The Europeans: Photographs by Tina Barney.THE EUROPEANS: PHOTOGRAPHS BY TINA BARNEY London and Gottingen: Barbican Art Gallery and Steidl Publishers, 192 pp./$50.00 (hb). Quite possibly, the only milieu more rarefied than the upper crust WASPs that have comprised the mainstay of Tina TINA There Is No Alternative TINA Transport Infrastructure Needs Assessment (EU) TINA Truth In Negotiations Act TINA TINA Is No Acronym TINA Telecommunication Information Network Architecture Barney's photographs since the start of her career is the one illustrated in her immaculate new title, The Europeans. Barney reveals that in 1996, while a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome American Academy in Rome, founded in 1894 as the American School of Architecture in Rome by Charles F. McKim and enlarged in 1897 with the founding of the American Academy in Rome for students of architecture, sculpture, and painting. , she found herself "without a clue" as to what to photograph. When she realized that her fascination with the aristocratic faces and mannerly man·ner·ly adj. Having or showing good manners. See Synonyms at polite. adv. With good manners; politely. man postures of the privileged was just as easily indulged in western Europe, Barney traveled through Austria, England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain shooting the images that finally culminated in a 2005 exhibition at London's Barbican Centre and this publication. There is more than a titular deference to Henri Cartier-Bresson's charming 1955 project of the same name here, but Barney's is a wholly Jamesian lens. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It is not surprising to learn that Barney was introduced to many of her physically stunning human subjects through Sotheby's auction house, as objets de luxe repeatedly upstage their patrician owners in these portraits. Most arresting are The Tapestry (1996-98) in which a strong-jawed contessa con·tes·sa n. An Italian countess. [Italian, feminine of conte, count, from Late Latin comes, comit-; see count2.] is no match for the medieval weft, warp, and embroidered em·broi·der v. em·broi·dered, em·broi·der·ing, em·broi·ders v.tr. 1. To ornament with needlework: embroider a pillow cover. 2. velvet that surround her, and The Daughters (2002) in which even a French woman's inestimably chic dress is visually swamped by the weighty fabrics of antiquity behind her. It is Barney's enigmatic but unerring sense of composition that differentiates these photographs from ordinary society spreads, and her laconic titles also draw one's attention to such details of difference; only among European nobility could The Fencing Lesson (1996-98) be seen as a mundane moment. Barney's painterly command of continental color recalls Edouard Manet in its drama and Henri Matisse in its joy, but ultimately, it is Barney's ability to insinuate in·sin·u·ate v. in·sin·u·at·ed, in·sin·u·at·ing, in·sin·u·ates v.tr. 1. To introduce or otherwise convey (a thought, for example) gradually and insidiously. See Synonyms at suggest. 2. a disquieted narrative that is the most seductive element of this work. ALISIA CHASE, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Art Department at the State University of New York at Brockport The State University of New York at Brockport, also known as SUNY Brockport, Brockport State University or the State University of New York College at Brockport, is a four-year liberal arts college located in Brockport, Monroe County, New York, near Rochester. . |
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