Transnational Imaginaries, Diasporic Life: American Art

Andrew Russell (1828-1902)

East and West Shaking Hands at Laying of Last Rail, 1869

Describe the overall composition of the photo and its significance

layers visual emphasis on union: like imagined meeting/vanishing point, “The Last Spike” engraved in gold- ironic since its sifter than iron, for symbolic show, laborers not shown: Chinese workers

What is the context before the Walters Collection

Gilded Age, Industrialization, Railroad enable cultural convergence of east and west: support Chinese exclusion while collecting Chinese objects

Louis Prang (1824-1909), James Callowhill (British, 1838-1907), James Callowhill (British, 1865-1927) and Percy Callowhill (British, 1873-?)

Plate XVII. Powder-blue decorated vase, Oriental Ceramic Art from the William T. Walters Collection, 1897

Describe the Walters Collection and its significance

collection of prints, chromolithography: stone graphs, color laid down separately, “His monument”=bankrupt himself, bright reflection, Walters window overlooking Mt.Vernon, outline of Washington monument, marked by American mentality

John La Farge (1836-1910)

Peacocks and Peonies I and II, 1882 

Describe the context before the Peacocks and Peonies window

Orientalism: areas colonized by Europeans and US=”The Orient”, assumes binary geography of world, West=”The Occident”, stereotypes of passive vs. active, feminine vs. masculine, orient was imaginary place, encountered Japanese prints

Describe the Peacocks and Peonies window and its significance

pictorial elements: “the bird and the flower”, “Japonism”, appearance of milky light, for railroad magnate, relationship to picture shift and change= movement in it, makes you feel transported elsewhere: sense of worldliness for owner/viewer, sight specific artwork: places filled with Japanese art, Romanesque lunette, Byzantine=cosmopolitanism, well-traveled worldliness

James Abbot McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)

Purple and Rose: The Lange Leitzen of the Six Marks, 1864

Describe the context of the purple and roses

artist: educated in US, then Paris, then London, house full of Japanese objects, ceramics=height of urban fashion

Describe the overall composition of the Purple and Roses and its significance

women focus on blue and white porcelain vase=trade at the time: subject matter less important than mood/aesthetic, beauty for beauties sake, most important thing=aesthetic value, emphasis on evoking feelings, contemplation,

Describe the figure in Purple and Rose and its significance

soft eyes, unfocused, focus turned inward/beyond, transformed into aesthetic object: clothes and objects, painting on vessel, details not matter to him=she is source of aesthetic and contemplation, woman is not Asian=enable aesthetic absorption

Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) The Bath, 1890-1891

Describe the overall composition of the bath and its significance

out of interest in woodcuts, combination of drypoint, etching, scenes of everyday life, labored over this composition, theme: intimate moment in domestic space, flat color and contour, cropped element, color and line, not idealized or proportioned bodies, absence of shading, fuse hand with body=intimacy, possibility of world-building in domestic settings

George Bellows (1882-1925)

Pennsylvania Station Excavation, ca.1907-08

Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000)

Migration Series, 1940-41, No. 1 “During the World War there was a great migration North by Southern Negroes”

Aaron Douglas (1899-1979)

From Slavery to Reconstruction in Aspects of Negro Life murals, 1934