Introduction: Nineteenth-century Popular Arts

As high art moved away from the universality of the classical ideal of the eighteenth century to a more romantic conception of art based on individual innovation and genius, it became less a force for social and cultural unity and more a forum for individual expression and critique. The unified vision of the classical ideal was not lost; it was relocated to popular culture. How did popular art forms aid in the development of a unified social body through a familiar and shared repertoire of images and viewing experiences? What institutional and economic structures produced these visual commodities? What public did they create? How were they consumed? What were the formal and ideological relations between these popular arts and academic and avantgarde art? This special issue of Visual Resources attempts to answer these questions as broached by popular forms of visual culture such as the diorama, the commercial illustration, the P.T. Barnum humbug and the board game.