© 2004 by Design History Society
Fine Art and the Fan 1860–1930
University of Canterbury, New Zealand
The fan made a surprising appearance in fine art from the 1860s to the 1920s, from the rise of Japonisme to the establishment of a recognizably twentieth-century form of modern art. The locus for this change in its currency was created by several key trends in this period, aesthetic and social. From Whistler, through the Impressionist circle and thence to the Nabis, male and female artists adopted it as both a motif and a form in their development of a modern aesthetic. At the same time, it became a key form in the repertoire of fin-de-siècle arts, connoting decadence rather than modernity. The fan, previously associated stereotypically with personal adornment and the feminine and thus carrying ephemeral cultural status, became prominent in the design and fine art fields as their borders dissolved and as the territories of gender became mobile in the development of a modernity orchestrated by consumerism. This trend links cultural activities in Britain, France and their colonies, such as Australia.
Key Words: consumption—crafts history—decorative arts—gender—gendered consumption—modernism