Grand Designs: Labor, Empire, and the Museum in Victorian Culture
The spectacular display of industrial products showcased at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in the Crystal Palace is familiar to most enthusiasts of 19thcentury Victorian culture. Using the Great Exhibition as a backdrop to her historical narrative about design reform in Britain, Lara Kriegel re...
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
| Published: |
MIT Press
2010
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/57451 |
| _version_ | 1826212780510806016 |
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| author | Ferng, Jennifer H. |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. School of Architecture and Planning |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. School of Architecture and Planning Ferng, Jennifer H. |
| author_sort | Ferng, Jennifer H. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | The spectacular display of industrial
products showcased at the Great Exhibition
of 1851 in the Crystal Palace is
familiar to most enthusiasts of 19thcentury
Victorian culture. Using the
Great Exhibition as a backdrop to
her historical narrative about design
reform in Britain, Lara Kriegel restores the significance of labor to the field of
cultural history, highlighting how quotidian
tradesmen assisted in shaping the
ideological missions of once humble
institutions such as the modern-day
Victoria & Albert Museum in London’s
South Kensington. While these educational
and political battles raged within
studio classrooms and the halls of
Parliament, activist teachers of the fine
arts such as Benjamin Robert Haydon
and Charles Heath Wilson deliberated
over the merits of drawing the human
figure and Etruscan vases, jockeying for
the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of
their students in training. The pursuit
of genius, as perceived by one of the
protagonists, William Dyce of the Government
School of Design, was frowned
upon, not for its elevation of the individual
ego in artistic creation, but for its
lack of modesty (and perhaps morality)
on the part of the artist in pursuing the
“useless” occupation of being a painter.
Torn between remaining common men
with ordinary tastes and becoming
savants who could be assimilated into
the proper world of art, these British
artisans serve as reminders of those who
brought some of the most important
Victorian issues of class, economics,
education and gender to the attention
of their middle-class peers, as well as to
contemporary consumers of decorative
ornament. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:38:07Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/57451 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:38:07Z |
| publishDate | 2010 |
| publisher | MIT Press |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/574512022-09-29T15:08:25Z Grand Designs: Labor, Empire, and the Museum in Victorian Culture Ferng, Jennifer H. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. School of Architecture and Planning Ferng, Jennifer H. The spectacular display of industrial products showcased at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in the Crystal Palace is familiar to most enthusiasts of 19thcentury Victorian culture. Using the Great Exhibition as a backdrop to her historical narrative about design reform in Britain, Lara Kriegel restores the significance of labor to the field of cultural history, highlighting how quotidian tradesmen assisted in shaping the ideological missions of once humble institutions such as the modern-day Victoria & Albert Museum in London’s South Kensington. While these educational and political battles raged within studio classrooms and the halls of Parliament, activist teachers of the fine arts such as Benjamin Robert Haydon and Charles Heath Wilson deliberated over the merits of drawing the human figure and Etruscan vases, jockeying for the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of their students in training. The pursuit of genius, as perceived by one of the protagonists, William Dyce of the Government School of Design, was frowned upon, not for its elevation of the individual ego in artistic creation, but for its lack of modesty (and perhaps morality) on the part of the artist in pursuing the “useless” occupation of being a painter. Torn between remaining common men with ordinary tastes and becoming savants who could be assimilated into the proper world of art, these British artisans serve as reminders of those who brought some of the most important Victorian issues of class, economics, education and gender to the attention of their middle-class peers, as well as to contemporary consumers of decorative ornament. 2010-07-23T15:37:25Z 2010-07-23T15:37:25Z 2009-04 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0024-094X 1530-9282 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/57451 Ferng, Jennifer. “Grand Designs: Labor, Empire, and the Museum in Victorian Culture by Lara Kriegel. Duke University Press, Durham, NC, U.S.A., 2007. 328 pp., illus. Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-8223-4051-5. Paper ISBN: 978-0-8223-4072-0.” Leonardo 42.2 (2009): 169-170. en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/leon.2009.42.2.169 Leonardo Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf MIT Press MIT Press |
| spellingShingle | Ferng, Jennifer H. Grand Designs: Labor, Empire, and the Museum in Victorian Culture |
| title | Grand Designs: Labor, Empire, and the Museum in Victorian Culture |
| title_full | Grand Designs: Labor, Empire, and the Museum in Victorian Culture |
| title_fullStr | Grand Designs: Labor, Empire, and the Museum in Victorian Culture |
| title_full_unstemmed | Grand Designs: Labor, Empire, and the Museum in Victorian Culture |
| title_short | Grand Designs: Labor, Empire, and the Museum in Victorian Culture |
| title_sort | grand designs labor empire and the museum in victorian culture |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/57451 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT ferngjenniferh granddesignslaborempireandthemuseuminvictorianculture |