Charles Colbert responds to review of _A Measure of Perfection_
Charles Colbert responds to review of _A Measure of Perfection_
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 07:46:29 -0500
Response of Michael Sappol, by Charles Colbert
I found Michael Sappol's review of my book to be perceptive and full of
helpful suggestions. Many of the questions he raises were on my mind while I
was writing, and I am glad to have the opportunity here to delineate some of
the reasons for the choices that were made.
_A Measure of Perfection: Phrenology and the Fine Arts in American_ has been
classified by the Library of Congress under the rubric of history, and this
seems to have led to some misunderstanding; those seeking an account of the
reception and eventual demise of phrenology in the United States may be
disappointed. There is little in the book, for example, about the medical
discoveries that contributed to its repudiation. My perspective was that of an
art historian; the larger considerations of social and intellectual history
are, no doubt, interesting, but they were beyond my purview, and would have
made the text, I believe, too cumbersome. These developments have been
related in Madeleine Stern's _Heads and Headlines: The Phrenological Fowlers_
(1971), and to have expanded on her analysis would not have served my
purposes.
I was simply unable to document the gradual disaffection of artists for the
theory. They were not obliged to repudiate its contentions in the way
physicians were, hence the evidence peters out. Dr. Sappol suggests that
artists "came to regard phrenology as a plebeian, embodied, unrefined, and
irrational thing", this is probably true, but I could find no verification of
the supposition. Instead, I let Mark Twain speak for his culture on the
subject; his satire on the phrenological activities of the "Duke of
Bridgewater" served to indicate how an intelligent individual in the later
decades of the century would have responded to the claims made by followers of
the doctrine. I was reluctant to speak for others because it seemed that this
predilection was too often responsible for the misperceptions of phrenology as
they have appeared in histories of art.
Having said this, however, I should also add that I sought to indicate how the
basis for belief in phrenology evolved through the century. The first chapter
is dedicated to demonstrating that its initial popularity with lawyers and
physicians was soon replaced by the activities of "practical phrenologists,"
the examiners of heads most familiar to our time. From this point on, the
doctrine accumulated diverse occult beliefs, including spiritualism and
Mesmerism, seemingly in compensation for its abandonment by the mainstream
medical community. More on this will be found in chapter two, where the
comparison of Thomas Cole and Elihu Vedder is based on the shifting
epistemological foundation of phrenology.
Dr. Sappol mentions the fact that I do not review the responses of other art
historians to phrenology, and there is some truth to this observation. I
suspect the reason for the neglect is less interesting than he would
anticipate. I note in the introduction (xiv) that my article on Hiram Powers
appeared in "The Art Bulletin", the leading scholarly publication devoted to
art history. The work that appears in this journal is supposed to set the
standard for the field, but not one of the six or seven subsequent discussions
devoted to Powers's "Greek Slave" have acknowledged this essay. My own
thoughts on this circumstance would not reflect well on the discipline, and I
prefer to let the reader draw his or her own conclusions. I will say that with
the exception of one or two authors, the accounts of phrenology given by art
historians have been uninformed and would not repay a systematic review. Where
such accounts pertain to the sculpture and painting examined in the book, they
are evaluated (see, for example, 59, 61, 82, 104-5, 147, 170, 179, 184-6,
194, 284, 292-4, and 302).
Regarding the relationship of phrenology to other reforms of the day, I
believe I say a great deal. Certainly, there are long passages on Swedenborg,
Mesmerism, spiritualism, vegetarianism, and so on. Much of chapter eight is
devoted to the impact of phrenology on utopian societies. Here Dr. Sappol is
quite correct in pointing out that these crusades were not entirely
phrenological, that gray areas exist. George Combe's "The Constitution of Man"
could be appreciated by those who were not necessarily sympathetic to
phrenology. I tried to take this into account and regulate my conclusions
accordingly. Since Asher Durand, for instance, called Combe "the Phrenological
Philosopher" (129), it seems fair to assume that this artist responded
favorably to the phrenological tenets Combe put forth. Too much would have
been lost had I decided to remove all consideration of allied reforms, and, in
any case, it was my intention to remind readers that phrenology was more than
just bumps on the head.
The one criticism included by Dr. Sappol with which I would like to express
some disagreement is his remark that I flatly reject an abolitionist reading
of Powers's "Greek Slave." I feel that it was a minor current in the response
to this statue, and that the contemporary reviews largely favored the analysis
advanced by phrenology. The interpretation I did set out to deny is that
Powers was an abolitionist; his letters, in fact, are filled with
condemnations of this movement. The "Slave" is about race, but this by means
of the eugenic agenda advanced by the Fowlers; I find the oft repeated
equation of the "Greek Slave" with black slavery somewhat hollow. Dr. Soppol
is right to wonder if contemporaries would have made the connection even
though they did not commit their thoughts to paper. This issue is rather
prickly. What right have I to speak for them?, remember, Nixon maintained that
the silent majority always thought precisely as he did, but this tactic is too
often self-serving. It has been taken with regard to the "Greek Slave",
usually in lieu of the harder task of archival research. I wanted more than
assumptions because the assumptions that have been expressed with regard to
phrenology have usually been misguided.
This raises one final issue, what I regard the possibility of disassociation.
Perhaps most viewers of the "Greek Slave" made no connection whatsoever with
the enslavement of blacks. How else could the statue be exhibited in New
Orleans to such large crowds? In this respect I hid in a footnote (p. 416,
#95) the account of a "tableau vivant" put on by a group of Southern ladies
during the Civil War to raise funds for the soldiers at the front. It depicted
a Turkish slave market and, no doubt, was a slightly more clothed version of
Powers's statue. But, how could this possibly have been intended to call into
question the justice of our "peculiar institution"? You might say that these
were the operations of the unconscious mind, that some unrecognized feelings
of guilt were unleashed. To make this assertion without documentation is, in
my opinion, to step beyond the pale of history and to indulge psychohistory. I
would not begrudge anyone the effort, but I am not qualified or inclined to do
so myself.
Dr. Sappol's comments remind me that there is still more to be said about
phrenology. I do not consider my research on the subject to be at an end,
and, thanks to this forum, I find myself learning more with each exchange of
ideas.
Charles Colbert
Boston College
apcolbert@aol.com