Recent links of note:
“Degas and Manet’s ‘mix of friendship and rivalry’ chronicled in major new show”
Ben Luke, The Art Newspaper
In 1868, Edgar Degas painted Édouard Manet et sa femme, in which Manet lounges on a couch next to his wife, Suzanne, as she plays a piano. Degas gave the painting as a gift to Manet, but, much to the latter’s chagrin, Degas, Manet claimed, portrayed his wife’s figure in a distasteful manner. Ben Luke for The Art Newspaper investigates the fraught friendship between the two artists ahead of the Musée d’Orsay’s upcoming exhibition on the topic, “Manet/Degas,” opening on March 28. Upon receiving the painting, Manet, whom Degas wrote to be “more vain than intelligent,” slashed the canvas with a penknife. Degas furiously took back the painting and made plans to repair it and repaint Suzanne, placing a long piece of blank canvas over her figure, though he never followed through. Manet, in response, created his own portrait of Suzanne at her piano to set the record straight. Both paintings will be on view in the forthcoming exhibition, which will migrate to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in September, accompanied by letters between the two artists and other paintings that shed light on their agreements and disagreements, many of which were integral to the development of art in the mid-nineteenth century.
“Where’s the Line? On the Kalven Report, academic freedom, and the limits of institutional neutrality”
Joshua T. Katz, City Journal
In a new article for City Journal, Joshua T. Katz emphasizes the importance of institutional neutrality to ensure academic freedom on college campuses. Specifically, Katz relays how the Kalven Report, a 1967 report from the University of Chicago that outlines a commitment to institutional neutrality, has been ignored by every other university in the country, besides the University of North Carolina. The University of Chicago is a “haven of heterodoxy,” writes Katz, and there have been tangible free-speech improvements at UNC, which is highly ranked by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression at twenty-six, fifty-seven positions ahead of the highest-ranked Ivy League school. If universities and colleges formally adopt the Kalven Report, as Katz urges, then institutions and their departments won’t be able to make official statements on issues outside their purview, as when, say, a department of molecular biology decides to condemn the Israeli Defense Force. Neutrality would keep university departments focused on their mission—educating their students in their respective subjects, not silencing them.
“A River Runs Under It”
Adrian Tinniswood, Literary Review
In Georgian Britain, the architect Robert Adam and his brother James forged their own neoclassicism, favoring an ideal of “movement” in opposition to the bloodless Palladianism of their forebears. The Adam brothers built many structures in this new style, adorning their interiors with Greco-Roman motifs and designs. In addition, Robert Adam crossed rivers and streams with neoclassical bridges that served a purpose more than merely functional: his bridges were formed to fit within the larger architectural and aesthetic composition of the landscape, and they do so exquisitely. This is the argument taken by Benjamin Riley, the managing editor of The New Criterion, in his new book, The Bridges of Robert Adam: A Fanciful and Picturesque Tour, reviewed by Adrian Tinniswood in the March issue of Literary Review. Containing a wonderful and “lavish” collection of photographs, including aerial views, The Bridges of Robert Adam provides for an “elegant” read on seven bridges by the Scottish architect.