{"id":303017,"date":"2025-11-20T10:44:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T10:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/303017\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T10:44:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T10:44:08","slug":"edwin-austin-abbey-review-an-american-flex-with-lashings-of-gold-and-nudity-art-and-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/303017\/","title":{"rendered":"Edwin Austin Abbey review \u2013 an American flex with lashings of gold and nudity | Art and design"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oh say can you see, by the dawn\u2019s early light, how a huge painting covered in writhing nudes and gold leaf could be a symbol of US power? Not a huge leap is it? And here it is, in the National Gallery, Edwin Austin Abbey\u2019s study for The Hours, a huge circular painting<\/a> which adorns the ceiling of the Pennsylvania state capitol \u2013 a bold, blue and gold testament to the US\u2019s glory.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to believe \u2013 with museums everywhere begging for money from arms dealers and drug barons, and the arts becoming increasingly defunded \u2013 that back in turn-of-the-century America, the arts had value. And Abbey reaped the benefits. He was born in the US in 1852 but made his name in the UK. And when the big kahunas from the newly megarich Pennsylvania came knocking, he answered the call of the motherland.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania had abundant natural resources, vast amounts of industry, and when its statehouse in Harrisburg burned down in 1897 they decided their new one had to be grand, opulent \u2013 and covered with gold leaf. The US really hasn\u2019t changed that much.<\/p>\n

Abbey\u2019s compositional study for The Apotheosis of Pennsylvania mural, about 1902-1911. Photograph: Yale University Art Gallery<\/p>\n

Abbey was commissioned to plaster the new state capitol building in allegorical and historical murals, and the final study for its circular ceiling painting is the big draw of this small, evocative exhibition. At 12ft wide it\u2019s enormous, but still only half the size of the original. Twenty-four figures dance around its circumference in various states of undress \u2013 they are the hours of the day, nude and yawning in the dawn\u2019s early light, and sombrely cloaked in black under the midnight moon. The sky behind them is deep lapis blue, the twinkling stars a field of gold. It\u2019s European symbolism on steroids, Odilon Redon crossed with Gustav Klimt and given an apparently infinite budget.<\/p>\n

What a way to tell the world that you\u2019ve arrived as a big player on the international stage: with gold, nudity and audacious ostentatiousness. To be clear, that\u2019s the point of this: it\u2019s propaganda, soft power, art as a tool of the state. When you\u2019re booming, you do elaborate stuff to make sure everyone knows about it and that\u2019s how art has been used for centuries. You think Michelangelo was commissioned for the Sistine Chapel purely out of religious devotion? It\u2019s cultural muscle flexing, it\u2019s expressions of wealth and power through art.<\/p>\n

Figure study for The Spirit of Vulcan, Genius of the Workers in Iron and Steel, about 1902-08. Photograph: Yale University Art Gallery<\/p>\n

Abbey\u2019s study for The Hours is a pretty, hypnotic swirl of a painting, and all the glistening gold and deep blue is hugely atmospheric. But the painting is also a bit chintzy and rough. None of the figures are particularly fleshed out or neatly delineated, partly because it\u2019s a study, and partly because it was going to go on a ceiling way above your head, so who was going to notice?<\/p>\n

The six studies shown alongside it \u2013 including an ultra-smudgy study for a big group portrait filled with American heroes such as Daniel Boone and Benjamin Franklin \u2013 just leave you wanting to see the finished works. The wall text talks about how this exhibition \u201cbegins to return Abbey to the attention he deserves\u201d. But some rough old studies and a maquette don\u2019t make a hugely convincing argument. \u201cHe\u2019s great, honestly, you\u2019ve just caught him on a bit of a bad day\u201d isn\u2019t a great way to reintroduce audiences to a forgotten painter.<\/p>\n

But the contemporary resonances are many and loud. As Donald Trump remodels the White House in his own gilt-encrusted rococo vomit aesthetic, you realise he\u2019s doing nothing new, that states have always used art to consolidate power, and waste gold reserves in the process.<\/p>\n

Edwin Austin Abbey: By the Dawn\u2019s Early Light is at the National Gallery, London<\/a>, from 20 November to 15 February<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oh say can you see, by the dawn\u2019s early light, how a huge painting covered in writhing nudes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-303017","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}