The Art Bulletin
March 2009, Volume XCI Number 1
Interventions
Picasso’s Closet
6
Response: Suffering Machine: Ariel Dorfman and Picasso
30
Response: Artists in Times of War
35
Response: Ariel Dorfman’s Quest for Responsibility
44
The Author Replies: Our Black-and-White Catastrophe
51
Articles
Middleman: Antoine Watteau and Les Charmes de la Vie
59
Watteau’s Les charmes de la vie, a fête galante that is typical of its genre in its depiction of a tony outdoor gathering, can be read as a commentary on the ways that nature—particularly as manifested in animals, children, and Africans—was sophisticated and aestheticized by and for wealthy Parisians. The relative success of such ventures seems called into question by certain of Les charmes’s motifs, including the flustered musician at its center who is identified as a stand-in for Watteau—a mediator, or “middleman,” poised between the realms of culture and nature.
The Sultan’s Authority: Delacroix, Painting, and Politics at the Salon of 1845
83
Thirteen years after visiting North Africa, Eugène Delacroix exhibited the monumental Sultan of Morocco and His Entourage at the Salon of 1845. In 1844, Franco-Moroccan relations had degenerated—briefly but decisively—to the point of warfare. Though inspired by this conflict, Delacroix ignored its implications, manipulating his painting at multiple levels to create a powerful image of Moroccan sovereignty. The assertive message of his picture placed it at odds with the triumphalist paintings of French domination over North Africa exhibited alongside it at the Salon, confirming the artist's willingness to challenge the status quo.
Reviews
Jas Elsner, Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
107
Stephen F. Teiser, Reinventing the Wheel: Paintings of Rebirth in Medieval Buddhist Temples
111
Harvey Stahl, Picturing Kingship: History and Painting in the Psalter of Saint Louis
113
Steven Nelson, From Cameroon to Paris: Mousgoum Architecture in and out of Africa
117
Recent Books in the Arts
Listings are now available online within caa.reviews.
Reviews Online
122
Correction
In the December 2008 issue of The Art Bulletin, vol. XC, no. 4, on p. 531 the artist Wifredo Lam was mistakenly referred to as Mexican. Lam’s nationality is Cuban.
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