Description
Book SynopsisA picture's title is often our first guide to understanding the image. Yet paintings didn't always have titles, and many canvases acquired their names from curators, dealers, and printmakers--not the artists. Taking an original, historical look at how Western paintings were named, Picture Titles shows how the practice developed in response to the c
Trade ReviewOne of The New Yorker's "The Books We Loved in 2015" (selected by Ben Lerner) "I was fascinated by Ruth Bernard Yeazell's book Picture Titles: How and Why Western Paintings Acquired Their Names. As a writer who is often jealous of visual artists, I found her exploration of how titles inflect our experiences of viewing perversely reassuring--I mean as evidence of the power a text can hold over an image."--Ben Lerner, New Yorker "A fascinating account of how paintings get their titles."--Peter De Bolla, Times Literary Supplement "This fascinating study shows how the naming of paintings was inextricably tied to the rise of the art market in the 17th and 18th centuries."--Apollo Magazine "Yeazell's work is undoubtedly one of serious scholarship, stuffed to the margins with historical and critical analysis... Where Yeazell's analysis succeeds most is in its insistence that we consider something that seems so ordinary--a wall label, photo caption, or Google Images description--with consideration of those words' creator and with an awareness of how those words profoundly affect our perception."--Grace Labatt, Santa Fe New Mexican "That titles are somehow intrinsic to all artworks is an idea that is mistaken but frequently espoused. Welcome clarification of this fact comes with Ruth Bernard Yeazell's new book, Picture Titles: How and Why Western Paintings Acquired Their Names. This is an important study."--Thomas Marks, Apollo Magazine "The advent of titles in Western art is the subject of this engaging book. Yeazell explores the economic and cultural changes that prompted the practice, blending historical perspective with more modern case studies... Well organized and including detailed references and a thorough index, this is a valuable resource for those interested in art history, library and museum studies, and fine arts."--Choice
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations ix Prologue (This is not a title) 1 I Naming and Circulating: Middlemen 1 Before Titles 19 2 Dealers and Notaries 25 3 Early Cataloguers 31 4 Academies 39 5 Printmakers 52 6 Curators, Critics, Friends-and More Dealers 66 II Reading and Interpreting: Viewers 7 Reading by the Title 81 8 The Power of a Name 97 9 Many Can Read Print 110 10 Reading against the Title 124 III Authoring as well as Painting: Artists 11 The Force of David's Oath 143 12 Turner's Poetic Fallacies 166 13 Courbet's Studio as Manifesto 183 14 Whistler's Symphonies and Other Instructive Arrangements 204 15 Magritte and The Use of Words 225 16 Johns's No and the Painted Word 243 Acknowledgments 265 Notes 267 Index 315
