The Forms and Fictions of Victorian Art Instruction

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Kimberly J. Stern (Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

The Forms and Fictions of Victorian Art Instruction

Name: The Forms and Fictions of Victorian Art Instruction
Price: 208.95 AUD
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ISBN: 9780198962922

Kimberly J. Stern (Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

$208.95

Hardback

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English

Oxford University Press
18 December 2025

History of art & design styles: c 1800 to c 1900; Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 ; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900

The Victorian period gave rise to revelatory new approaches to art instruction. A growing investment in standardized education, the rise of exhibition culture, and an expanding body of literature devoted to the teaching of art all contributed to very public and sometimes contentious debates about art pedagogy. Surveying a range of instructional scenarios-from the schoolroom to the Royal Academy - The Forms and Fictions of Victorian Art Instruction reveals the creative and even radical methods nineteenth-century writers brought to questions that inform educational debate to this day. What is the role of art in the learning process? Should art instruction provide students with practical skills, or does art defy such instrumental concerns? Above all, is it possible for art instruction to impose structure on the learning process while also nurturing the creative autonomy art demands? Through an interdisciplinary and deeply historical account of art instruction that incorporates fiction, poetry, art manuals, and innovative hybrid genres, this book contends that nineteenth-century writers defended the educational value of art by abandoning expository writing in favor of highly experimental literary forms. In this way, The Forms and Fictions of Victorian Art Instruction supplies a new history of art teachingDLone that sheds light on the educational and cultural dilemmas we continue to face today.

By: Kimberly J. Stern (Professor of English and Comparative Literature Professor of English and Comparative Literature The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 240mm, Width: 162mm, Spine: 20mm
Weight: 603g
ISBN: 9780198962922
ISBN 10: 0198962924
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 18 December 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Undergraduate , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

1: Introduction: Drawing Outside the Lines 2: ""A Temple of the Fine Arts"": The Miseducation of the Victorian Art Student 3: ""A Broken Kind of Shade"": The Obscure Teachings of John Ruskin 4: ""Lending Our Minds Out"": Lessons on the Grammar of Art 5: ""Nature's Test"": The Aesthete's Guide to Practical Education Epilogue: ""The Limit-Line"": The Legacies of Victorian Art Instruction

Kimberly J. Stern is Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she specializes in Victorian literature and culture. She has published an edition of Oscar Wilde's Salomé (Broadview Press, 2015) and is the author of The Social Life of Criticism: Gender, Critical Writing, and the Politics of Belonging (University of Michigan Press, 2016) and Oscar Wilde: A Literary Life (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). Her work has appeared in such venues as Victorian Literature and Culture, Victorian Review, and Prose Studies.