PRINT EXHIBITION TO EXAMINE THE FUNCTION OF VISUAL INFORMATIONTHROUGH IMAGES OF ROME AND NEW YORK

Released: October 21, 1997

The special exhibition Rome and New York: A Continuity of Cities will be on display at the Fogg Art Museum from November 1, 1997 through January 4, 1998. Urban landscape is frequently used by artists to capture the culture of a city. The glorified city of Rome and the progressive modern city of New York have been ideal subjects for their endeavors. This exhibition, which was prepared by members of an undergraduate seminar led by Marjorie B. Cohn, Carl A. Weyerhaeuser Curator of Prints, and entitled "Prints in Use", will examine how images of Rome and New York combine to form a profound lineage from the classical era to the twenty-first century. The forty-nine prints that will be on display range from those customarily accepted as 'fine art' by artists such as Piranesi, Hopper, Lozowick, and Pennell to topographical views, maps, and advertising posters. Rome and New York is supported in part with funds from the Gürel Student Exhibition Fund.

Independent of their creators' intentions, the prints in Rome and New York have a functional purpose which moves beyond artistic representation. They convey the idea of Rome as an ancient center of power and religion and New York as the epitome of the modern city. Certain images, however, run in direct opposition to these conventional views, and this contradiction sets up an intriguing exchange where each city has the flexibility to embody the other's popular traits. There are particular notions, ideals and images which are permanently associated with one city or the other and which emphasize the essence of each city, but at the same time they stress a continuous theme through which both cities are bound.

The prints in Rome and New York will be displayed in sets of two and three, addressing the distinctions and continuities outlined above which provide the framework for the exhibition. For instance, Bowling Green (1927) by Luigi Kasimir and Temple of Antonio and Faustina (Temple of Antonius Pius) (1780) by Giovanni Volpato and Abraham-Rodolphe Ducros, depict scenes which are in contradiction to each of the cities' popular traits. Temple of Antonio and Faustina reflects the flexibility of public space in an urban setting responding to the changing requirements of the city and its citizens. The image is a representation of the former Roman Forum, which by the eighteenth century had long lost its status as the religious, civic, and commercial center of imperial Rome. In this print the area takes on a sense of a town square. The ruins of an ancient glorious past are everywhere, yet they are presented not as significant historical markers but as unexceptional parts of the landscape. The people depicted in the print are busy going about their daily routine, and the ruins provide a convenient place to tie up horses or set up a market stand. Local citizens in the late 1700s did not place high historical and archaeological value on ruins that we do today, and the more sophisticated visitors, who were the intended purchasers of such a print, would have delighted in the irony of contemporary Romans' indifference to their cities glorious past.

Luigi Kasimir's Bowling Green depicts the famous area at the tip of Manhattan from the consciously picturesque perspective. His view of the gleaming skyscrapers surrounding the park is framed by a stone archway, and the resulting image sets up an intriguing composition. The archway implies a much older urban setting, such as Paris or possibly Rome. Kasimir could have used the archway to act as a portal of the past to view the present (the image seen through the archway is most definitely modern New York), or he might have hoped to imply the evolution of architecture and building techniques, from stone arches to skyscrapers.

Sydney L. Smith's Union of the Boroughs, plate 1, from Stokes, Iconography of Manhattan (c. 1915) and Anonymous View of the City of Rome, from Burgomensis (Jacobo Filippo Foresti da Bergamo), Supplementum Chronicarum (1491) depict the layout of the boroughs of New York and the city of Rome in true but atypical ways. An artistic style has been imposed by Smith, and a simple representation of Rome without special attention placed on the famous sites is shown in the fifteenth-century woodcut. Smith labels all five boroughs of New York: Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Richmond; and then adds a man dressed in colonial attire holding this view in the format of a parchment and lending to the image an antique quality, which was the artist's purpose in a publication glorifying New York's remote history. In the fifteenth-century view of Rome, all the classical sites highlighted by many artists in later centuries are here mixed in with the ordinary architecture of the rest of the city. The Coliseum is present, but only half is represented. In the center is the Pantheon, but it does not stand out from other large structures. Ruins are shown at the bottom, but they are not inflated into relics of a once great empire.

Rome is however depicted in all its glory in Triumphal Entry of Constantine in Rome (1666) (after LeBrun). On October 28, 312 CE, Constantine entered Rome a triumphant victor. After defeating the forces of Maxentius at Saxa Rubra, a site several miles outside the city, he had an unimpeded route into the city. The capturing of Rome was a significant step in his drive to reunite the Roman Empire, which had fallen into disarray after Diocletian had stepped down as emperor several years before. Rome remained the crown jewel of the empire, unequaled in size and magnificence. Charles LeBrun's composition was part of a series to glorify the French 'Sun King' Louis XIV by analogy with the triumphant generals of antiquity. Here he shows Constantine as he entered Rome through the Flaminian Gate, the northern-most gate of the city. It was a chaotic moment. Constantine and his troops were coming directly from the battlefield. The triumphal procession was completely unstaged. Maxentius' severed head and his body armor were placed on a lance and carried at the front of the procession, literally to represent his defeat. The anxious population of Rome joyously welcomed Constantine once the demise of the unpopular Maxentius was confirmed. The splendor of Rome lies in the background. The numerous temples and public buildings presented an awesome sight to the arriving Constantine, who was seeing the city for the first time.

