Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Introduction
- PART I
- Introduction: Old and New Studio Topoi in the Nineteenth Century
- 1 Studio Matters: Materials, Instruments and Artistic Processes
- 2 Jean-Léon Gérôme, his Badger and his Studio
- 3 Showing Making in Courbet's The Painter's Studio
- 4 Making and Creating. The Painted Palette in Late Nineteenth-Century Dutch Painting
- 5 14, rue de La Rochefoucauld. The Partial Eclipse of Gustave Moreau
- 6 The Artist as Centerpiece. The Image of the Artist in Studio Photographs of the Nineteenth Century
- PART II
- Introduction: Forms and Functions of the Studio from the Twentieth Century to Today
- 7 The Studio as Mediator
- 8 Accrochage in Architecture: Photographic Representations of Theo van Doesburg's Studios and Paintings
- 9 Studio, Storage, Legend. The Work of Hiding in Tacita Dean's Section Cinema (Homage to Marcel Broodthaers)
- 10 The Empty Studio: Bruce Nauman's Studio Films
- 11 Home Improvement and Studio Stupor. On Gregor Schneider's (Dead) House ur
- 12 Staging the Studio: Enacting Artful Realities through Digital Photography
- Epilogue: “Good Art Theory Must Smell of the Studio”
- Index
7 - The Studio as Mediator
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Introduction
- PART I
- Introduction: Old and New Studio Topoi in the Nineteenth Century
- 1 Studio Matters: Materials, Instruments and Artistic Processes
- 2 Jean-Léon Gérôme, his Badger and his Studio
- 3 Showing Making in Courbet's The Painter's Studio
- 4 Making and Creating. The Painted Palette in Late Nineteenth-Century Dutch Painting
- 5 14, rue de La Rochefoucauld. The Partial Eclipse of Gustave Moreau
- 6 The Artist as Centerpiece. The Image of the Artist in Studio Photographs of the Nineteenth Century
- PART II
- Introduction: Forms and Functions of the Studio from the Twentieth Century to Today
- 7 The Studio as Mediator
- 8 Accrochage in Architecture: Photographic Representations of Theo van Doesburg's Studios and Paintings
- 9 Studio, Storage, Legend. The Work of Hiding in Tacita Dean's Section Cinema (Homage to Marcel Broodthaers)
- 10 The Empty Studio: Bruce Nauman's Studio Films
- 11 Home Improvement and Studio Stupor. On Gregor Schneider's (Dead) House ur
- 12 Staging the Studio: Enacting Artful Realities through Digital Photography
- Epilogue: “Good Art Theory Must Smell of the Studio”
- Index
Summary
If ever a man had an “ivory tower,” well defended by bars and bolts, it was Eugène Delacroix […]. Others may seek privacy for the sake of debauchery; he sought it for the sake of inspiration, and he indulged in veritable orgies of work.
CHARLES BAUDELAIREThe bourgeois public of the 1470s respected the artist as a master of technical tricks […] who painted and sculpted in his back workshop, but who had a front shop in which he sold all that anyone might need: belt buckles, painted marriage chests, church furnishings, votive waxes, engravings. It was not then the practice to visit the artist, remote and abstracted in his studio, and to strike an aesthetic pose beneath his northern light while feeling most profoundly the malaise of world-weary, civilized men. Then, people used to drag their goldsmith-painter out of his workshop into the real world whenever the cycle of life itself demanded a new form: a building, a jewel, a utensil, a festive procession.
ABY WARBURGEXCHANGING ANACHRONISMS
These two quotes provide two entirely opposing images of the function of the studio, and both are intended to serve as a kind of model. For Baudelaire, Delacroix is the quintessential example of the artist who chooses a solitary existence in his studio, concentrating solely on his art, making works that will only leave the studio when they are finished, works destined only for the annual Salon. Here, there is a strict and hierarchical distinction between the public and the private. Baudelaire describes his visit to Delacroix's studio almost as an invasion. What strikes him most is the austerity of the artist's surroundings: “no trinkets, no old clothes, no bric-à-brac.” The only presence in this otherwise empty studio is the art of painting.
By contrast, Aby Warburg describes the open studio of the early Florentine Renaissance. For Warburg, the fact that in this period art had been rooted in everyday life gave it the potential for continual renewal. Even a goldsmith's workshop might produce a great artist. Warburg well understood that the modern artist was born when he had closed his door to the curious, and even to his erstwhile assistants. He refuses, however, to see this as a sign of progress.
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- Information
- Hiding Making - Showing CreationThe Studio from Turner to Tacita Dean, pp. 136 - 156Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2013