The Persistence of the Color Line by Randall Kennedy THE COLOR OF THE PRESIDENCY The full title of Randall Kennedy’s new book, The Persistence of the Color Line. Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency, is, or was, published (2011) a bit too soon and needs a...
“READINESS” FOR PHOTOGRAPHY Part One: Technological Advances It was a photographer who best summed up the circumstances surrounding the invention of photography. Gisèle Freund (1908-2000) wrote in Photography and Society (1980) that although all the...
JEAN-LÉON GÉRÔME: History Painter Part Three The Artist and History Gérôme studied under the official juste milieu artist, Paul Delaroche (1797-1856), who knew how to please a crowd. He had a gift that Gérôme did not: Delaroche could move an audience with his spell...
The Betrayal of the American Dream by Donald L. Bartlett and James B. Steele THE CLOSING of the COMMONS The New Enclosure Movement Essentially “the American Dream” has always been a middle class dream. Thanks to carefully targeted government policy, the...
JEAN-LÉON GÉRÔME: History Painter Part Two The Artist and Gender In painting after painting, Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904) clearly demonstrated his discomfort with women. Before his very profitable marriage to the daughter of Europe’s biggest art dealer, Gérôme lived...
