Preliminary Proposal
The Grand Tour
In the current global art market only the very wealthy and select and limited number of curators may participate fully. At the fairs there are VIP lounges were you may get a message, have a snack and a glass of champagne. Do you need a car? BMW or Audi are there to help. Want help with your money? Personal bankers—Swiss to Goldman are there. Netjets sent 140 jets to Miami in 2007. This was more than double the number sent in 2005. And they are not the only private jet service. Collectors are flown to Basel in the summer. “the art players” take “the grand tour” which is Documenta, Venice and Basel every ten years.
Historically, it was the tour that was the means of introducing the younger members’ English upper class to the Western canon and European elite they should now. It all started in the late 1600s. Then the Grand Tour started for wealthy American—innocents—abroad in the late 1800s. They were acquiring culture and connections, with emphasis on acquiring more than connections, they started collecting. For some, the junior year or summer when the college student turned 21 was part of this tradition. It is still true, but now there is a flow to the art fairs and festivals to see and buy, to curate and connect and the means of transportation is the private jet.
Art is the immediate process and that process has been documented. Documentation, the archive has become art itself. Art is now relational and situational. Art is the everyday and the ordinary. One person’s everyday is very different from other. It is not the lone artist in the studio, but out in the world. The conversation and discourse seems democratic, but is it? The world of art is the private jet and the grand tour. This is the everyday or ordinary for some. Art is a market and an institutional network.
I want to juxtapose collectors, museum director, curator artist and critics together for a week transport them abroad in the same style and manner as the collector. Maybe go with a major collector. Like the press surrounding a political candidate. As part of this there will be artists on a jet that starts in NYC and end back here. This should take about two weeks to travel.
The Grand Tour is to document, in many different ways with the help of several artists, an art trip to Basel, Venice and Documenta two years from now. Who do they meet? What are the conversations? Why do they want to go? What are they looking? I suggest the following documentation: Pablo Helguera could video the trip, which is consistent with his 22 country video. But, other artists are also possible. Another artist could make drawings, such as mapping the conversations and the trip. I particularly like the idea of the group not being fixed. It is more like a temporary institution. People would start in NY and others in Europe. One collector would start and another would take there place. This would be true for everyone. Everything is mutable and changeable. Statistics will be gathered, a blog posted and a HD DVD will be made of the whole process.
A schedule will be set when the project and the group interact—when and where. There will be free and private time! Conversations and travels from the start to the end will be documented. This would need academic essay on the historical grand tour.
Ideally some of the art and documents will be exhibited at one of the places in Europe and in New York on the return.
Holly Crawford
AC Institute
212 945 8434
h.c@earthlink.net
Here is link on Grand Tour the was posted by the Met.
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/grtr/hd_grtr.htm
The Grand Tour
Beginning in the late sixteenth century, it became fashionable for young aristocrats to visit Paris, Venice, Florence, and above all Rome, as the culmination of their classical education. Thus was born the idea of the Grand Tour, a practice which introduced Englishmen, Germans, Scandinavians, and also Americans to the art and culture of France and Italy for the next 300 years. Travel was arduous and costly throughout the period, possible only for a privileged class—the same that produced gentleman scientists, authors, antiquaries, and patrons of the arts.
