Research Catalog

Title

Art wars : the politics of taste in nineteenth-century New York / Rachel N. Klein.

Author

Klein, Rachel N.

Publication

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2020]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

287 pages : illustrations, map; 24 cm.

Summary

• "This book is a social history of museums, art, and society in nineteenth-century New York City"--
• "A study of three controversies that illuminate the changing cultural role of art exhibition in the nineteenth century"--
• "From the antebellum era through the Gilded Age, New York City's leading art institutions were lightning rods for conflict. In the decades before the Civil War, art promoters believed that aesthetic taste could foster national unity and assuage urban conflicts; by the 1880s such hopes had faded, and the taste for art assumed more personal connotations associated with consumption and domestic decoration. Art Wars chronicles three protracted public battles that marked this transformation. The first battle began in 1849 and resulted in the downfall of the American Art-Union, the most popular and influential art institution in North America at mid-century. The second erupted in 1880 over the Metropolitan Museum's massive collection of Cypriot antiquities, which had been plundered and sold to its trustees by the man who became the museum's first paid director. The third escalated in the mid-1880s and forced the Metropolitan Museum to open its doors on Sunday--the only day when working people were able to attend. In chronicling these disputes, Rachel N. Klein considers cultural fissures that ran much deeper than the specific complaints that landed protagonists in court. New York's major nineteenth-century art institutions came under intense scrutiny not only because Americans invested them with moral and civic consequences but also because they were part and parcel of explosive processes associated with the rise of industrial capitalism. Elite New Yorkers spearheaded the creation of the Art-Union and the Metropolitan, but those institutions became enmeshed in popular struggles related to slavery, immigration, race, industrial production, and the rights of working people. Art Wars examines popular engagement with New York's art institutions and illuminates the changing cultural role of art exhibition over the course of the nineteenth century"--

Series Statement

America in the nineteenth century

Uniform Title

America in the nineteenth century.

Subject

• American Art-Union > History > 19th century
• Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.) > History > 19th century
• American Art-Union
• Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)
• 1800-1999
• Art museums > Social aspects > History > New York (State) > New York > 20th century
• Art and society > New York (State) > New York > History > 20th century
• Aesthetics, Modern > Social aspects
• Aesthetics, Modern > 19th century
• Aesthetics, Modern
• Art and society
• Art museums > Social aspects
• Civilization
• New York (N.Y.) > Civilization > 19th century
• New York (State) > New York

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

The importance of taste: intellectual roots -- Paints in public life: the rise of the American Art-Union -- The limits of cultural stewardship: the fall of the American Art-Union -- Art and industry: debates of the 1850s -- The art of decoration and the transformation of stewardship: the making of the Metropolitan Museum of Art -- Metropolitan Museum on trial: antiquities, expertise and the problem of race -- The battle for Sundays at the museum -- Edith Wharton's museum.

Call Number

JQE 21-306

ISBN

• 9780812251944
• 0812251946

LCCN

2019044998

OCLC

1117315594

Author

Klein, Rachel N., author.

Title

Art wars : the politics of taste in nineteenth-century New York / Rachel N. Klein.

Publisher

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2020]

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

America in the nineteenth century

America in the nineteenth century.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Chronological Term

1800-1999

Research Call Number

JQE 21-306