The College of New Jersey celebrates its sesquicentennial with French, Japanese and American works ‘Circa 1855.’
By: Jillian Kalonick
Henry Somm’s ‘Japonisme’ is part of ‘Circa 1855,’ on view at the art gallery at The College of New Jersey through March 30.
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In 1855, Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass was published; a year before, Matthew Perry negotiated the United States’ treaty with Japan; three years before that, Isaac Singer invented the sewing machine.
Circa 1855: Art, Artifacts and Ephemera from the U.S., France and Japan, an exhibition at the gallery at The College of New Jersey in Ewing, aims to bring a worldwide perspective to that year the same one in which New Jersey State Normal School, the predecessor to the college, was founded.
"We wanted to try to give people a macroscopic view," says Dr. Lois Fichner-Rathus, professor of art at TCNJ and curator of Circa 1855. "They’ve been seeing lots of photos of (past students), centered around the New Jersey State Normal School, and we thought it would be good to pull out from the core. We chose works from the United States, Paris and Japan."
Joseph Ames’ ‘Portrait of Abraham Lincoln’ greets gallery visitors
as they enter the exhibition. |
TCNJ’s sesquicentennial celebrates the founding of the first public school in the state, in which 15 aspiring teachers were enrolled. The Normal School Movement aimed to make education and the education of teachers a government-subsidized priority. Circa 1855 places the New Jersey State Normal School’s founding in context with what was going on in the world at the time.
"We wanted to tie in certain styles, themes, genres and influences that each country had on each other mostly how the Japanese affected French work," says gallery director Judy Masterson. The gallery has works on loan from the Morris Museum, Montclair Art Museum, Zimmerli Art Museum, Princeton University Art Museum and Skidmore College. On display is everything from dolls and high chairs to Japanese-influenced ceramics and prints.
In an essay, Ms. Fichner-Rathus sets the scene of 1855: Paris hosted the world’s fair; the U.S. was influenced by European culture but also experiencing its "Manifest Destiny," and Admiral Perry had just signed a treaty with Japan that opened trade and ended the country’s world isolation. In the art world this meant American painters were traveling to France to hone their craft, and both the U.S. and France were "smitten" with Japan.
Charles Pillivuyt & Co.’s ‘Plate,’ 1872.
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"The French lived vicariously through portrayals of the extreme in Oriental art," says Ms. Fichner-Rathus. In Henry Somm’s "Japonisme," from the Zimmerli Art Museum, a woman is surrounded by Asian symbols a man holding a fan and lantern, bamboo and geishas.
"Here’s this French woman randomly stuck in with all this (the French) are in love with this fad," she says.
Charles Pillivuyt & Co.’s "Plate," 1872, is a whimsical representative of the infatuation with all things Japanese, and one of Ms. Fichner-Rathus’ favorite pieces in the exhibition.
"It reminds me of Gilbert and Sullivan ‘The Mikado,’ she says. "It’s so much fun, and free-spirited, with the cherry blossoms and kimonos."
An accompanying wall text in the exhibition asks viewers to compare and contrast seemingly unrelated works, such as Utagawa Kunisada’s woodcut "Fireman (Kabuki Actor with Umbrella)," circa 1852, and Horace Bundy’s painting "The Six Vaughan Children" circa 1834-45. The latter is a portrait of six children clearly bound by a family resemblance, done in a realist style. Though the pieces are so different, the text compares the bodies, clothing, patterns and modeling in each.
"One thing the gallery has become known for is pedagogy," says Ms. Fichner-Rathus. "The wall text encourages viewers to interact and make judgements. We create juxtapositions to engage them. We’ve tried to create interesting visual patterns and opportunities to look at lines."
Artists working in Paris, such as Van Gogh and Degas, were influenced by the depiction of middle-class life and bright colors and bold layouts used in Japanese woodblock prints, as assistant professor of art Deborah Hutton discusses in her essay accompanying the exhibition. "Woman with a Scroll," also by Kunisada, is a typical bijinga, or "picture of a beautiful woman," likely a courtesan, dressed in a fashionable kimono and wearing a high hairdo, on display for the viewer.
In the U.S., much emphasis was placed on the magnificence of nature, in grand, Romantic nature paintings, such as those of the Hudson River School.
Along with that were the ever-popular animal paintings, represented in Circa 1855 by Constant Troyon’s "Two Cows in a Landscape."
"Paintings of animals were a big thing," says Ms. Fichner-Rathus. "Animal pictures were just essential. If you had an exhibition of animal paintings, they broke the doors down."
Perhaps the most striking work in the show is Joseph Ames’ "Portrait of Abraham Lincoln, 1864," on loan from the Morris Museum. The painting is the first thing gallery visitors see as they enter Holman Hall and the gallery, and it is hung in correct scale to Lincoln’s height 6 foot 3 inches.
Ames’s Lincoln differs from other representations of the president Americans see him in a stoic pose on coins and bills, and Daniel Chester French’s sculpture of Lincoln in Washington, D.C., portrays a man in deep thought and solitude. But Lincoln is leaning forward and looking engaged in the Ames portrait. The accompanying text points out the difference: "Ames gives us Lincoln the man, Lincoln the personality. It is as if we have found ourselves face-to-face with him."
Circa 1855: Art, Artifacts and Ephemera from the United States, France and Japan is on view at the College Art Gallery, Holman Hall, The College of New Jersey, 2000 Pennington Road, Ewing, through March 30 (closed March 6-13). Gallery hours: Mon.-Wed., Fri. noon-3 p.m., Thurs. noon-3 p.m., 7-9 p.m., Sun. 1-3 p.m. For information, call (609) 771-2198. On the Web: www.tcnj.edu