scholarly journals John Elder Moultray  (1865-1922)  History Painter or Historical Journalist?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Marilyn Edwina Park

<p>This thesis was undertaken to investigate J. Elder Moultray‘s history paintings, his broader artistic oeuvre and journalistic output, and to place him in the context of nineteenth-century New Zealand art, journalism and the history painting genre generally. It is also intended to fill a lack of previous art-historical scholarship surrounding Moultray and his history paintings. Moultray‘s own diaries and published articles, as well as newspaper reports about him, provide a biographical sketch of his life and his own views on art history. A discussion of the development of the history painting genre, a detailed analysis of his history paintings and comments on his paintings from critics, both during his lifetime and after, leads to a number of conclusions. These suggest that Moultray‘s diminished reputation as an artist has resulted from a number of factors, including changing fashions in artistic styles, poor documentation in the referencing of his works, and a changing political climate which has desired to leave behind uncomfortable images of the New Zealand colonial wars. The latter is related to both his contemporary marginalisation and the deterioration of many of his paintings in the public domain. Unpicking the layers of Moultray‘s history paintings reveals their relevance to contemporary art-historical issues. In addition, Moultray‘s resistance to modernism and continuation of a nineteenth-century academic art practice into the twentieth century provides today‘s art historians with considerable insights. By exploring a body of Moultray‘s paintings, in tandem with his writings about art, the thesis reveals a significant contribution to New Zealand art history.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Marilyn Edwina Park

<p>This thesis was undertaken to investigate J. Elder Moultray‘s history paintings, his broader artistic oeuvre and journalistic output, and to place him in the context of nineteenth-century New Zealand art, journalism and the history painting genre generally. It is also intended to fill a lack of previous art-historical scholarship surrounding Moultray and his history paintings. Moultray‘s own diaries and published articles, as well as newspaper reports about him, provide a biographical sketch of his life and his own views on art history. A discussion of the development of the history painting genre, a detailed analysis of his history paintings and comments on his paintings from critics, both during his lifetime and after, leads to a number of conclusions. These suggest that Moultray‘s diminished reputation as an artist has resulted from a number of factors, including changing fashions in artistic styles, poor documentation in the referencing of his works, and a changing political climate which has desired to leave behind uncomfortable images of the New Zealand colonial wars. The latter is related to both his contemporary marginalisation and the deterioration of many of his paintings in the public domain. Unpicking the layers of Moultray‘s history paintings reveals their relevance to contemporary art-historical issues. In addition, Moultray‘s resistance to modernism and continuation of a nineteenth-century academic art practice into the twentieth century provides today‘s art historians with considerable insights. By exploring a body of Moultray‘s paintings, in tandem with his writings about art, the thesis reveals a significant contribution to New Zealand art history.</p>


Author(s):  
Linda Tyler

To disseminate new knowledge about scientific discoveries in New Zealand in the nineteenth century, draughtsmen were employed to convey the characteristics of a specimen using techniques of lithography, occasionally assisted by photography and microscopy. The Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute was an annual publication of scientific papers presented by experts at the various provincial branches throughout the country, and was first published in Wellington in 1868 and issued in 1869.1 Until his retirement from government service in 1885, it was primarily illustrated by John Buchanan (1819-1898). This paper aims to give a broader understanding of Buchanan’s significance for both New Zealand’s science history and its art history by considering his relationship to the emergent techniques of photography and lithography. His isolated use of nature printing for the production of the three volume guide to forage plants, The Indigenous Grasses of New Zealand, is placed in the context of the nineteenth century approach to scientific illustration as evidence.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Anna-Marie White

