“A Pretty Big Pot of Money”:The Formation of American Taste and the Commodification of Art in

Frank Norris’s The Pit

Frank Norris, Artist

Source: Teague, David. “Frank Norris and the Visual Arts.” Frank Norris Studies 19 (1994): 4-8. Print.

The Jadwins’ Gallery“here and there about the room were glass cabinets full of bibelots, ivory statuettes, old snuff boxes, fans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The walls themselves were covered with a multitude of pictures, oils, water-colours, with one or two pastels” (175)

Painting gallery of the Lockhart residence, c. 1899.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau“‘I don’t know much about ‘em myself, but Laura can tell you. We bought most of ‘em while we were abroad, year before last. Laura says this is the best.’ He indicated a large ‘Bouguereau’ that represented a group of nymphs bathing in a woodland pool” (175).

“Nymphs and Satyr.” 1873. Oil on canvas. 102 in. x 71 in.

Edouard Détaille

“It was one of the inevitable studies of a cuirassier; in this case a trumpeter, one arm high in the air, the hand clutching the trumpet, the horse, foam-flecked, at a furious gallop. In the rear, through clouds of dust, the rest of the squadron was indicated by a few points of colour” (176).

“Charge of the 4th Hussars at the Battle of Friedland.” 1891. Oil on canvas. 148 in x 175 in.

Edouard Détaille

“queer way these artists work…Look at it close up and it’s just a lot of little daubs, but you get off a distance…and you see now. Hey—see how the thing bunches up. Pretty neat, isn’t it?” (176).

“Trumpeter of the French Cuirassiers Going to Battle.”

William-Adolphe Bouguereau“it demands less of you than some others. It see what you mean. It pleases you because it satisfies you so easily. You can grasp it without any effort” (218).

“but…I thought that Bouguereau was considered the greatest—one of the greatest—his wonderful flesh-tints, the drawing, and colouring—” (218).

“Nymphs and Satyr.” 1873. Oil on canvas. 102 in. x 71 in.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau

“The Birth of Venus.” 1879. Oil on canvas. 118 in. x 85.5 in.

“Amor and Psyche, children.” 1890. Oil on canvas. 47 in. x 28 in.

“The Return of Spring.” 1886. Oil on canvas. 79 in. x 46 in.

The Hudson River School

“Don’t you know that the artist saw something more than trees and a pool and afterglow? He had that feeling of night coming on, as he sat there before his sketching easel on the edge of that little pool. He heard the frogs beginning to pipe, I’m sure, and the touch of the night mist was on his hands. And he was very lonely and even a little sad. In those deep shadows under the trees he put something of himself, the gloom and the sadness that he felt at the moment….Oh, yes, I prefer it to the nymphs” (219).

Sanford Robinson Gifford, “Lake Twilight.” 1861. Oil on canvas. 16 in. x 28 in.

The Hudson River School

Albert Bierstadt, “Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California.”

Albert Bierstadt, “Looking Down Yosemite Valley, California.”

Frederic Edwin Church, “Twilight in the Wilderness.”

Frederic Edwin Church, “Cross in the Wilderness.”