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19c Tissot painting found on the net

Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2005 2:20 am
by Alexandra Thrift
Image
http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/a ... rance.html

With this commentary:(further down the page)

"Also remember that Tissot painted his painting at the height of the British Empire.

Studies of the painting have shown that the dress of the boys depicted in the painting can be identified as being that of Christ's Hospital School in suburban Hertford. I think closer examination of the painting will reveal that this semblance of a transparent and objective vision is illusory, and that Tissot in constructing this painting is making an assertive statement of British ideologies of the period, their attitude to the world, and their position in history."

Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 9:59 pm
by UserRemovedAccount
I think that there are a few errors here. The boys were not, or course, from CH in suburban Hertford, but from CH in very urban Newgate Street - not very far from the scene of this picture. I also think that the text accompanying the pic "Studies of..." to "...in history"(below) and on the museum site with the picture is pretty average garbage. I have read several accounts of CH in the Victorian era where it is reported that the boys used to earn a few coins from gullible visitors by showing them the sites of London town - as here. Thus, all this business about "asserting the British ideologies" etc is bunkum. Indeed, quite why CH should be considered as representative of the British Empire eludes me - not least because it antedates the Empire by several centuries!
So there!

Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 10:15 pm
by englishangel
petard249 wrote:I think that there are a few errors here. The boys were not, or course, from CH in suburban Hertford, but from CH in very urban Newgate Street - not very far from the scene of this picture. I also think that the text accompanying the pic "Studies of..." to "...in history"(below) and on the museum site with the picture is pretty average garbage. I have read several accounts of CH in the Victorian era where it is reported that the boys used to earn a few coins from gullible visitors by showing them the sites of London town - as here. Thus, all this business about "asserting the British ideologies" etc is bunkum. Indeed, quite why CH should be considered as representative of the British Empire eludes me - not least because it antedates the Empire by several centuries!
So there!
I think I tend to agree with petard.

The piece on the museum page shows a significant lack of academic rigour and a significant amount of bullsh*t.

The boy looks young

Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2005 1:18 am
by Alexandra Thrift
11 or 12 years IMO. The younger boys were still at Hertford weren't they ?

Could the Empire connection be the young ex-C.H.men taken on as sea-faring apprentices :?: and plantation owners assistants etc

TISSOT

Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2005 11:53 am
by UserRemovedAccount
Alexandra (if I may?),
You are quite right that the younger boys were at Hertford until 1902 (-ish), but I doubt very much that they would have been loitering around the centre of London in uniform. Quite apart from whether they would have been allowed out, I would have thought that the costs and complexity of a return journey from Hertford to London and back would have been prohibitive to Housie children in the 1870s who were, by definition, short of money.
So, I believe that the balance of probability is that the boys seen here were from Newgate Street and that whoever captioned the picture simply got the two establishments muddled. As to the bit about the British Empire, I take your point about Old Blues being sent to the colonies, but I agree with englishangel that the text accompanying the picture is pretty abysmal.

Re: TISSOT

Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2005 11:56 am
by englishangel
petard249 wrote:Alexandra (if I may?),
You are quite right that the younger boys were at Hertford until 1902 (-ish), but I doubt very much that they would have been loitering around the centre of London in uniform. Quite apart from whether they would have been allowed out, I would have thought that the costs and complexity of a return journey from Hertford to London and back would have been prohibitive to Housie children in the 1870s who were, by definition, short of money.
So, I believe that the balance of probability is that the boys seen here were from Newgate Street and that whoever captioned the picture simply got the two establishments muddled. As to the bit about the British Empire, I take your point about Old Blues being sent to the colonies, but I agree with englishangel that the text accompanying the picture is pretty abysmal.
Yes, why use a word of one or two syllables when when an incomprehensible one of four or more will do?

Or does that belong on the 'Mysteries of the Universe' thread?

Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2005 12:06 pm
by Richard Ruck
"Culture can be defined as those social practices [or discourses] whose prime aim is signification, i.e. the production of sense or making orders of 'sense' for the world we live in. Culture is the social level in which are produced those images of the world and definitions of reality which can be ideologically mobilized to legitimize the existing order of relations of domination and subordination between classes, races, and sexes." (Griselda Pollock, Vision and Difference: Feminity, Feminisism, and Histories of Art, New York, 1988, p. 20). :roll:

What makes people write this stuff??

Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2005 8:06 am
by englishangel
Richard Ruck wrote:"Culture can be defined as those social practices [or discourses] whose prime aim is signification, i.e. the production of sense or making orders of 'sense' for the world we live in. Culture is the social level in which are produced those images of the world and definitions of reality which can be ideologically mobilized to legitimize the existing order of relations of domination and subordination between classes, races, and sexes." (Griselda Pollock, Vision and Difference: Feminity, Feminisism, and Histories of Art, New York, 1988, p. 20). :roll:

What makes people write this stuff??
Do you think this might have something to do with it?

Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2005 8:37 am
by sport!
nice painting, pretentious twaddle from Griselda.....I blame her parents

the only other Griselda I can recall is Griselda Fishfinger :D

Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2005 8:55 am
by Richard Ruck
englishangel wrote:
Richard Ruck wrote:"Culture can be defined as those social practices [or discourses] whose prime aim is signification, i.e. the production of sense or making orders of 'sense' for the world we live in. Culture is the social level in which are produced those images of the world and definitions of reality which can be ideologically mobilized to legitimize the existing order of relations of domination and subordination between classes, races, and sexes." (Griselda Pollock, Vision and Difference: Feminity, Feminisism, and Histories of Art, New York, 1988, p. 20). :roll:

What makes people write this stuff??
Do you think this might have something to do with it?
Could be a clue, I suppose! :lol:

TISSOT PICTURE

Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 5:43 pm
by UserRemovedAccount
Apropos the painting which started all this, I have a feeling it is currently in exhibition in London (on loan from its US owner). Can anyone confirm this, please, and say where it is and for how long?

Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2006 6:36 am
by englishangel
I have emailed the Toledo Museum of Art to ask.

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 10:15 pm
by englishangel
It is in the museum in Toledo, Ohio on permanent exhibition.

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 4:56 pm
by michael scuffil
The picture is called "London Visitors". It is used for the front jacket illustration of a book called "London" by an American called John Russell (pub. 1994).

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 11:58 am
by englishangel
Well there you are then, London not Hertford