Art Resources

Sentimental or patriotic, but mostly miserable

Author: Alexander Adams

A survey of prints of war scenes from the 16th to the early 19th centuries

“Here Death triumphs among funerals;/Her most beautiful promenades are those places of battles;/Her throne is affirmed by the fall of the dead;/In an instant by her skillful arms she changes/Fertile fields into rivers of blood/And the plains of Mars into mountains of bodies.” So runs the inscription below Della Bella’s etching of skeletal Death, a pale rider on a pale horse, the dust-jacket image for this book.

War was an experience that touched Europeans for centuries, leaving traces in prints made for propagandistic, historical, allegorical and personal reasons. This catalogue that accompanied the exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston—home to the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation—earlier this year (24 January-24 April 2009), examines prints made from the Italian Wars of the High Renaissance to the Napoleonic Wars. Editors have organised a diverse spectrum of material into themes, within which prints are sequenced chronologically. The catalogue section is preceded by enlightening essays dealing with the imagery of the Landsknecht (German mercenary of the 15th to 17th centuries), the recurrence of the Turk—as symbol of alien despotism and the exotic Orient—and the mixture of pictorial, cartographic and topographic modes in war prints. A concise survey by Professor Gruber deftly covers military developments in conflicts of this period. The catalogue section, complete with comparative figures, includes extensive commentaries necessary to contextualise individual prints.

Such a wide scope of topics, locations and periods necessarily entails artistic unevenness. However, in this thematic survey the breadth and variety is refreshing. Some, such as Dürer, treated figures as showpieces of artistic accomplishment. Other printmakers marked specific events with varying degrees of accuracy. The princes and dukes who conducted war also commissioned art and here we can see the crossover area. Some generals commissioned prints to commemorate victories, an eye on political advancement as well as posterity. Prints combine incidents, condensing stages in battles into single compositions, and provide keys explaining them. There is a set of illustrations from an early 17th-century Dutch instruction manual demonstrating how infantrymen should be drilled. Satires by Gillray, Hogarth and Isaac Cruikshank strike a sardonic note and act as bellwethers of popular sentiment. The book benefits from largely excluding more obvious examples, such as portraits of generals and set pieces of nude warriors by Michelangelo and Pollaiuolo, instead, bringing to our attention the near-forgotten Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet (1792-1845) and anonymous journeymen, giving a rounded view of the type of material that circulated.

UK export licence office in controversial relocation

Author: Bruce Millar

Art market trade body says move to Birmingham could hinder deals

LONDON. The chairman of the British Art Market Federation (BAMF), Anthony Browne, has condemned the planned removal of the art export licensing office from London to Birmingham next year under a government-instigated reorganisation, saying the move could upset a market worth £5bn a year. He called for an urgent review of the decision, which had left the art export industry “anxious and unhappy”.

The reorganisation of the Acquisitions, Exports and Loans Unit (AELU), which issues art export licences, was announced in June by the Museums Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), the government agency responsible. It said the relocation would help provide an annual 30% saving in operating costs required by the government.

But Mr Browne warned against any change that might threaten Britain’s annual import-export trade in art and antiques—50% of the EU total and 40% of the global market. He said the AELU issues around 12,000 export licences each year, many of them for items from abroad consigned for sale in London and then re-exported. Only a tiny proportion of licences were potentially controversial.

“The efficient processing of both EU and UK export licences is a key factor in our international trade. Sales can often depend on the rapid processing of licences, and the AELU has a good record in answering the needs of the art market,” he wrote in a letter to the MLA.

“I am told that licences are routinely produced within two or three days…It is inconceivable that this level of services can be maintained if the AELU is located over 100 miles away from the centre of the art market.”

Yale Press Bans Images of Muhammad in New Book

Author: PATRICIA COHEN

It’s not all that surprising that Yale University Press would be wary of reprinting notoriously controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a forthcoming book. After all, when the 12 caricatures were first published by a Danish newspaper a few years ago and reprinted by other European publications, Muslims all over the world angrily protested, calling the images — which included one in which Muhammad wore a turban in the shape of a bomb — blasphemous. In the Middle East and Africa some rioted, burning and vandalizing embassies; others demanded a boycott of Danish goods; a few nations recalled their ambassadors from Denmark. In the end at least 200 people were killed.
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Mike Lovett/Brandeis University

Jytte Klausen, the author of a forthcoming book from Yale University Press about cartoons that set off Muslim riots.
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Times Topics: Danish Cartoon Controversy
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Saurabh Das/Associated Press

Muslims in New Delhi in 2006 protesting publication in the West of cartoons of Muhammad.

So Yale University and Yale University Press consulted two dozen authorities, including diplomats and experts on Islam and counterterrorism, and the recommendation was unanimous: The book, “The Cartoons That Shook the World,” should not include the 12 Danish drawings that originally appeared in September 2005. What’s more, they suggested that the Yale press also refrain from publishing any other illustrations of the prophet that were to be included, specifically, a drawing for a children’s book; an Ottoman print; and a sketch by the 19th-century artist Gustave Doré of Muhammad being tormented in Hell, an episode from Dante’s “Inferno” that has been depicted by Botticelli, Blake, Rodin and Dalí.

History revealed in art

Author: Chris Bergeron/DAILY NEWS STAFF

How many museum exhibits began with the fading signature of Nathan Hale in a 250-year-old book?

An intriguing exhibit at the Worcester Art Museum discovers curious connections between the two most famous spies of the Revolutionary War, art from its own collection and one of the state's most influential families.

Part espionage tale, part detective story, "Spies Like Us! Nathan Hale and Major Andre" puts a human face on American history while reintroducing a worthy trio of 19th century artists.