Mapping the origins of glamour: Giovanni Boldini, Paris and the Belle Époque

Journal of European Studies

Volumn 29, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 269-295

  Gundle, Stephen ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0040113510     PISSN: 00472441     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/004724419902900303     Document Type: Review

References (95)

1. From time to time fashion and women's magazines conduct inquiries into the meaning of glamour. Invariably they seek a range of opinions from experts and celebrities, whose views are often confusing and contradictory. In addition a gallery is usually presented of the 'happy few' deemed to represent glamour today. See, for example, Elle (UK) December 1996 ('Glamour! The people who live it - the clothes that scream it - the make-up that makes it') and Interview March 1997 ('The new glamour burns bright'). Confusion arises over the gender connotations of glamour, whether it is an intrinsic (charismatic) phenomenon or a manufactured one, whether it is permanent or temporary, and its application to age ranges, places and situations.
2. From time to time fashion and women's magazines conduct inquiries into the meaning of glamour. Invariably they seek a range of opinions from experts and celebrities, whose views are often confusing and contradictory. In addition a gallery is usually presented of the 'happy few' deemed to represent glamour today. See, for example, Elle (UK) December 1996 ('Glamour! The people who live it - the clothes that scream it - the make-up that makes it') and Interview March 1997 ('The new glamour burns bright'). Confusion arises over the gender connotations of glamour, whether it is an intrinsic (charismatic) phenomenon or a manufactured one, whether it is permanent or temporary, and its application to age ranges, places and situations.
3. T. J. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers (London: Thames and Hudson, 1990); Christoper Prendergast, Paris and the Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992). The criticisms of Boldini are quite numerous if not particularly varied. His biographer, Dario Cecchi, says that he allowed money to win out over artistic integrity and that his worst pictures are marked by 'flamboyance', Giovanni Boldini (Turin: UTET, 1962), 181, 187. In 'Un italiano a Parigi', Art e Dossier, 34, April 1989, Alessandra Borgogelli argues that his early taste for the artificial descended later into exaggeration and kitsch (p. 16). Along similar lines, Giorgio Ruggeri asserts that 'in the midst of the creative impetus, he often overstepped the limits of taste and measure without knowing how to turn back - he was the victim of his own ability, in the face of gratified adulation and compromises', Saette e carezze di un ironico libertino: Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931) - disegni e acquarelle (Bologna: Edizioni Marescalchi, 1980), 10-11.
4. T. J. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers (London: Thames and Hudson, 1990); Christoper Prendergast, Paris and the Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992). The criticisms of Boldini are quite numerous if not particularly varied. His biographer, Dario Cecchi, says that he allowed money to win out over artistic integrity and that his worst pictures are marked by 'flamboyance', Giovanni Boldini (Turin: UTET, 1962), 181, 187. In 'Un italiano a Parigi', Art e Dossier, 34, April 1989, Alessandra Borgogelli argues that his early taste for the artificial descended later into exaggeration and kitsch (p. 16). Along similar lines, Giorgio Ruggeri asserts that 'in the midst of the creative impetus, he often overstepped the limits of taste and measure without knowing how to turn back - he was the victim of his own ability, in the face of gratified adulation and compromises', Saette e carezze di un ironico libertino: Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931) - disegni e acquarelle (Bologna: Edizioni Marescalchi, 1980), 10-11.
5. T. J. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers (London: Thames and Hudson, 1990); Christoper Prendergast, Paris and the Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992). The criticisms of Boldini are quite numerous if not particularly varied. His biographer, Dario Cecchi, says that he allowed money to win out over artistic integrity and that his worst pictures are marked by 'flamboyance', Giovanni Boldini (Turin: UTET, 1962), 181, 187. In 'Un italiano a Parigi', Art e Dossier, 34, April 1989, Alessandra Borgogelli argues that his early taste for the artificial descended later into exaggeration and kitsch (p. 16). Along similar lines, Giorgio Ruggeri asserts that 'in the midst of the creative impetus, he often overstepped the limits of taste and measure without knowing how to turn back - he was the victim of his own ability, in the face of gratified adulation and compromises', Saette e carezze di un ironico libertino: Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931) - disegni e acquarelle (Bologna: Edizioni Marescalchi, 1980), 10-11.
