Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Late 19th-century Lithographs at the British Museum

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
The little theatre box
1897
lithograph
British Museum

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Loie Fuller on stage
1893
lithograph
British Museum

American dancer Loie Fuller (1862-1928) became a sort of public muse to a generation of Parisian artists. Toulouse-Lautrec depicted her often, as above. Fuller's billowing silk stage-costumes, specially lighted to her own specifications, remain a presence in the work of countless painters and photographers and print-makers of the period.

Otto Greiner
Sin, the Devil, and Eve
1898
lithograph
British Museum

Francis Joseph Jackson
Roses No. 3
late 19th century
lithograph
British Museum

Jean-Louis Forain
Fan leaf with Dancer and Top-Hatted Admirer
1880-1900
lithograph
British Museum

Walter Sickert
Little Dot Hetherington at the Bedford Music Hall
ca. 1894
lithograph
British Museum

Henri Fantin-Latour
Glory to Richard Wagner
1886
lithograph
British Museum

Henri Fantin-Latour
Study for Eve
1898
lithograph
British Museum

Henri Fantin-Latour
Genius of music
1881
lithograph
British Museum

Henri Fantin-Latour
Glory to Hector Berlioz
1897
lithograph
British Museum

Felicien von Myrbach
Adam and Eve in Paradise
1898
lithograph
British Museum

Camille Pissarro
Women haymakers at Éragny
1896
lithograph
British Museum

Camille Pissarro
Row of Bathers
1897
lithograph
British Museum

The Pissarro lithograph immediately above  Row of Bathers  is called Théorie de Baigneuses in the original French.  I had to look up this usage of the word théorie in the dictionary. The primary meaning is a rough cognate with the sound-alike English word theory. The word in both languages derives from the Greek theorein, meaning an observer. The second meaning of théorie only entered the French language in the 18th century on the coat-tails of the so-called Classical Revival in art and fashion and politics. This new usage of théorie derived from a different Greek root-word, theoria, meaning a procession. French Neo-Classicists felt a new reverence for Roman and Greek friezes like those of the Parthenon representing processions of youths and maidens. Descending from them, théorie in this second sense now has a common meaning of a row, a line, a procession  Pissarro's lithograph demonstrates the Neo-Classical influence extending its reach a century later, as reflected in the formal organization echoing ancient carved friezes.

Max Liebermann
Girl reading
1890
lithograph
British Museum

I am grateful to the British Museum for making these images available.