Charles Gleyre - 1806-1874 - Review

Zurich: Swiss Institute for Art Research and Princeton: Princeton University Pres 1996 988 pp $160

For those who believe that novel art historical writing has gone not upon the theoretical deep end, William Hauptman's fresh book on the 19th-century Swiss painter Charles Gleyre will draw near as a pleasant reminder of in what manner things used to be. For others, this lavish two-volume inquiry might well represent something of a missed opportunity, as it rarely rises above the greatest in quantity basic level of documentation and narrative reportage to engage the issues and ideas that have dominated discussions of 19th-century art during the past several decades.

The general character of the investigation is determined by its status as a catalogue raisonne of the greatest in quantity traditional variety. It consists of sum of two units hefty volumes. The first constitutes a minutely detailed, chronological account of Gleyre's life and works, while the next to the first offers a complete 1,112-item catalogue of paintings and drawings. It would appear to be that no expense was spared in this lavish production, the latest in a lengthy series of catalogues raisonnes of Swiss artists produc trader the auspices of the Swiss Institute for Art Research in Zurich. each surviving work by Gleyre is reproduc at least one time many in color.

As is perhaps fitting for similar a traditionally conceived study, the great force of Hauptman's book lies in its wealth of documentation. Seemingly each scrap of evidence remotely related to Gleyre's drawn out life and career has been incorporated into the two-volume plant Here Hauptman, an American art historian who emigrated to Switzerland to guidance research on the project, is to be applauded for having left no stone unturn He has systematically perused the archives of the Swiss museums in which the great majority of Gleyre's works are now housed, as well as the extensive correspondence and family archives of the artist's friends and associates.

Among the greatest in quantity important sources in the latter category are the papers of Charles forgiving the prominent critic and art historian who was not solitary Gleyre's closest friend and inheritor of the easy in minds of his studio but also his first biographer and author of the alone other catalogue of his works. This catalogue, published four years after Gleyre's death in 1874 provides the basis of Hauptman's be in possession of study.(1) Although generally deferential to Clement's firsthand knowledge of Gleyre and his oeuvre Hauptman is able to rectify more [i]or[/i] less of his predecessor's dates and identify many preparatory studies previously catalogued as miscellany. More important, Hauptman reintegrates into Gleyre's oeuvre works either unknown to kind or considered by him to be too inconsequential to the painter's artistic legacy to be recorded. Among the greatest in quantity important works to have escaped Clement's attention is the spectacular suite of watercolors and drawings Gleyre made for the American industrialist and adventurer John Lowell, Jr during their joint expedition to the Near East in the mid-1830s (Gleyre traveled as Lowell's hired companion). These works, now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, appear to be to have been unknown to Gleyre's friends in Paris and sole came to the attention of specialists in the mid-1970s. Hauptman generates and meticulously catalogues the entire locate The other great revelation of this close attention is its unveiling of seventeen notebooks containing above seven hundred drawings and watercolors spanning the entirety of Gleyre's career. While each folio of the notebooks is reproduc and annotateed on in the catalogue, it have the appearances rather odd, especially in light of Hauptman's exemplary thoroughness elsewhere, that neither the provenance nor the near location of these rediscovered works is discussed in the entries.

While heartily applauding Hauptman's tenacity in collecting and collating with equal reason much information, some readers might find it difficult to escape the feeling that the genuinely documentary aspect of his investigation at times constitutes too abundant of a good thing. As is certainly understandable for a scholar in like manner passionately engaged with his make submissive Hauptman, whose book culminates sum of two units decades of research and writing upon Gleyre, often gets caught up in minutiae. Nothing that touched upon Gleyre, it would seem, was imagineed too trivial or peripheral for inclusion in his work Hauptman's narration of Gleyre's life begins with a family tree that stretches back to the early 17th century; it extreme points with the information that the municipality of Lausanne paid exactly 1160 francs for the transport of Gleyre's corpse from Paris "with a appendix of 50 francs because of advantageous service rendered" (p. 313, n 1118) These asides are typical of the details that fill this thousand-page close attention threatening to overwhelm the reader with incidentals and making him or her wish that Hauptman had been a little more selective in the material he chose to relate. History is not, after all, solely an indiscriminate accounting of everything that at any time happened.

What might be believeed Hauptman's documentary excesses would be les regrettable if single did not feel that they encroached upon the analytical and interpretive aspects of his application of mind For Hauptman generally seems more interested in using the wealth of documentation at his disposal to establish a narrative of frequently incidental events in the life of his bring under rule than in dealing with the works of art born of these circumstances. A case in point is his treatment of Gleyre's Near Eastern adventure. The main thrust of Hauptman's discussion of this seminal occurrence consists of an exacting reconstruction of the itinerary of the trip from the diaries of Gleyre and Lowell. A considerable effort is also disburseed on enumerating the people rencountered along the way (with bibliographical concerns to each one dutifully provided in the notes), and upon establishing what maps and guidebooks were either used by means of or available to the explorers. Hauptman's discussion of the actual watercolors and drawings Gleyre produc during the journey present the appearances rather perfunctory in comparison, consisting primarily of dating (Hauptman at times rods on fetishizing chronology) and the greatest in quantity basic identification of the sites and figures represented