6. T. J. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers (London: Thames and Hudson, 1990); Christoper Prendergast, Paris and the Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992). The criticisms of Boldini are quite numerous if not particularly varied. His biographer, Dario Cecchi, says that he allowed money to win out over artistic integrity and that his worst pictures are marked by 'flamboyance', Giovanni Boldini (Turin: UTET, 1962), 181, 187. In 'Un italiano a Parigi', Art e Dossier, 34, April 1989, Alessandra Borgogelli argues that his early taste for the artificial descended later into exaggeration and kitsch (p. 16). Along similar lines, Giorgio Ruggeri asserts that 'in the midst of the creative impetus, he often overstepped the limits of taste and measure without knowing how to turn back - he was the victim of his own ability, in the face of gratified adulation and compromises', Saette e carezze di un ironico libertino: Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931) - disegni e acquarelle (Bologna: Edizioni Marescalchi, 1980), 10-11.
7. T. J. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers (London: Thames and Hudson, 1990); Christoper Prendergast, Paris and the Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992). The criticisms of Boldini are quite numerous if not particularly varied. His biographer, Dario Cecchi, says that he allowed money to win out over artistic integrity and that his worst pictures are marked by 'flamboyance', Giovanni Boldini (Turin: UTET, 1962), 181, 187. In 'Un italiano a Parigi', Art e Dossier, 34, April 1989, Alessandra Borgogelli argues that his early taste for the artificial descended later into exaggeration and kitsch (p. 16). Along similar lines, Giorgio Ruggeri asserts that 'in the midst of the creative impetus, he often overstepped the limits of taste and measure without knowing how to turn back - he was the victim of his own ability, in the face of gratified adulation and compromises', Saette e carezze di un ironico libertino: Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931) - disegni e acquarelle (Bologna: Edizioni Marescalchi, 1980), 10-11.
8. See the catalogue of the sale of some of Boldini best paintings held at Christie's, New York: Fifteen Paintings by Giovanni Boldini collected by the late Baron Maurice de Rothschild, New York 1 November 1995 (New York: Christie's, 1995). Most reserve prices, not all of which were met, varied from $2.5m - $3.5m for a celebrated portrait of Countess Luisa Casati with greyhounds to $500,000 - $700,000 for successful society portraits of relatively well-known subjects including Rita Lydig, Donna Franca Florio and Countess Zichy.
9. Giorgio Mascherpa, Giovanni Boldini (Milan: Finarte, 1967), 11-12.
10. Patrick Mauriès and others, Boldini (Milan: Franco Maria Ricci, 1987), 120.
11. Rosalind Williams, Dream Worlds: Mass Consumption in Late Nineteenth-Century France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982); Michael B. Miller The Bon Marché (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).
12. Rosalind Williams, Dream Worlds: Mass Consumption in Late Nineteenth-Century France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982); Michael B. Miller The Bon Marché (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).
13. For a survey of all these positions, see David Frisby, Fragments of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity, 1985). With specific reference to Paris, see Prendergast, Paris and the Nineteenth Century.
14. For a survey of all these positions, see David Frisby, Fragments of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity, 1985). With specific reference to Paris, see Prendergast, Paris and the Nineteenth Century.
15. See Philippe Jullian, 'Can-can e fanciulle in fiore' in Eleonora Bairati and others, La Belle Epoque (Milan: Mondadori, 1977), 108; and Prendergast, Paris, 168.
16. See Philippe Jullian, 'Can-can e fanciulle in fiore' in Eleonora Bairati and others, La Belle Epoque (Milan: Mondadori, 1977), 108; and Prendergast, Paris, 168.
17. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life, 35-6.
18. Ibid., 66.
19. Frisby, Fragments of Modernity, 178.
20. Ibid., 179. Siegried Kracauer, Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Times (London: Constable, 1937).
21. Ibid., 179. Siegried Kracauer, Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Times (London: Constable, 1937).
22. Frisby, Fragments of Modernity, 180.
23. Prendergast, Paris, 168.
24. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life, 46.
