Serena Trowbridge, Birmingham City University This post relates to some research to which I return regularly, wondering where it will lead me. I’m interested in the ways in which ideas move, between people, across continents, and manifest themselves in art and literature as well as political ideology. Related to this, I am organising a conference on ‘Cultural Cross-Currents between Russia and Britain in the nineteenth century’, co-hosted by Birmingham City University and the State University of Tomsk. The cultural situation
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The Work of Art in the Age of Steampunk: A Review of the Tate Britain’s ‘Pre-Raphaelites: Avant-Garde’ show
Gillian Piggott (Middlesex University) In our image-obsessed world, where versions of paintings are infinitely reproduced on cards, fridge magnets and coffee coasters, how is it possible to comport ourselves productively towards the great originals on display at an exhibition – such as those in the recent Pre-Raphaelites: Avant-Garde show at Tate Britain? In his late essay, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, Walter Benjamin outlines the phenomenon so descriptive of the experience one has nowadays of
Read moreYou Say You Want a Revolution: ‘Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde’, Tate Britain
Beatrice Bazell (Birkbeck College, University of London) Figure One: John Everett Millais,The Blind Girl (1856) My mother stood in front of Millais’ The Blind Girl and marvelled: ‘You think you know these paintings, but actually you don’t.’ This will always be the major stumbling block, as well as the major strength of any exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite work: in being so familiar with these beautiful, fascinating works we risk thinking of them as kitsch souvenirs of a bygone age, when in
Read moreArt vs Industry Conference Report
Rebecca Wade, University of Leeds On the 23 and 24 March 2012, early career researchers, museum professionals and established academics gathered at Leeds City Museum to offer their perspectives on the intersections between art and industry during the long nineteenth century. Day One The conference began with a keynote by Lara Kriegel (Indiana), whose paper Lace, Ladies and Labours Lost: A Meditation on Art, Industry and Craft offered an apposite introduction through the historical narratives associated with the perceived loss
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