Historical Perspectives on the Arts, Sciences and Technology

Historical Perspectives on the Arts, Sciences and Technology Each of the articles reviewed in this column is of interest from at‘ least two points of view. Cowling’s exposition of the art of Frith addresses both art and science, and the historical relativity of symbol perception. Harrison and Orton discuss Johns’ art in terms of form and content, and of representation as symbolism . Carleton’s analysisof Van Eyck’s art and the ensuing debate are about perspective as a system of representing space, and about theoreticians imposing their theories on art. Elkins’ detailed examination of the art of Michelangelo involves art and science, and it further delineates the meaning of pictorial realism. Billington and Mark’s article on cathedrals and bridges and Kihlstedt’s article on the Crystal Palace are concerned with the interrelationship of art and technology, and with the changing historical perception of technology and aesthetics. Finally, Fawcett’s discussion of the history of the art lecture involves the interplay between science and art; moreover, it provides foodforthought on the contemporaneity of the illustrated lecture. M.C. Cowling, “The Artist as Anthropologist in Mid-Victorian England Frith’s Derby Day, the Railway Station and the New Scienceof Mankind”, Art History 6, Some areas considered ‘legitimate’ science in the nineteenth century are today considered pseudo-science, if not downright quackery. Specific examples are the two subjects at the center of Cowling’s article-physiognomy and phrenology. These two branches of anthropology involve reading a person’s character through external physical appearance alone: physiognomy by looking at facial features, phrenology by analyzing the shape of the head. The popularity of these subjects among laymen permitted artists such as William Powell Frith to draw upon them for their art. In particular, Frith presented a crosssection of facial types from the London 461-477 (1983). David R. Topper (educator, art and science historian), Department of History, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg,Manitoba, R3B 2E9,Canada. David R.Topper scene in his crowds in Derby Day (1858) and the Railway Station (1862). These types were easily ‘read’ by Victorian viewers, who often made a habit of studying faces in public places. According to Cowling: Frith set out to satisfy this specific interest with a detailed rendering of a wide and varied selection of modern types: types whom the public would recognize, understand, praiseand blame according to their deserts. The scrutiny of such painted crowds as these was recognized as an absorbingand time-consuming business. It was claimed to be a good hour’s work even to skim the Derby Day;and here, I think, is where we begin to feelthe distance between Frith’s time and our own. We look at these characters and we find them interesting, but we cannot seize on theirsignificance in the way that a contemporary could. We cannot get beneath that highly realised surface which once told so much @. 462). What is quite extraordinary is that these various types seem to have been clearly delineated by the Victorian viewers. Evidence for this is provided by Cowling’sresearch into critics’comments about two types in Frith’s paintings-the city gent and the criminal. There was a general consensus among critics as to the meaning of these figures; at most, any disputes were over matters of expression. “That Frith was able to produce such a powerful and almost uniform responsefor the critics”, writes Cowling, “illustrates the extent to which they might all be relied on to read such a figure correctly” From a socio-political perspective, we may self-righteously look upon such Victorian anthropological beliefs as superstitious, snobbish or even quasiracist . From a theoretical perspective, Cowling’s article provides another example of the extent to which the reading of symbols invisual media transcends the traditional areas of religion, mythology and history. @. 475). C. Harrison and F. Orton, “Jasper Johns: ‘Meaning What You See”’, Art History 7, 78-101 (1984). In a previous Historical Perspectives column (Leonard0 17, 213-215 [1984]) in discussing the concept of abstraction I emphasized thecontinuity offorms in art, within the life-works of an artist, and from artist to artist and era to era. This point is succinctly made in H. Wolfflin’s famous pronouncement...