25. Charles Rearick, Pleasures of the Belle Époque (New Haven: Yale University Press 1985), 39.
26. Ibid., 62.
27. Ibid., 100, 152.
28. Pasqualino Spadini, 'La "civilisation del piacere"', in Lucio Chiavarelli and others, La Belle Époque (Rome: Casini 1966), 97.
29. On Britain, see David Cannadine, The Decline of the British Aristocracy (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990).
30. Jullian, 'Can-can', 108.
31. Lois W. Banner, American Beauty (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983), 182. How far this was so may be disputed. Rearick points out that the 1889 Exposition featured a circular building holding a canvas entitled Le Tout Paris. Customers paid - in large but not overwhelming numbers - to see around eight hundred portraits of the rich and the beautiful. 'Like other panoramas', he notes, 'this one catered to a taste for skillfully wrought realism in illusion and a burgeoning touristic desire to see the most touted sights easily and quickly', Pleasures of the Belle Époque, 172-3.
32. Lois W. Banner, American Beauty (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983), 182. How far this was so may be disputed. Rearick points out that the 1889 Exposition featured a circular building holding a canvas entitled Le Tout Paris. Customers paid - in large but not overwhelming numbers - to see around eight hundred portraits of the rich and the beautiful. 'Like other panoramas', he notes, 'this one catered to a taste for skillfully wrought realism in illusion and a burgeoning touristic desire to see the most touted sights easily and quickly', Pleasures of the Belle Époque, 172-3.
33. Cited in Banner, American Beauty, 163.
34. Ibid., 164.
35. See Charles Bernheimer, Figures of Ill-Repute: Representing Prostitution in Late Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).
36. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life, 102, 109.
37. Frisby, Fragments of Modernity, 180.
38. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life, 110.
39. See Bram Dijkstra, Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fine-De-Siècle Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986) and Andrea Stuart, Showgirls (London: Cape, 1996), 116-19.
40. See Bram Dijkstra, Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fine-De-Siècle Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986) and Andrea Stuart, Showgirls (London: Cape, 1996), 116-19.
41. Richard Brilliant, Portraiture (London; Reaktion, 1991), 10-11.
42. Maureen E. Montgomery, 'Gilded Prostitution': Status, Money, and Transatlantic Marriages, 1870-1914 (London: Routledge, 1989); see also Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan, The Glitter and the Gold (New York: Harper and Row, 1952).
43. Maureen E. Montgomery, 'Gilded Prostitution': Status, Money, and Transatlantic Marriages, 1870-1914 (London: Routledge, 1989); see also Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan, The Glitter and the Gold (New York: Harper and Row, 1952).
44. See, for example, the pocket collection of his works The Age of Innocence: The Paintings of John Singer Sargent (London: Phaidon, undated 1996?) which contains extracts from James's novels.
45. Cited in Ibid., 208.
46. Stanley Olson, John Singer Sargent: His Portrait (London: Barrie and Jenkins 1986), 186.
47. Richard Ormond, John Singer Sargent (London: Phaidon 1970), 67.
48. Charles Merrill Mount, John Singer Sargent: A Biography (New York: W.W. Norton 1955), 221.
49. Olson, Sargent, 102. On the whole story of the Gautreau portrait, see Olson, 102-17; and Mount, Sargent, 73-115.
50. Olson, Sargent, 102. On the whole story of the Gautreau portrait, see Olson, 102-17; and Mount, Sargent, 73-115.
51. Olson, Sargent, 102. On the whole story of the Gautreau portrait, see Olson, 102-17; and Mount, Sargent, 73-115.
52. Ralph Curtis in a letter of 2 May 1884, quoted in Olson, Sargent, 104.
53. Piero Dini, Introduction to Dini (ed.), La donna e la moda nella pittura italiana del seconda '800 (Montecatini: Comune di Montecatini Terme, 1988), 13.
