"Each Little Hillock hath a Tongue" - Phrenology and the Art of Hiram Powers

1986 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 281
Author(s):  
Charles Colbert
Keyword(s):  
Hiram Powers

Washington’s Napkin

2020 ◽  
pp. 130-160
Author(s):  
Sarah Meer
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
American Slavery ◽  
American Artists ◽  
Hiram Powers

This chapter traces the origins of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Marble Faun to his abandoned claimant novel (‘The Ancestral Footstep’), and argues that the novel transfers the inheritance theme to its depiction of American artists in Rome. It suggests an undercurrent of competition in Hawthorne’s depiction of the sculptors, and conflicted feelings about Hiram Powers and William Wetmore Story, particularly their self-chosen exile: conflict expressed in terms of the Yankee type. In Rome, the transatlantic difference that is so often signalled in clothes settles on nudity in statuary, a particular anxiety for Hawthorne. Transatlantic relationships also become triangular, British and American writers bonding in Rome; William Wetmore Story aspires to address American slavery by portraying African figures in classical terms.

The Irascible Hiram Powers

1972 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Richard P. Wunder
Keyword(s):  
Hiram Powers

The Greek Slave by Hiram Powers: High Art as Popular Culture

Art Journal ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 216
Author(s):  
Linda Hyman
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Hiram Powers

A Minor Poet Meets Hiram Powers

1960 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-66
Author(s):  
Everard M. Upjohn
Keyword(s):  
Hiram Powers ◽  
A Minor

Caps and Chains: Hiram Powers' Statue of "Liberty"

1986 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 798 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Fagan Yellin
Keyword(s):  
Hiram Powers

Hiram Powers and "The Hero"

1943 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 102
Author(s):  
Albert T. Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Hiram Powers

scholarly journals (Un)Dress in Southworth & Hawes’ Daguerreotype Portraits: Clytie, Proserpine, and Antebellum Boston Women

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Margo L. Beggs
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Special Significance ◽  
White Skin ◽  
Antebellum America ◽  
True Womanhood ◽  
Societal Norms ◽  
Young America ◽  
Cult Of True Womanhood ◽  
Hiram Powers ◽  
White Elite

Young America: The Daguerreotypes of Southworth & Hawes (2005) is a monumental exhibition catalogue showcasing the work of Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes. Together the partners established a renowned daguerreotype studio in mid-nineteenth-century Boston that catered to the city’s bourgeoisie. This paper seeks to unravel the mystery of dozens of daguerreotypes found in Young America, in which elite Boston women appear to be nearly nude. The unidentified women stand in stark contrast to the carefully concealed bodies of Southworth & Hawes’ other female subjects. Why would they expose themselves in such a manner before the camera’s lens? This paper attributes the women’s state of (un)dress to their deliberate emulation of two sculptures in the classical tradition: Clytie, a marble bust dating to antiquity, and Proserpine, a mid-nineteenth-century marble bust by American neoclassical sculptor Hiram Powers. This argument first reveals how a general “classical statue” aesthetic prevailed for women’s deportment in antebellum America, then demonstrates that the busts of Clytie and Proserpine had special significance as icons of white, elite female beauty in the period. Next, this paper makes the case that Southworth & Hawes devised a special style of photography deriving from their own daguerreotypes of the two statues, in which the women’s off-shoulder drapery was deliberately obscured allowing their female clientele to pose in the guise of these famous statues. The paper concludes by arguing that the women shown in these images could pose in this style without contravening societal norms, as these mythological figures were construed by women and men in the period to reflect the central precepts of the mid-nineteenth-century “Cult of True Womanhood.” Moreover, the busts offered sartorial models that reinforced standards of female dress as they related to class and privilege. By baring their flawless, white skin, however, the women positioned themselves at the crux of contentious beliefs about race in a deeply divided nation prior to the American Civil War.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document