Beginning in the late sixteenth century, it became fashionable for young aristocrats to visit Paris, Venice, Florence, and above all Rome, as the culmination of their classical education. Thus was born the idea of the Grand Tour, a practice which introduced Englishmen, Germans, Scandinavians, and also Americans to the art and culture of France and Italy for the next 300 years. Travel was arduous and costly throughout the period, possible only for a privileged class—the same that produced gentleman scientists, authors, antiquaries, and patrons of the arts. The Objectives of the Grand Tour The Grand Tourist was typically a young man with a thorough grounding in Greek and Latin literature as well as some leisure time, some means, and some interest in art. The German traveler Johann Joachim Winckelmann pioneered the field of art history with his comprehensive study of Greek and Roman sculpture; he was portrayed by his friend Anton Raphael Mengs at the beginning of his long residence in Rome (48.141). Most Grand Tourists, however, stayed for briefer periods and set out with less scholarly intentions, accompanied by a teacher or guardian, and expected to return home with souvenirs of their travels as well as an understanding of art and architecture formed by exposure to great masterpieces. London was a frequent starting point for Grand Tourists, and Paris a compulsory destination; many traveled to the Netherlands, some to Switzerland and Germany, and a very few adventurers to Spain, Greece, or Turkey. The essential place to visit, however, was Italy. The British traveler Charles Thompson speaks for many Grand Tourists when in 1744 he describes himself as "being impatiently desirous of viewing a country so famous in history, which once gave laws to the world; which is at present the greatest school of music and painting, contains the noblest productions of statuary and architecture, and abounds with cabinets of rarities, and collections of all kinds of antiquities." Within Italy, the great focus was Rome, whose ancient ruins and more recent achievements were shown to every Grand Tourist. Panini’s Ancient Rome (52.63.1) and Modern Rome (52.63.2) represent the sights most prized, including celebrated Greco-Roman statues and views of famous ruins, fountains, and churches. Since there were few museums anywhere in Europe before the close of the eighteenth century, Grand Tourists often saw paintings and sculptures by gaining admission to private collections, and many were eager to acquire examples of Greco-Roman and Italian art for their own collections. In England, where architecture was increasingly seen as an aristocratic pursuit, noblemen often applied what they learned from the villas of Palladio in the Veneto and the evocative ruins of Rome to their own country houses and gardens.
The Grand Tour and the Arts Many artists benefited from the patronage of Grand Tourists eager to procure mementos of their travels. Pompeo Batoni painted portraits of aristocrats in Rome surrounded by classical staffage (03.37.1), and many travelers bought (Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s prints of Roman views, including ancient structures like the Colosseum (59.570.426), and more recent monuments like the Piazza del Popolo (37.45.3.49), the dazzling Baroque entryway to Rome. Some Grand Tourists invited artists from home to accompany them throughout their travels, making views specific to their own itineraries; the British artist Richard Wilson, for example, made drawings of Italian places while traveling with the earl of Dartmouth in the mid-eighteenth century (1972.118.294). Classical taste and an interest in exotic customs shaped travelers’ itineraries as well as their reactions. Gothic buildings, not much esteemed before the late eighteenth century, were seldom cause for long excursions, while monuments of Greco-Roman antiquity, the Italian Renaissance, and the classical Baroque tradition received praise and admiration. Jean Rigaud’s views of Paris were well suited to the interests of Grand Tourists, displaying, for example, the architectural grandeur of the Louvre, still a royal palace, and the bustle of life along the Seine (53.600.1191, 53.600.1175). Canaletto’s views of Venice (1973.634, 1988.162) were much prized, and other works appealed to Northern travelers’ interest in exceptional fêtes and customs: Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo’s Burial of Punchinello (1975.1.473), for instance, is peopled with characters from the Venetian carnival, and a print by Francesco Piranesi and Louis-Jean Desprez depicts the Girandola, a spectacular fireworks display held at the Castel Sant’Angelo (69.510). Desprez depicts the Girandola, a spectacular fireworks display held at the Castel Sant’Angelo (69.510). The Grand Tour and Neoclassical Taste The Grand Tour gave concrete form to Northern Europeans’ ideas about the Greco-Roman world and helped foster Neoclassical ideals. The most ambitious tourists visited excavations at such sites as Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Tivoli, and purchased antiquities to decorate their homes. The third duke of Beaufort brought from Rome the third-century work named the Badminton Sarcophagus (55.11.5) after the house where he proudly installed it in Gloucestershire. The dining rooms of Robert Adam’s interiors typically incorporated classical statuary; the nine lifesized figures set in niches in the Lansdowne dining room (32.12) were among the many antiquities acquired by the second earl of Shelburne, whose collecting activities accelerated after 1771, when he visited Italy and met Gavin Hamilton, a noted antiquary and one of the first dealers to take an interest in Attic ceramics, then known as "Etruscan vases." Early entrepreneurs recognized opportunities created by the culture of the Grand Tour: when the second duchess of Portland obtained a Roman cameo glass vase in a much-publicized sale, Josiah Wedgwood profited from the manufacture of jasper reproductions (94.4.172 Jean Sorabella Independent Scholar
Preliminary Proposal
The Grand Tour
In the current global art market only the very wealthy and select and limited number of curators may participate fully. At the fairs there are VIP lounges were you may get a message, have a snack and a glass of champagne. Do you need a car? BMW or Audi are there to help. Want help with your money? Personal bankers—Swiss to Goldman are there. Netjets sent 140 jets to Miami in 2007. This was more than double the number sent in 2005. And they are not the only private jet service. Collectors are flown to Basel in the summer. “the art players” take “the grand tour” which is Documenta, Venice and Basel every ten years.
