{"id":9722,"date":"2021-07-30T12:01:07","date_gmt":"2021-07-30T16:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/?p=9722"},"modified":"2021-07-30T12:01:07","modified_gmt":"2021-07-30T16:01:07","slug":"thomas-crow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/2021\/07\/thomas-crow\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Crow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thomas Crow<\/a> is an American art historian. For a short time, his interests overlapped with mine, which is how I became aware of him.<\/p>\n

Some readers might know that I am a fan of the French artist J.L David<\/a>. Early in his career, Crow wrote a book focused on David and his circle, Emulation: Making Artists for Revolutionary France<\/i><\/a>. He followed that with a book about the rise of museums in France, Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris<\/a>.<\/i> <\/p>\n

Read more<\/span>Stephen Pentak at Bonfoey<\/span><\/a><\/div>

When I was young, I hero-worshipped a number of artists. I studied their lives and careers as closely as I did the careers of my favorite baseball players–I knew all their stats. David is one of the last for whom I became a fanboi and is one of the few from the youthful hero-worship that I still admire. (In this self-portrait by David, there is a hint of the lifelong facial tumor that impeded David’s speech.)<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
J.L. David<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So when I saw Emulation,<\/i> it was an automatic buy. I haven’t read Crow’s later works focused on modern art, but here there is a whiff of progressive triumphalism that mar the book. As for the art itself, he focuses on literary issues typical of historians and studio intrigue. In his defense, his fascination with intrigue can be forgiven because David and his fellow Neoclassicists get caught in the whirlwind of the time and play a part in the revolution. But if you expect a history of the revolution, you’ll be disappointed. If you’re as interested in the art of the period as I am, then you’ll enjoy this book. <\/p>\n

Read more<\/span>Cleveland Museum of Art Staff Exhibition<\/span><\/a><\/div>

Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris<\/i> follows the rise of the Louvre from the middle of the 17th century through the 18th century. There were no art museums before this time and by the end of the 18th-century museums assumed the role that they still have today. I’ll be blunt: Crow isn’t an insightful writer. He closely follows the skimpy source materials and attempts to stitch everything together in a coherent narrative. In this effort, he fails. But, again, if you’re like me and are interested in the period then this book is immensely rewarding. Crow throws light on many less-known artists for which I am grateful.<\/p>\n

Crow never analyzes an artwork aesthetically. He never betrays an engagement with a particular piece. His interest is historical and ideological. Like many progressives, he appears to believe that a personal engagement is fetishizing art; it’s kitschy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Thomas Crow<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thomas Crow is an American art historian. For a short time, his interests overlapped with mine, which is how I became aware of him. Some readers might know that I am a fan of the French artist J.L David. Early in his career, Crow wrote a book focused on David and his circle, Emulation: Making […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":9720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[251,489,108,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aesthetics","category-art-history","category-books","category-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/crow2.jpg?fit=474%2C244&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8451,"url":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/2019\/05\/podcast-academic-art\/","url_meta":{"origin":9722,"position":0},"title":"Podcast-academic art","author":"Tom Hudson","date":"May 19, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I pick up last episode's discussion about Clement Greenberg and the avant-garde and kitsch, and talk about academic art. Artists mentioned: Gerome, David,\u00a0Bouguereau, Ingres, and Thomas Couture.","rel":"","context":"In "aesthetics"","block_context":{"text":"aesthetics","link":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/category\/aesthetics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12349,"url":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/2023\/05\/good-art-books-david-to-delacroix-the-rise-of-romantic-mythology\/","url_meta":{"origin":9722,"position":1},"title":"Good art books: David to Delacroix, The Rise of Romantic Mythology","author":"Tom Hudson","date":"May 7, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Dorothy Johnson has written several books related to David and the Neoclassicists. David to Delacroix: The Rise of Romantic Mythology is probably her best work. I think about this little book a lot. Even though the Neoclassicists are best known for their Classically-inspired history paintings, Johnson reminds us that it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "aesthetics"","block_context":{"text":"aesthetics","link":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/category\/aesthetics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/david-johnson_.jpg?fit=360%2C499&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":876,"url":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/2013\/01\/david-hickeys-air-guitar\/","url_meta":{"origin":9722,"position":2},"title":"David Hickey’s Air Guitar","author":"Tom Hudson","date":"January 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Do you like to read? \u00a0Me, I've always been a voracious reader. \u00a0Like other autodidacts, I let my interests take me where it will--I read what I damn well please. \u00a0Lately, I've been reading a lot of art theory \u00a0(Foucault, Panofsky, Derrida, Johnson) and criticism, which brings me to Hickey.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9227,"url":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/2021\/01\/who-needs-culture-anyway\/","url_meta":{"origin":9722,"position":3},"title":"Who needs culture anyway?","author":"Tom Hudson","date":"January 22, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the biggest shocks of my life and one of my biggest disappointments occurred when I went to France for the first time in 1993. France! home of great artists--David, Delacroix, the angelic Ingres, Manet, Monet, and many others. Writers? Balzac, of course. The master. I made a pilgrimage\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "aesthetics"","block_context":{"text":"aesthetics","link":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/category\/aesthetics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/garg.jpg?fit=474%2C319&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10844,"url":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/2022\/08\/book-review-lord-fouls-bane\/","url_meta":{"origin":9722,"position":4},"title":"Book review: Lord Foul’s Bane","author":"Tom Hudson","date":"August 15, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I am in the midst of another fiction-consuming binge. When I tire of listening to podcasts I fire up an audio book. Between listening to books and reading them with my Kobo e-Reader, I go through a lot of books. The fantasy novel Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen Donaldson is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/lfb.jpg?fit=778%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/lfb.jpg?fit=778%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/lfb.jpg?fit=778%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/lfb.jpg?fit=778%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":307,"url":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/2012\/11\/robert-smith\/","url_meta":{"origin":9722,"position":5},"title":"Robert Smith","author":"Tom Hudson","date":"November 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Robert Smith was an American artist who died in 1985.\u00a0 When I knew him, he already was an elderly man.\u00a0 He lived with his teenage son in Kettering, Ohio in a French chateau-type building that seemed the height of romance to a high school kid, which was what I was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art Museums"","block_context":{"text":"Art Museums","link":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/category\/art-museum\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"robert_smith","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/robert_smith.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Gw6F-2wO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9725,"href":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9722\/revisions\/9725"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}