This dissertation initially attempts a brief history of the landscape tradition in the West with the emphasis on developments in nineteenth-century French landscape painting. A collection of these paintings in the Tatham Art Gallery is then closely examined in the light of the socio-political circumstances that influenced their origins and acquisition. Finally a full catalogue of the paintings is presented with digital images and documentation. / Thesis (M.A.F.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004.

This thesis examines the roles of the sublime and the beautiful in the works of eighteenth-century French landscape painter Claude-Joseph Vernet. An introduction to the study, a history of the sublime and beautiful, and an overview of the way these ideas are portrayed in Vernet's calm and storm pendants are provided. How commissions for these pendants relate to theoretical developments of the sublime and beautiful and how Vernet became aware of the these ideas are addressed. The thesis shows Vernet was not dependent on British patrons or on the century's most influential aesthetic treatise on the sublime and the beautiful by Edmund Burke, because Vernet started painting such themes well before Burke's treatise (1757) and did so in response to French patrons.

This thesis examines the portraiture of Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun and Adélaide Labille-Guiard within the context of their time. Analysis of specific portraits in American collections is provided, along with an examination of their careers: early education, Academic Royale membership, Salon exhibitions, and the French Revolution. Discussion includes the artists' opposing stylistic heritages, as well as the influences of their patronage, the French art academy and art criticism. This study finds that Salon critics compared their paintings, but not with the intention of creating a bitter personal and professional rivalry between them as presumed by some twentieth-century art historians. This thesis concludes those critics simply addressed their opposing artistic styles and that no such rivalry existed.

In this dissertation, I argue that Yves Bonnefoy, a major 20th-century French poet and a heir to French poetic modernity, pursued the dialogue between poetry and painting that has been central to French poetry, and in doing so praised some specific artists in the 20th century in a coherent manner, outlining what I call a counter-history of 20th century art. This counter-history, I argue, reveals his fundamental opposition to modern art. What emerges from the study of his prose writings on 20th-century art is the fact that Bonnefoy continued modernity yet critiqued it. In doing so he was influenced philosophically by Heidegger and poetically by Baudelaire, and also marked by his break with Surrealism and Breton. This leads me to conclude that Bonnefoy was a sort of "antimodern"; and that he laid out the foundations of an "antimodern" vision of 20th-century art. My research reveals a coherent family of artists emerging from Bonnefoy's writings, who saw themselves as part of this alternative art history.

The taste for all things Spanish that swept France in the 1860s had profound, if misunderstood, effects on modern French and Spanish art. French artists were fascinated by both the perceived exoticism of contemporary Spain as well as the newly popular paragons of its art historical past. The lessons of Velázquez and Goya, in prevailing accounts of modernism, were learned best by avant-garde artists like Édouard Manet (1832–1883), whom a contemporary critic went so far as to call the “Spaniard of Paris.” My dissertation contends, instead, with the other Spaniards of Paris, successful expatriate artists who worked between the French capital, Rome, and Madrid. These artists, led by Mariano Fortuny (1838–1874), considered themselves the rightful interpreters of the Spanish tradition. I argue that Fortuny and his circle shrewdly positioned their work in relation to French ideas about Spanish art, both avant-garde and conservative, as well as Spain’s developing national art historical narratives, even though they often lived beyond their nation’s borders. I demonstrate that these artists, whose seemingly unassuming genre paintings were undergirded by a pronounced but hitherto unexamined nationalism, sought to shape the Spanish art historical tradition; present themselves as its inheritors; and influence the collecting of Spanish art, especially in the United States, in the final third of the nineteenth century.

En 1888, une communauté de peintres s’associe sous l’appellation « Nabis ». Ce terme, issu de l’hébreu, signifie à la fois les « prophètes » et les « initiés ». Paul Sérusier qui vécut sa rencontre avec Paul Gauguin comme une révélation est à l’origine de la formation du groupe. Une année auparavant, le symbolisme littéraire triomphe en France et suscite l’émulation parmi une nouvelle génération d’écrivains qui se cristallise autour de /La Revue Blanche/ et le /Mercure de France/. Entre les Nabis et les symbolistes s’établit dès lors un intense réseau de collaborations. Tant dans l’élaboration des décors et programmes du Théâtre de l’œuvre de Lugné-Poe que dans l’illustration d’ouvrages d’André Gide, d’Alfred Jarry ou encore de Jules Renard, les Nabis participent activement à la vie littéraire de leur temps tout en s’incarnant volontairement comme une avant-garde picturale. Les échanges nombreux entre peintres et écrivains sont alors loin de se limiter à de simples commandes. Ils aboutissent souvent à des amitiés durables comme celles qui unirent Gide à Maurice Denis et Jarry à Pierre Bonnard. La recherche s’interroge sur la motivation de cette nouvelle génération d’écrivains qui sollicita le groupe nabi, ainsi que sur la nature des projets qui les unirent. Les revues littéraires occupent une place importante dans le rassemblement entre les écrivains et ce groupe de peintres. La volonté d'identifier une aile picturale qui fasse écho dans le champ artistique au désir d'innover dans le champ littéraire stimule les sollicitations des écrivains de la seconde génération symboliste. Les Nabis, qui se méfient toutefois d'une soumission trop grande au fait littéraire, induisent par leurs développements artistiques et leurs théories les paramètres d'une nouvelle relation entre peintres et écrivains dans laquelle ces derniers ne recherchent plus la domination stratégique de l'art littéraire sur la peinture.<p>Outre ces considérations historiques, le rapprochement souhaité entre les deux groupes fut tel que la production littéraire ne put qu’être influencée par les théories des Nabis. La tendance "formaliste" représentée par ce groupe pictural a souvent conduit les chercheurs à prendre acte de l'autonomie tant du littéraire que du pictural dans les échanges entre Nabis et écrivains. Les influences sont cependant nombreuses de la peinture vers la littérature. Il est toutefois nécessaire de prendre en compte des écrivains oubliés par l'histoire littéraire, tels Romain Coolus, Gabriel Trarieux ou Louis Lormel, pour percevoir les effets de cette influence picturale. La reprise d'un dispositif de couleurs, exaltées ou déformées, le jeu poétique sur le thème de la ligne ou de l'arabesque fondent une recherche d'effet visuel dans l'écriture qui entend renouveler les images poétiques. Ce constat entre en résonance avec la rénovation picturale revendiquée par les Nabis. Des esthétiques communes entre peintres et écrivains, tournant autour des notions de synthèse, simplicité, de la référence à l'enfance ou à la fantaisie humoristique rassemblent Nabis et poètes qui les soutiennent dans une communauté d'initiés à l'art nouveau. / Doctorat en Langues et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished