NINETEENTH-CENTURY EUROPEAN ART: A TOPICAL DICTIONARY by Terry W. StrieterReview by: Laura SchwartzArt Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, Vol. 19, No. 1(Spring 2000), pp. 53-54Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Art Libraries Society of NorthAmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27949063 .

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Decoded, the entry tells one that the painting La Ma?ana Verde has a proper provenance, has been exhibited, has been cited in

monographs and exhibition catalogues, and was auctioned at

Sotheby's (New York) for $1,267,500 dollars (with the buyer's premium included in the sale price) on May 27,1998.

Apart from being a guidebook for an auction house or a junk bond salesman looking for a sound investment, is the Index of more immediate and practical use to the art librarian or researcher? As a matter of fact, it is, for in addition to listing the works auc tioned in the last twenty years, with artists ranging from Ed uardo Abela to Francisco Zu?iga, the Index contains a great deal of valuable information on Latin American art. The information is tucked away in mini-essays scattered among the sales data, and present in the multiple forwards and appendices with which the book is amply endowed.

Mary-Anne Martin, who founded Sotheby's Latin American

Paintings Department, opens her essay 'The Latin American Mar ket Comes of Age,' with the sentence quoted at the beginning of this review. She recounts that first auction (at which a Frida Kahlo

picture was bought for a mere $19,000!), and the minimal inter est it stirred among non-Latin buyers. After a series of promi nent shows in the late 1980s, the public began to turn its attention to Latin American art. To illustrate this, Martin traces the de

velopment of the market for works by Frida Kahlo, Wifredo Lam, and Rufino Tamayo, showing how renewed attention to Latin American artists among both Latins and non-Latins has pushed the demand for paintings and sketches by these three seminal artists through the one million dollar barrier. A new generation of collectors, Martin asserts, abetted by a new generation of schol

arship on Latin American art, has placed a high premium on art which was unremarked upon and unsold outside of Latin Amer ica itself a generation ago. Today, there is a high level of inter est in contemporary Latin American artists and their work.

Alejandro Anreus, who has worked in the Visual Arts Sec tion of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washing ton, contributes an overview of "Art: The Twentieth Century," tracing the evolution of artistic trends among Latin American artists. Not surprisingly, these mirror the influences and styles which characterized European and North American art of the pe riod. Post-Impressionism, Spanish Realism, and Symbolism dominated the work of turn-of-the-century artists. Later, Cu

bism and Futurism, although finding few actual exponents, ex erted powerful influence as various avant-garde movements

emerged, some as adjuncts to literary movements of the same

period. In Mexico, indigenismo and post-revolutionary pro gressivism were merged in the Muralist Movement. In countries like Peru and Argentina, influential journals were the focus of

social, artistic, and literary movements. Social Realism, Con

structionism, Surrealism, and Abstraction were popular between the world wars; afterwards, Informalism, Neofiguration, and

Geometry replaced socially-oriented ideas with individualistic and abstract tendencies. Anreus helpfully names many of the artists associated with these movements, as well as influential critics of Latin American art who have examined artistic devel

opments in the Americas.

August O. Uribe, a senior vice-president at Sotheby's, describes the evolution of "Latin American Art at Auction," by noting the

growing value of work by and on Latins, and by asking and try ing to answer the question, "What is Latin American art?" Are both

the landscapes of Dutch artists who traveled to Brazil in the 1630s and the Paris-based Cubist paintings of Diego Rivera considered to be Latin American art? In answering the question, Uribe also examines some aspects of Latin America's colonial-era art.

Sections on "How to Use this Book," auction house termi

nology, abbreviations, and "How to Read an Entry" precede a

really valuable part of the Index, Artists' Biographies. The 974 entries are primarily for Latin American artists, but many Eu

ropean and North American artists who worked in Central and South America, as well as a few geographic terms and names of schools or movements, are also included. Many are brief, no

more than a sentence, but as the majority of the names are sure

ly excluded from the Grove's Dictionary of Art, this part of the work will be invaluable.

Scattered at random among the pages of fine print, detailing the auction of tens of thousands of works, are little gems of es

says on everything from the Baroque carvings of mulatto Antonio Francisco Lisboa (declared part of the national heritage of Brazil), to the "flipping" (quick purchase and profitable sale) of art, to

Hudson River School painters working in the tropics, to mini

essays on individual artists, works, schools, and movements.

There are discourses on auction houses, on getting names and other details right before a sale, on the concept of monetary value in art. An index of nationalities and list of auction house addresses closes the volume. This reference volume documents

growing vitality of the market for Latin American art in a world that is no longer Eurocentric. Its many excellent supplemental sources of information make it an important work for any library committed to representing multiculturalism in art.

Peter Stern

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

NINETEENTH-CENTURY EUROPEAN ART: A TOPICAL DICTIONARY / Terry W. Strieter.?Westport, CT: Greenwood

Publishing Group, April 1999.?312 p.?ISBN 0-313-29898-X (cl., alk. paper), $89.50.

Like other topical dictionaries published by Greenwood Press,

Nineteenth-Century European Art: A Topical Dictionary is a survey, arranged alphabetically, of an art-historical period. Although the book has useful information, its organization of materials and se lected topics leave much to be desired.

The scope of this volume is not accurately reflected in its title. In the preface, Strieter explains that the volume covers more than the nineteenth century, from the beginning of the French Revo lution (1789) to the commencement of World War I (1914). Al

though the title suggests that all European art is considered, Stri eter explains that he concentrates on France, specifically Paris, as it was "the focal point of advanced ideas in the world of art." The topics Strieter writes about include major art movements, works of art (primarily painting and sculpture), art themes, peo ple, events, and historical developments.

Entries range from a single line (e.g. "Biomorphic Style," "Plas

ticity") to more than one page (e.g. "Monet, Claude," "Artist's

Studio, Theme of"). Many of the entries are mteresting and in formative. Where else could one find information about the Caf?

Pigalle? The author explains it was both a meeting place for artists in Paris and a subject for the painters Edgar Degas, Edouard

Manet, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Volume 19, Number 1 ? 2000 ? Art Documentotion 53

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The other topical art dictionaries published by Greenwood

Press, covering the medieval, renaissance, and baroque peri ods, work well because religious iconography is easily orga nized by theme. The subject matter or themes of nineteenth-cen

tury artworks cannot be broken down so neatly. To further

complicate matters, Strieter sometimes substitutes titles of works for themes. Instead of including one entry for "Self-Portrait, Theme of," there are twelve entries under the heading "Self

Portrait," each describing a different self-portrait by a different artist. The consolidation of these entries into one would have been more effective. The content of the Dictionary is uneven and raises questions. It would have been more effective to con solidate entries and provide examples. Major artists, such as

J.M.W. Turner, are omitted. Is it because he did not study in Paris? Yet Caspar David Friedrich is included in the Dictio

nary, though he did not study, work, or even visit Paris, and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, closely associated with Paris, does not merit a separate entry. Strieter selectively includes American artists who spent most of their professional careers in Europe. John Singer Sargent and James McNeill Whistler, who are cu

riously described as English-American, have individual entries, but information about Mary Cassatt is found only in the entry for Edgar Degas's At the Milliner's. As this volume is without illustrations, the author includes

references to reproductions in other resources. The alphabetic arrangement is straightforward and easy to use. The index fails to provide intellectual access to the entries and simply repli cates the main entries in a condensed form. The bibliography is thorough and is comprised of the most important scholarship on nineteenth-century European art. Greenwood Press is plan

ning a companion volume on twentieth-century European art. Let us hope that its organization will be more thoughtfully planned. The Strieter work is recommended, with reservations, to academic, museum, and art and design school libraries.