54. Borgogelli, 'Un italiano a Parigi', 18.
55. Cardona, Boldini nel suo tempo (Bologna: Edizioni Guarnati 1951), 122.
56. Mauriès, 'Le fragili muse', 120.
57. Quoted in David Frisby, Georg Simmel (Chichester and London: Ellis Horwood/Tavistock 1984), 40.
58. Quoted in Dolf Sternberger, Panorama del XIX secolo (Bologna: Il Mulino 1985), 55. First edition 1938.
59. Eugen Weber, France Fin de Siècle (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986) 12 There was a comical mass dimension to the accumulation of nervous electricity. Elisa Gribaudi Rossi and Michele Falzone del Barbarò note that fairs in Turin at the end of the 1890s included stalls with 'various electric women that gave out a shock when touched'. See Carnet di ballo: balli mascherate e carnevali a Torino dal 1860 al 1899 (Milan: Longanesi, 1979), 91.
60. Eugen Weber, France Fin de Siècle (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986) 12 There was a comical mass dimension to the accumulation of nervous electricity. Elisa Gribaudi Rossi and Michele Falzone del Barbarò note that fairs in Turin at the end of the 1890s included stalls with 'various electric women that gave out a shock when touched'. See Carnet di ballo: balli mascherate e carnevali a Torino dal 1860 al 1899 (Milan: Longanesi, 1979), 91.
61. Cardona, Boldini, 135.
62. Ruggeri, Saette e carezze, 14; Vito Doria, 'Pregiudizi e grandezza' in Giuseppe Marcenaro (ed.), Giovanni Boldini: olii, disegni, incisioni (Genova: Sagep editrice, 1987), 135.
63. Ruggeri, Saette e carezze, 14; Vito Doria, 'Pregiudizi e grandezza' in Giuseppe Marcenaro (ed.), Giovanni Boldini: olii, disegni, incisioni (Genova: Sagep editrice, 1987), 135.
64. Emily Apter, 'Visual seduction and the colonial gaze' in Margaret Cohen and Christopher Prendergast (eds), Spectacles of Realism: Body, Gender, Genre (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), 167.
65. Guido Sari, Boldini a Parigi 1871-1931 (Alghero: Edizioni del Sole 1980), 63.
66. Cardona, Boldini, 123.
67. Cecchi, Boldini, 131.
68. Carlo Lega, Giovanni Boldini: l'uomo, il pittore e i rapporti con i famigliari (Ferrara: Corto editore 1994), 51.
69. Anne Hollander, Seeing Through Clothes (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press 1975), 333.
70. Mauriès 'Le fragili muse', 47. 'To someone who asked him what he thought was the difference between a great lady and a cocotte . . ., he replied, "None" the cocottes often look like great ladies and the great ladies always want to look like the cocottes'; Cardona, Boldini, 91.
71. Mauriès 'Le fragili muse', 47. 'To someone who asked him what he thought was the difference between a great lady and a cocotte . . ., he replied, "None" the cocottes often look like great ladies and the great ladies always want to look like the cocottes'; Cardona, Boldini, 91.
72. Cecchi, Boldini, 69.
73. See Spadini, 'La "civilisation del piacere"', 101.
74. Quoted in Cecchi, Boldini, 274.
75. Mauriès, Boldini, 24.
76. Banner, American Beauty, 149.
77. Anne Higonnet, 'Real fashion: clothes unmake the working woman' in Cohen and Prendergast, Spectacles of Realism, 151.
78. Ibid., 154.
79. Cecchi, Boldini, 131.
80. Ibid.
81. Ibid., 136.
82. Quoted in Frisby, Simmel, 40.
83. G H. Fleming, Victorian 'Sex Goddess': Lady Colin Campbell and Sensational Divorce Case of 1886 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 1.
84. Ibid., 244.
85. See Umberto Notari, Signore sole (Villasanta: Notari, 1911).
86. Cardona, Boldini, 122.
87. Christie's, Fifteen Paintings, 52; Cardona, Boldini, 128.
88. Christie's, Fifteen Paintings, 52; Cardona, Boldini, 128.
89. Cardona, 128.
90. Cecchi, Boldini, 174.
91. Ibid., 174.
92. Cardona, Boldini, 128.
93. 'Giovanni Boldini, il ritratto di donna Franca Florio', in Kirsten Ascengreen Piacenti (ed.), Il guardaroba di donna Franca Florio - Firenze, Palazzo Pitti, Galleria del Costume maggio-agosto 1986 (Florence: Centro Di 1986), 19.
94. Christie's, Fifteen paintings, 52.
95. Balsan, The Glitter and the Gold, 138.