<p>The production of taonga is a sovereign Māori tradition closely guarded in contemporary Māori society. Many Contemporary Māori Artists observe taonga principles in their work though these qualities are stifled within the New Zealand art system. In the 1990s these subjects were fiercely debated resulting in Contemporary Māori Art being defined differently to the ancestral tradition of taonga. This debate created a rupture, which disturbs the practice of Māori art and is a major concern in the emerging practice of Māori art history. Reviving earlier arguments for Contemporary Māori Art to be defined according to the principles of taonga, this thesis applies the concept of ‘contemporary taonga’ to the art works of Brett Graham (Ngāti Koroki Kahukura), to argue that taonga production is active in contemporary Māori life and offers a new method to reconcile Māori art histories.  The practice of Kaupapa Māori research and theory enlivened the taonga principles of Brett Graham’s art works. Intensive accounts of two art works, produced a decade apart, reveal ‘contemporary taonga’ to be a collaborative process involving recognition and instrumentalisation by authoritative Māori viewers. Kahukura (1996), produced in response to the debates was, however, overwhelmed by competing interests of the time. Āniwaniwa (2006) undertook an arduous journey—to the centre of the Western art world in order to be shown within the artist’s tribal rohe—where Ngāti Koroki Kahukura kaumātua recognised Graham as a tohunga. Iwi leaders also employed Āniwaniwa in their Treaty of Waitangi claims process, functionalising the art work as taonga to support the advancement of their people. Āniwaniwa then left New Zealand to play a role in the formalisation of an international indigenous art network.   As a type for contemporary taonga, Āniwaniwa is an expansive model to introduce this concept to contemporary art discourse. The impact of this concept is yet to be realised though immediately reconciles long-standing issues in Māori art. ‘Contemporary taonga’ has the potential to radically reconcieve, and reorganise, Contemporary Māori Art practice and history according to the practice of ancestral Māori traditions and determined by the authority and agency of Māori people.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Anna-Marie White

<p>The production of taonga is a sovereign Māori tradition closely guarded in contemporary Māori society. Many Contemporary Māori Artists observe taonga principles in their work though these qualities are stifled within the New Zealand art system. In the 1990s these subjects were fiercely debated resulting in Contemporary Māori Art being defined differently to the ancestral tradition of taonga. This debate created a rupture, which disturbs the practice of Māori art and is a major concern in the emerging practice of Māori art history. Reviving earlier arguments for Contemporary Māori Art to be defined according to the principles of taonga, this thesis applies the concept of ‘contemporary taonga’ to the art works of Brett Graham (Ngāti Koroki Kahukura), to argue that taonga production is active in contemporary Māori life and offers a new method to reconcile Māori art histories.  The practice of Kaupapa Māori research and theory enlivened the taonga principles of Brett Graham’s art works. Intensive accounts of two art works, produced a decade apart, reveal ‘contemporary taonga’ to be a collaborative process involving recognition and instrumentalisation by authoritative Māori viewers. Kahukura (1996), produced in response to the debates was, however, overwhelmed by competing interests of the time. Āniwaniwa (2006) undertook an arduous journey—to the centre of the Western art world in order to be shown within the artist’s tribal rohe—where Ngāti Koroki Kahukura kaumātua recognised Graham as a tohunga. Iwi leaders also employed Āniwaniwa in their Treaty of Waitangi claims process, functionalising the art work as taonga to support the advancement of their people. Āniwaniwa then left New Zealand to play a role in the formalisation of an international indigenous art network.   As a type for contemporary taonga, Āniwaniwa is an expansive model to introduce this concept to contemporary art discourse. The impact of this concept is yet to be realised though immediately reconciles long-standing issues in Māori art. ‘Contemporary taonga’ has the potential to radically reconcieve, and reorganise, Contemporary Māori Art practice and history according to the practice of ancestral Māori traditions and determined by the authority and agency of Māori people.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nicholas Hoare

<p>The recent resurgence of interest in the ‘other side’ of New Zealand’s colonial history has reaffirmed the need to view the nation’s history in its Pacific context. This historiographical turn has involved taking seriously the fact that as well as being a colony of Britain, New Zealand was an empire-state and metropole in its own right, possessing a tropical, Oceanic empire. What has yet to have been attempted however is a history of the ‘other side’ of the imperial debate. Thus far the historiography has been weighted towards New Zealand’s imperial and colonial agents. By mapping metropolitan critiques of New Zealand’s imperialism and colonialism in the Pacific (1883-1948), this thesis seeks to rebalance the historiographical ledger. This research adds to our understanding of New Zealand’s involvement in the colonial Pacific by demonstrating that anticolonial struggles were not only confined to the colonies, they were also fought on the metropolitan front by colonial critics at once sympathetic to the claims of the colonised populations, and scathing of their own Government’s colonial policy. These critics were, by virtue of their status as white, metropolitan citizens, afforded greater rights and freedoms than indigenous colonial subjects, and so were able to challenge colonial policy in the public domain. At the same time this thesis demonstrates how colonial criticism reflected national anxieties. The grounds for criticism generally depended on the wider social context. In the nineteenth-century in particular, critiques often contained concerns that New Zealand’s Pacific imperialism would disrupt the sanctity of ‘White New Zealand’, however as the twentieth-century wore on criticism bore the imprint of anti-racism and increasingly supported indigenous claims for self-government. By examining a seventy year period of change, this thesis shows that at every stage of the ‘imperial process’, New Zealand’s imperialism in the Pacific was a subject open to persistent public debate.</p>


