@inproceedings{8741717,
  abstract     = {{Historically, photographic reproductions and illustrated art books have had a defining role in the dissemination of art historical ideas and in the perception of artworks. The art books published by Éditions G. Van Oest are remarkable examples of art publishing in the early twentieth century. Operating from Brussels and Paris, Gérard Van Oest (1875-1935) published abundantly illustrated books that stand out because of their quality in photography and print. Among them is Ars Asiatica, a series of 18 volumes on Asian art that ran from 1914 until 1935, edited by French-Russian art historian and orientalist Victor Goloubew (1878- 1945). Goloubew was a member of the École française d’Extrême-Orient and an avid photographer who supplied an extensive amount of the photographs published from his own travels. The series is one of the first detailed and illustrated accounts on Asian art in Europe.
The third volume of the series, Sculptures Çivaïtes (1921), is especially striking. It contains a commissioned essay titled “La danse de çiva” by sculptor Auguste Rodin and 12 heliotypes of two sculptures: a shiva Nataraja (ca. 10th Century) and another dancing shiva (ca. 10th Century) both from the Chennai Museum. Rodin based his text solely on these reproductions that were provided and presumably photographed by Goloubew himself. In his rather poetic account, Rodin celebrates the forms and craft of these sculptures, comparing the grace of the hands to those of the Venus de’ Medici (1st century BC). He also notices shadows, contrast, lighting, and depth—qualities that are visible thanks to the high-quality photographs.
In this paper, I will demonstrate how Van Oest and Goloubew explored the possibilities of the illustrated art book, grouping reproductions of Asian art together, juxtaposing them with bodies of text and other images, and lodging them into a linear, narrative structure. By focusing on the photographic reproductions and structure of Sculptures Çivaïtes and by incorporating critical reflections by theorists such as Walter Benjamin and André Malraux, this paper contributes to the study of art publishing and calls for a critical approach towards photographic reproductions in artbooks as sources of knowledge.}},
  author       = {{Dupré, Elise}},
  booktitle    = {{Photo Workshop 2022, Abstracts}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  location     = {{Universität Heidelberg, online}},
  title        = {{Reading a photograph : Victor Goloubew, Gérard Van Oest and the possibilities of the art book in Ars Asiatica (Éditions G. Van Oest, 1914-1935)}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}