Medieval revival from an American point of view : the writings of James Jackson Jarves

Abstract

In the second half of the 19th century James Jackson Jarves (1818-1888) worked hard to sensitise the American public about the creation fo museums and galleries of ancient paintings. In 1852 he settled in Florence, where he dedicated himself to the study of primitive Tuscan painting. He created a collection of Italian paintings, today at Yale University Art Gallery, published a number of books and many articles in the most influential American journal, in which he elaborated an American version of the Anglo-Saxon Medieval Revival. In 1861, he wrote the first history of Italian painting conceived expressly for an American public. In his writings, which represent a prologue to the complex relation between American culture and Italian painting of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Jarves took on themes such as the influence of art in society or the analysis of the international market and collecting, which were to become central to the American debate on artistic institution.