audiobook Construction the Third Way by John Bennett in Arts-Photography

Description

The late nineteenth-century Biloxi potter; George Ohr; was considered an eccentric in his time but has emerged as a major figure in American art since the discovery of thousands of examples of his work in the 1960s. Currently; Ohr is celebrated as a solitary genius who foreshadowed modern art movements. While an intriguing narrative; this view offers a narrow understanding of the man and his work that has hindered serious consideration.Ellen J. Lippert; in her expansive study of Ohr and his Gilded Age context; counters this fable. The tumultuous historical moment that Ohr inhabited was a formative force in his life and work. Using primary documentation; Lippert identifies specific cultural changes that had the most impact on Ohr. Developments in visual display and the altered role of artists; the southerner redefined in the wake of the Civil War; interest in handicraft as an alternative to rampant mass production; emerging tenets of social thought seeking to remedy worker exploitation; and new assessments of morals and beauty as a result of collapsed ideals all played into the positioning Ohr purposefully designed for himself.The second part of Lipperts study applies these observations to Ohrs body of work; interpreting his stylistic originality to be expressions of the contradictions and oppositions particular to late nineteenth-century America. Ohr threw his inspiration into being both the sophisticate and the "rube;" the commercial huckster and the selfless artist; the socialist and the individualist; the "old-fashioned" craftsman and the "artist-genius." He created art pottery as both a salable commodity and a priceless creation. His work could be ugly and deformed (or even obscene) and beautiful. Lippert reveals that far from isolated; Ohr and his creations were very much products of his inspired engagement with the late nineteenth century.