Historically, it was the tour that was the means of introducing the younger members’ English upper class to the Western canon and European elite they should now. It all started in the late 1600s. Then the Grand Tour started for wealthy American—innocents—abroad in the late 1800s. They were acquiring culture and connections, with emphasis on acquiring more than connections, they started collecting. For some, the junior year or summer when the college student turned 21 was part of this tradition. It is still true, but now there is a flow to the art fairs and festivals to see and buy, to curate and connect and the means of transportation is the private jet.
Art is the immediate process and that process has been documented. Documentation, the archive has become art itself. Art is now relational and situational. Art is the everyday and the ordinary. One person’s everyday is very different from other. It is not the lone artist in the studio, but out in the world. The conversation and discourse seems democratic, but is it? The world of art is the private jet and the grand tour. This is the everyday or ordinary for some. Art is a market and an institutional network.
I want to juxtapose collectors, museum director, curator artist and critics together for a week transport them abroad in the same style and manner as the collector. Maybe go with a major collector. Like the press surrounding a political candidate. As part of this there will be artists on a jet that starts in NYC and end back here. This should take about two weeks to travel.
The Grand Tour is to document, in many different ways with the help of several artists, an art trip to Basel, Venice and Documenta two years from now. Who do they meet? What are the conversations? Why do they want to go? What are they looking? I suggest the following documentation: Pablo Helguera could video the trip, which is consistent with his 22 country video. But, other artists are also possible. Another artist could make drawings, such as mapping the conversations and the trip. I particularly like the idea of the group not being fixed. It is more like a temporary institution. People would start in NY and others in Europe. One collector would start and another would take there place. This would be true for everyone. Everything is mutable and changeable. Statistics will be gathered, a blog posted and a HD DVD will be made of the whole process.
A schedule will be set when the project and the group interact—when and where. There will be free and private time! Conversations and travels from the start to the end will be documented. This would need academic essay on the historical grand tour.
Ideally some of the art and documents will be exhibited at one of the places in Europe and in New York on the return.
Holly Crawford
AC Institute
212 945 8434
h.c@earthlink.net
Here is link on Grand Tour the was posted by the Met.
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/grtr/hd_grtr.htm
The Grand Tour
Beginning in the late sixteenth century, it became fashionable for young aristocrats to visit Paris, Venice, Florence, and above all Rome, as the culmination of their classical education. Thus was born the idea of the Grand Tour, a practice which introduced Englishmen, Germans, Scandinavians, and also Americans to the art and culture of France and Italy for the next 300 years. Travel was arduous and costly throughout the period, possible only for a privileged class—the same that produced gentleman scientists, authors, antiquaries, and patrons of the arts.
Beginning in the late sixteenth century, it became fashionable for young aristocrats to visit Paris, Venice, Florence, and above all Rome, as the culmination of their classical education. Thus was born the idea of the Grand Tour, a practice which introduced Englishmen, Germans, Scandinavians, and also Americans to the art and culture of France and Italy for the next 300 years. Travel was arduous and costly throughout the period, possible only for a privileged class—the same that produced gentleman scientists, authors, antiquaries, and patrons of the arts. The Objectives of the Grand Tour The Grand Tourist was typically a young man with a thorough grounding in Greek and Latin literature as well as some leisure time, some means, and some interest in art. The German traveler Johann Joachim Winckelmann pioneered the field of art history with his comprehensive study of Greek and Roman sculpture; he was portrayed by his friend Anton Raphael Mengs at the beginning of his long residence in Rome (48.141). Most Grand Tourists, however, stayed for briefer periods and set out with less scholarly intentions, accompanied by a teacher or guardian, and expected to return home with souvenirs of their travels as well as an understanding of art and architecture formed by exposure to great masterpieces. London was a frequent starting point for Grand Tourists, and Paris a compulsory destination; many traveled to the Netherlands, some to Switzerland and Germany, and a very few adventurers to Spain, Greece, or Turkey. The essential place to visit, however, was Italy. The British traveler Charles Thompson speaks for many Grand Tourists when in 1744 he describes himself as "being impatiently desirous of viewing a country so famous in history, which once gave laws to the world; which is at present the greatest school of music and painting, contains the noblest productions of statuary and architecture, and abounds with cabinets of rarities, and collections of all kinds of antiquities." Within Italy, the great focus was Rome, whose ancient ruins and more recent achievements were shown to every Grand Tourist. Panini’s Ancient Rome (52.63.1) and Modern Rome (52.63.2) represent the sights most prized, including celebrated Greco-Roman statues and views of famous ruins, fountains, and churches. Since there were few museums anywhere in Europe before the close of the eighteenth century, Grand Tourists often saw paintings and sculptures by gaining admission to private collections, and many were eager to acquire examples of Greco-Roman and Italian art for their own collections. In England, where architecture was increasingly seen as an aristocratic pursuit, noblemen often applied what they learned from the villas of Palladio in the Veneto and the evocative ruins of Rome to their own country houses and gardens.
The Grand Tour and the Arts Many artists benefited from the patronage of Grand Tourists eager to procure mementos of their travels. Pompeo Batoni painted portraits of aristocrats in Rome surrounded by classical staffage (03.37.1), and many travelers bought (Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s prints of Roman views, including ancient structures like the Colosseum (59.570.426), and more recent monuments like the Piazza del Popolo (37.45.3.49), the dazzling Baroque entryway to Rome. Some Grand Tourists invited artists from home to accompany them throughout their travels, making views specific to their own itineraries; the British artist Richard Wilson, for example, made drawings of Italian places while traveling with the earl of Dartmouth in the mid-eighteenth century (1972.118.294). Classical taste and an interest in exotic customs shaped travelers’ itineraries as well as their reactions. Gothic buildings, not much esteemed before the late eighteenth century, were seldom cause for long excursions, while monuments of Greco-Roman antiquity, the Italian Renaissance, and the classical Baroque tradition received praise and admiration. Jean Rigaud’s views of Paris were well suited to the interests of Grand Tourists, displaying, for example, the architectural grandeur of the Louvre, still a royal palace, and the bustle of life along the Seine (53.600.1191, 53.600.1175). Canaletto’s views of Venice (1973.634, 1988.162) were much prized, and other works appealed to Northern travelers’ interest in exceptional fêtes and customs: Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo’s Burial of Punchinello (1975.1.473), for instance, is peopled with characters from the Venetian carnival, and a print by Francesco Piranesi and Louis-Jean Desprez depicts the Girandola, a spectacular fireworks display held at the Castel Sant’Angelo (69.510). Desprez depicts the Girandola, a spectacular fireworks display held at the Castel Sant’Angelo (69.510). The Grand Tour and Neoclassical Taste The Grand Tour gave concrete form to Northern Europeans’ ideas about the Greco-Roman world and helped foster Neoclassical ideals. The most ambitious tourists visited excavations at such sites as Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Tivoli, and purchased antiquities to decorate their homes. The third duke of Beaufort brought from Rome the third-century work named the Badminton Sarcophagus (55.11.5) after the house where he proudly installed it in Gloucestershire. The dining rooms of Robert Adam’s interiors typically incorporated classical statuary; the nine lifesized figures set in niches in the Lansdowne dining room (32.12) were among the many antiquities acquired by the second earl of Shelburne, whose collecting activities accelerated after 1771, when he visited Italy and met Gavin Hamilton, a noted antiquary and one of the first dealers to take an interest in Attic ceramics, then known as "Etruscan vases." Early entrepreneurs recognized opportunities created by the culture of the Grand Tour: when the second duchess of Portland obtained a Roman cameo glass vase in a much-publicized sale, Josiah Wedgwood profited from the manufacture of jasper reproductions (94.4.172 Jean Sorabella Independent Scholar