Marble queens and captives : women in nineteenth-century American sculpture / Joy S. Kasson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kasson, Joy S., author.

Contributor:

Yale University Press, publisher.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Marble sculpture--United States--19th century.

Marble sculpture.

Marble sculpture, American--19th century.

Marble sculpture, American.

Women in art.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xviii, 293 pages) : 103 illustrations (some color), portraits

Other Title:

Marble queens and captives : women in 19th-century American sculpture

Women in nineteenth-century American sculpture

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, [1990]

Summary:

"When nineteenth-century Americans looked at a statue of a nude woman in chains, or a shipwrecked mother and child, what did they see? When they talked or wrote about them, what did they say? ... Joy S. Kasson argues that there was a connection between the popularity of artworks such as these, which derive from a sentimental literary culture, and the rapidly changing social, economic, and political environment that was beginning to raise questions about women's nature and role in society. By exploring the once-popular genre of ideal sculpture, with its focus on female subjects and its insistence on narrative content, Kasson is able to shed light on conventional assumptions about gender roles, as well as the tensions that lay behind these beliefs. Kasson reconstructs the intellectual, aesthetic, and literary contexts in which these sculptures were viewed and traces the social history of their production and reception. She shows that sculptors and audiences repeatedly idealized women as fragile, endangered, and vulnerable"--Publisher's description.

Contents:

Ideal Sculpture: Artists and Patrons

Viewing Ideal Sculpture: Contexts and Audiences

Narratives of the Female Body: The Greek Slave

Between Two Worlds: The White Captive

Death and Domesticity: Shipwrecked Mother and Child

The Problematics of Female Power: Zenobia

Woman's Other Face: Eve and Pandora

Domesticating the Demonic: Medea

Conclusion: Gender and Power.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 295-283) and index.

Description based on print version record and online resource (A&AePortal, viewed on December 7, 2023).

ISBN:

9780300276916

0300276915

OCLC:

1310737908