag.

This still leaves me wondering about Doctors' Commons where Dickens and David 
Copperfield worked. I was fascinated, reading John Mortimer's memoirs, to find 
that its three areas of concern, marriage, probate and maritime affairs, were 
still being linked when his father was practising as a barrister in the 1920s 
and 1930s.

Ellen Jordan
University of Newcastle
Australia

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 4 Nov 2003 12:53:15 -0800
From:    "Peter H. Wood" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Attorneys

    My thanks to Ellen Jordan for her most informative posting on this
topic: as to the profession of attorney being "held in contempt", I came
across a reference to an advertisement in The Gentlemen's Magazine from some
time in the late 18C, which noted of a desirable estate that "There is not
an attorney within ten miles".
    I assume that the district was therefore free of litigation-prone
neighbours such as one encounters in 19C novels (e.g. Mr. Boythorn in "Bleak
House", and even later still, Mr. Frankland in Conan Doyle's "The Hound of
the Baskervilles")
Peter Wood

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 4 Nov 2003 18:48:24 -0000
From:    Susan Hoyle <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: nosegay and bouquet

It is my observation that Americans tend to emphasize the last syllable of
French words (e.g. the pronunciation of 'filet' as fi-LAY), hence one
rendering of 'bouquet' (viz. boo-KAY).  In fact, French has hardly any
stress at all, which British English copes with by tending to put a slight
emphasis on an earlier syllable.  If this was the case in Victorian times,
then either of Browning's words would have met his rhythmical needs.

Susan Hoyle
[log in to unmask]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 4 Nov 2003 18:54:23 -0000
From:    Susan Hoyle <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Victorian Article references

He was also, in his younger days, the companion of Joan of Arc.

Susan
[log in to unmask]

-----Original Message-----
From: VICTORIA 19th-Century British Culture & Society
"Gilles de Retz"="Gilles de Rais" (1404-1440).  15th c. French soldier
better known for murdering a heck of a lot of kids.  He's the historical
original for Bluebeard.

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 4 Nov 2003 18:27:44 EST
From:    "Laurence J. Davies" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: "brown like an old fiddle"

Dear Victorianists,


Does anyone recognize this quotation? It occurs in a letter from Joseph Conrad:


"a picture to be good should be brown like an old fiddle"


It's the traditionalist position in the debate over grounds -- Impressionist
light versus the classically darkened canvas -- but resonant enough to sound
like dialogue.


All suggestions most welcome,


Laurence Davies


English and Comparative Literature

Dartmouth College

Hanover NH 03755  USA

[log in to unmask]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 4 Nov 2003 21:30:31 EST
From:    Diana Poskrop <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: "brown like an old fiddle"

Sir George Beaumont, a British landscape painter from the
early 19th century, said, 'A good picture, like a good fiddle,
should be brown.'  I don't know what the context was.

From    http://www.whitebottom.com/philipball/c05_01.asp

In a message dated 11/4/03 7:06:24 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

> >Does anyone recognize this quotation? It occurs in a letter from Joseph
> Conrad:
> >
> >"a picture to be good should be brown like an old fiddle"
> >
> >It's the traditionalist position in the debate over grounds --
> Impressionist
> >light versus the classically darkened canvas -- but resonant enough to
> sound
> >like dialogue.

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 4 Nov 2003 21:24:05 -0600
From:    Melanie R Ulrich <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: partant pour la syrie

Hello All -

Does anyone know anything about the popularity of the song "Partant pour la
Syrie" in the 1850s/early 60s?  I gather it was the anthem of the Second
Empire in France, but what puzzles me is that Emily Eden uses people's
fondness for the song as an index of the vulgarity and commonness of
characters in her novel The Semi-Detached House (1859).  What did the song
do to develop such an invidious reputation?  And why would it have been so
popular in the first place?

Thanks for your help

- Melanie Ulrich
[log in to unmask]

------------------------------

End of VICTORIA Digest - 3 Nov 2003 to 4 Nov 2003 (#2003-98)
************************************************************


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