From Publishers Weekly
The art form that caused such a headache among other discomforts for the Victorians is the subject of Exposed: The Victorian Nude, which explores depictions of the body in 19th-century British art. Tate curator Alison Smith (The Victorian Nude: Sexuality, Morality, and Art) looks at the unprecedented proliferation of nudes (previously rare in British art) under Victoria's reign, and at the passionate debates they provoked about decency and art. Though Smith touches on photography and illustration, she focuses mainly on painting, with full-color reproductions of works by Rossetti, Burne-Jones and others. The book accompanies a Tate exhibition that will travel to the U.S. this fall, including a stop at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York City, where the new mayor seems less of a cultural watchdog than his predecessor.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Serving as the catalog for the first major exhibition in the Linbury Galleries at the Tate Museum in London, this sumptuous and sensual volume focuses primarily on painting, though it does include drawings, sculpture, and early forms of photography and silent film stills. Smith, whose Victorian Nude: Sexuality, Morality, and Art provided a broad cultural context of the topic, showcases work by John Singer Sargent, Frederic Leighton, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and others. The works are organized into six categories: "The English Nude," "The Classical Nude," "The Private Nude," "The Artist's Studio," "Sensation!: The Nude in High Art," and "The Modern Nude." The unlikely juxtaposition of Victorian mores with nude imagery provides an alternate sensibility to Victorian England, both enlightening the mind and pleasing the eye. Three richly illustrated essays by Smith, Martin Myrone, and Michael Hyatt frame the work. All academic and larger public libraries should own this title. Rebecca Tolley-Stokes, East Tennessee State Univ. Libs., Johnson City
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
