This study analyzes how the Art-Union, a British journal interested only in the fine arts, approached photography between 1839 and 1854. It is informed by Karl Marx’s materialism-informed commodity fetishism, Gerry Beegan’s conception of knowingness, Benedict Anderson’s imagined community, and an art critical discourse that was defined by Roger de Piles and Joshua Reynolds. The individual chapters are each sites in which to examine these multiple theoretical approaches to the journal’s and photography’s association in separate, yet sometimes overlapping, periods. One particular focus of this study concerns the method through which the journal viewed photography—as an artistic or scientific enterprise. A second important focus of this study is the commodification of both the journal and photography in Britain. Also, it determines how the journal’s critical engagement with photography fits into the structure and development of a nineteenth-century British social collectivity focused on art and the photographic enterprise.

The Landscape painting in Prague 1840-1890: Presentation and reflection of landscape painting at the Art Union exhibitions. PhD thesis by PhDr. Lucie Vlčková Supervisor: Prof. PhDr. Roman Prahl ABSTRACT: The present thesis summarizes the results of the research project focused on the history of ladscape painting and its presentation at the annual exhibitions of the Art Union in Bohemia ("Krasoumná jednota") from 1840 to 1890, the period of a critical significance for evolution of the genre and establishing the aesthetical and ideological schemes characteristic for the Czech landscape painting of the 19th Century. The landscape painting was a respectufull and popular branch already from the beginning of the respective period, yet since then it grew into a leading source of aesthetic innovations and dominant component of the exhibitions and art trade. The 1840-1890 period begun with the establishing Max Hushofer's landscape class at the Prague Academy of Arts and terminates with close contacts with impressionists. For local landscape painting it brought not only the dramatic rearrangements of aesthetical frameworks but also the subsequent establishment of the standard cliches and themes which further accompanied Czech landscape painting until present. Although the history of the Czech landscape painting of...

The antebellum era was a time of paper—there were newspapers and magazines to read, advertising bills to recognize, and money in the pocket to evaluate. Both the bank note companies and art unions emphasized the quality of the artists they hired, and publicized these works for their taste and nationalizing sentiments. These groups set out to produce a product that encouraged consumer confidence in paper in exchange for something more lasting, such as a painting in oil or a gold coin. The link between these two ideas and the creators of that ineffable quality that lent confidence to both the bank note and the fine art engraving was the engraver himself. Navigating this modern, paper economy in both realms were engravers such as Alfred Jones (1819-1900), a man who made his way in the financial and art worlds, and whose ambitions and career serve as a case study to explore the rapid changes in the demand for images during the Nineteenth Century. Chapter one situates Jones and his colleagues in their historical era and illuminate how cultural, political, and technological advances created a market where engraving could flourish. Chapter two examines Jones’s role within the art unions of the day, and how those groups advertised the skill of engravers, such as Jones, to bolster notions of value in the prints they issued. Chapter three looks more closely at the images created by engravers, and investigates their role in establishing and reinforcing a national visual lexicon that could unify the idea of the nation even as it was unraveling. Chapter four discusses the confusion surrounding counterfeit engravings during the antebellum period and the efforts bank notes companies undertook to highlight the skill of their engravers to reassure the general public of their worth. The burins of Jones and his cohort, through their work in fine arts organizations and bank note companies created images accessible to the average citizen, images these consumers could recognize and assign a value. They applied their talents to works on paper that illustrated the making of the American self in the years before the Civil War.

One of the main goals of this thesis is to better understand Czech Neo-Baroque tendencies and their placement within the context of Czech sculpture in general. To be able to better understand the role of Neo-Baroque in this artistic branch it is important to first cover the process of Baroque's revival in Czech lands which triggered creative approach to Baroque motifs and the birth of Neo-Baroque at the end of the 19th century. This is covered in the first part of the thesis. The opening chapter mentions different perceptions of the term Neo-Baroque and how its understanding evolved from the 19th century until present. Chapter that follows elaborates on the topic of Neo-Baroque being one of the historicizing styles and discusses the cultural and ideological circumstances which led to its widespread use. The topic that strongly resonates here is the Prague urban sanitation which turned most of the sculptors into modelers who would transform Neo-Baroque facades of new buildings into complex decorative schemes. The topic in question also covers periodical swatches of Celda Klouček and Friedrich Ohmann, a very valuable ideological impulse which significantly contributed to raising awareness of the Baroque beauties of Czech provenience as an inspirational source for decorative sculpture and plaster...