Laura Schwartz

The University of Texas at Austin

HDICTIONARY OF BIRD ARTISTS OF THE WORLD/Christine E. Jack

son.?Wappingers Falls, NY: Antique Collectors' Club, September 1999. 550 p.: ill.?ISBN 1-85149-203-8: $89.50.

According to Christine Jackson, "bird pictures tell us as much about

man's attitudes to birds as they do about the birds themselves." The au thor has written several books on birds and bird art, mcluding B?tish Names of Birds; Bird Illustrators: Some Artists in

Early Litho graphy; Bird Etchings: The, Illustrators and Their Booh, 1655-1855; and Great Bird Paintings. For this reference, she has observed countless examples of bird art, from the T'ang Dynasty onward in the east and from the fifteenth

century to modern times in the west. Jackson's experience con

firms her statement; years of extensive research have culminated in this ambitious resource.

Jackson describes 4,000 deceased artists in this volume. Al

though this sum seems vast, she had specific criteria for inclu

sion. For instance, this dictionary contains painters and illustra tors who worked only in two dimensions (on canvas, paper, silk, or panel), but not those who created mosaics or painted on ce ramics or walls. However, artists who produced watercolor draw

ings or designs for ceramics, tapestries, etc. are considered ger mane. Also, if an artist can be documented by at least one exhibition or has had work reproduced in at least one book or

magazine, he or she is listed. To be defined as a bird artist, a bird or group of birds must occupy at least half of an image. (Jackson believes there may be exceptions to this rule in cases where de cisions were based on titles of works alone.) She applies this rule to images of poultry, pets, and bird-markets. Acknowledging the existence of sporting artists' dictionaries, she only includes

sporting artists who depict birds as "the main feature" of a pic ture. The bird must be prominent and of "primary interest." For

modern art, the image of the bird must be discernable for the artist to be listed.

The alphabetically arranged dictionary entries for individu al artists vary in length; some are less than fifteen words and others are several hundred. All of the entries contain artists'

names, dates (birth and death dates if known, flourishing peri ods, or approximations if not), nationality, and information about his/her bird art. In addition, many of the entries include one or more of the following: locations of works, sales infor

mation, and bibliographic citations. For well known artists, such as Picasso, Rembrandt, Homer, Warhol, Leonardo da Vinci, etc., Jackson does not duplicate the efforts of standard bio

graphical dictionaries, but focuses on their contributions to bird

art, no matter how modest. For example, Jackson's entry for

Mary Cassatt states, "occasionally, she painted a parrot with a

woman, instead of the usual child." Significant contributors to bird art, such as John James Audubon, Archibald Thorburn, Louis Agassiz Fuertes, Bruno Andreas Liljefors, and Leo Paul Robert merit lengthy, exceptionally thorough entries as well as references in the preliminary historical survey. However, the un

derlying strength of this resource is its extensive inclusion of obscure artists, a testimonial to the author's exhaustive research.

In addition to the dictionary entries, Jackson offers an histor ical survey of bird art, ninety-three pages of color plates, an ap pendix describing national bird art, and an index listing artists

by nationality. In her historical survey, Jackson excels at high lighting outstanding and influential bird artists, placing their

works in context, discussing them across country and period boundaries, and accenting technical advances. She also focuses on subject matter and explains why some species' popularity en dured and others are depicted in more modest numbers. Al

though Asian artists are heavily represented in the dictionary, Jackson spends more time on western art in this section. The National Bird Art Appendix, however, presents a comparative ly lengthy discussion of Chinese bird art; China's history of bird art is the longest. She also features Korean, Japanese, and Indi

an/ Mughal bird art, noting influences from Chinese bird art as well as remarking on their individuality. There are transitional sections describing western and eastern influences on each other, and a large section is devoted to the lack of consistent patterns and parallels in European bird art. Europe is discussed by region or country; beyond Asia and Europe, the author describes bird art in Australia and New Zealand, South Africa, South and Cen tral America, Canada, and the United States. The appendix is es

54 Art Documentation ? Volume 19, Number 1 ? 2000

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