2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Bann

AbstractThe historicist approach is rarely challenged by art historians, who draw a clear distinction between art history and the present-centred pursuit of art criticism. The notion of the ‘period eye’ offers a relevant methodology. Bearing this in mind, I examine the nineteenth-century phase in the development of history painting, when artists started to take trouble over the accuracy of historical detail, instead of repeating conventions for portraying classical and biblical subjects. This created an unprecedented situation at the Paris Salon, where such representations of history could be experienced as a collective ‘dream-work’, in Freud’s sense. In France, this new pictorial language dates back to the aftermath of the Revolution, and the activities of the ‘Lyon School’. Two artists, Richard and Révoil, were its leading proponents. However their initial closeness has obscured the differences in their approach to the past. Substituting for Freud’s ‘condensation’ and ‘displacement’ the concepts of ‘Resurrection’ and ‘Restoration’, I analyse the pictorial language of the two painters, taking two works as examples. The conclusion is that Révoil, also a collector, was a precursor of the historical museum, which convinces through accumulating objects. Richard, however, employs technical and rhetorical devices to evoke empathetic reactions, and anticipates the illusionism of cinema.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 19
Author(s):  
Mikke Susanto ◽  
Lono P Simatupang ◽  
Timbul Haryono

The Presidential Palace of the Republic of Indonesia's collection of art objects was started by Indonesia's first president, Sukarno. Today, this collection includes more than 2,500 paintings, and as such this institution has acted like a museum. Throughout the tenure of Indonesia's seven presidents, this collection has experienced diverse stories related to its curation by various individuals over time. This article will focus on the historical issues of this collection's curation using qualitative research methods, in the hopes of revealing various curatorial issues. More specifically, the qualitative research conducted for this study is related to art history. This articleutilizes theory related to curation to discuss a number of topics, ranging from the role of the individuals responsible for the collection (i.e. curators), the systems of caring for and selecting works (curation), and the curatorial practices that have occurred until now. Elaborating on a number of archival documents related to this collection, this article examines the work of the collection's curators, from inventorization to opening the collection to the public. Over the course of 70 years, the Presidential Palace's collection has undergone various forms of curation, including acquisition, documentation, preservation, and exhibition. This research concluded that the role of the curator is very important and causes the collection to be preserved and more valuable. As such, this article suggests a special museum related to the paintings within the palace collection.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nicholas Hoare

<p>The recent resurgence of interest in the ‘other side’ of New Zealand’s colonial history has reaffirmed the need to view the nation’s history in its Pacific context. This historiographical turn has involved taking seriously the fact that as well as being a colony of Britain, New Zealand was an empire-state and metropole in its own right, possessing a tropical, Oceanic empire. What has yet to have been attempted however is a history of the ‘other side’ of the imperial debate. Thus far the historiography has been weighted towards New Zealand’s imperial and colonial agents. By mapping metropolitan critiques of New Zealand’s imperialism and colonialism in the Pacific (1883-1948), this thesis seeks to rebalance the historiographical ledger. This research adds to our understanding of New Zealand’s involvement in the colonial Pacific by demonstrating that anticolonial struggles were not only confined to the colonies, they were also fought on the metropolitan front by colonial critics at once sympathetic to the claims of the colonised populations, and scathing of their own Government’s colonial policy. These critics were, by virtue of their status as white, metropolitan citizens, afforded greater rights and freedoms than indigenous colonial subjects, and so were able to challenge colonial policy in the public domain. At the same time this thesis demonstrates how colonial criticism reflected national anxieties. The grounds for criticism generally depended on the wider social context. In the nineteenth-century in particular, critiques often contained concerns that New Zealand’s Pacific imperialism would disrupt the sanctity of ‘White New Zealand’, however as the twentieth-century wore on criticism bore the imprint of anti-racism and increasingly supported indigenous claims for self-government. By examining a seventy year period of change, this thesis shows that at every stage of the ‘imperial process’, New Zealand’s imperialism in the Pacific was a subject open to persistent public debate.</p>


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