Edward Hopper's House Tops (1921), Julius F. Gaylor's First Spanish-Portuguese Jewish Cemetery, New York (c. 1925) and Louis Lozowick's Checkerboard (1927-1928) represent the elevated rapid transit-the 'El'. Transportation is the lifeline of New York City, allowing millions of people to maneuver in a small area and at the same time defining the city as separate neighborhoods, boroughs, and islands. When portrayed by its various means of transportation, the city can be seen to represent the importance and influence of urban planning. Lozowick, Gaylor, and Hopper each consider the 'El' to be an integral part, both an focus and a frame, of the city scene. Lozowick uses the play of light through the rails and beams to give a stylized view that puts the city in geometrical balance. The light underneath the 'El' comes down in structured shafts to leave a grid pattern on the street. He imposes a scheme of ordered shapes on his artistic recreation of the city. Gaylor opts for a more realistic view. For him the 'El' is the gateway to the Jewish cemetery. He juxtaposes two radically different landscapes, contrasting the modernized, technological New York, represented by the 'El' and the old world, living and dead, shown by laundry and small-scale residential architecture as well as the tombs. Hopper represents the city through the 'El' window separating the viewer from the actual landscape but connecting then through this symbol of New York. All three artists portray the anonymity of public transportation as well as the city by including faceless people in their prints. Lozowick hides a faceless man in the shadows of the 'El', Gaylor does not etch the features of the women with children standing close to the support of the 'El', and Hopper chooses to turn the woman away from the audience to be, herself, an observer of the view of New York.

RELATED EVENTS

Gallery Talks

Sunday, November 9, Fogg Art Museum, 2:00 p.m.

with Marjorie B. Cohn, Carl A. Weyerhaeuser Curator of Prints

Sunday, December 14, Fogg Art Museum, 2:00 p.m.

with Marjorie B. Cohn, Carl A. Weyerhaeuser Curator of Prints

Gallery talks are free with the price of admission to the Harvard University Art Museums.

Concert
Sunday, November 2, Fogg Art Museum, 5:30 p.m.
Concert admission is $7; $5 students, Harvard staff, and senior citizens; unless otherwise noted. Doors open one-half hour before concert begins. For further information, call (617) 495-4544.

Nan Hughes, mezzo-soprano, and Jeffrey Goldberg, piano, will present Sounds of the City: Music of Seven Hills and Five Boroughs through Six Centuries. This diverse program will feature music from the Iroquois to Isabel Parra, from the caverns of the Colosseum to the heights of Tin Pan Alley, from Handel to Ives, from Berio to Bernstein, from Plainsong to Cole Porter, and will include works by such varied composers as Arlen, Dallapiccola, Mozart, Menotti, Sondheim, Monteverdi, Britten, Cage, Cavalli, Copland, Paisiello, Irving Berlin, Billy Joel, and Virgil Thomson.

Art/Medicine Action
Sunday, November 30 and Monday, December 1, Fogg Art Museum, free with the price of admission
The printmaker and physician Eric Avery will create an art/medicine action in the Straus Gallery and the adjacent print study room. The event will be held in conjunction with Rome and New York and World AIDS Day, and will include on-site AIDS testing and counseling of patients from the Zinberg Clinic, the AIDS service at Cambridge Hospital.

The activity at the Fogg will be the transfer of the usual consultations at the Zinberg Clinic to the Straus Gallery at the Fogg. Zinberg patients will see their medical doctor, psychiatrist, nurse practitioner, nutritionist, social worker, and even perhaps an acupuncturist. These will be one-on-one consultations, and the other health care professionals will rotate out to the adjacent study room to lead public discussions of the significance of their specialty to the HIV-positive person and also of the significance of holding these consultations in an art museum setting.

The activity in the Straus Gallery will take place in a 8' x 12' room designed by Dr. Avery which is open to the front and back and with an open gabled roof formed by trusses in the standard form of joists and rafters, which will be built on a low platform. The two outside walls will be papered with his wallpaper, based on an Italian eighteenth-century etching, Giovanni Battista Piranesi's Prison (circa 1746-1749) which will be displayed in this room.

The event is co-sponsored by the Harvard University Arts Committee on AIDS and the Harvard/Radcliffe Office for the Arts. Additional funding has been received from the Scott Opler Foundation, the Walter A. Compton Bequest Fund, and an anonymous donor. For more information, please call the Public Relations office at (617) 495-2397.

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For general information on the Harvard University Art Museums, please call (617) 495-9400. For press information or photographs, please contact Kate McShea at (617) 495-2397. For more information on events, please contact the Friends, Fellows, and Special Programs Office at (617) 495-4544. World Wide Web: www.artmuseums.harvard.edu

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The Harvard University Art Museums comprise three museums (Busch-Reisinger Museum, Fogg Art Museum, Arthur M. Sackler Museum), all located on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, MA, at the intersection of Quincy Street and Broadway, adjacent to Harvard Yard. The Art Museums are open Monday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., and Sunday 1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. Closed holidays. Admission is $5.00; $4.00 for senior citizens; $3.00 for students; free under 18 and on Saturday mornings. The Art Museums' facilities are wheelchair accessible. For special tour reservations, please call (617) 496-8576. General tours are offered Monday through Friday from September through June. The Fogg tour is at 11:00 a.m.; the Busch-Reisinger tour is at 1:00 p.m.; and the Sackler is at 2:00 p.m.

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