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Network has become a much used term in modernist studies, but what is a network and what does it tell us about a periodical? A network is a series of connections, the study of which reveals not only the modes of production, readership and social and political niches of journals, but also the constituent elements of their aesthetic discourse. This article explores the biographical, commercial and institutional connections of three periodicals at the beginning of the 20th century - the Art Journal, Connoisseur and Burlington Magazine - within the year 1903. Their different approaches to art historical analysis are also examined, not as abstract philosophies unbounded by constraints of time or context, but interpreted as texts originating from a specific and shifting history, in which the relationship with the art market emerges as crucial.
Premise
As early as 2001 Julie Codell, in her oft-cited review of Robyn Asleson's Albert Moore, made some important methodological observations on the use of Victorian periodicals by art historians.1 Even if the study of art periodicals has grown much since then, many of Codell's points are not only still compelling today but also apply to the study of Edwardian periodicals and the art press in general. Codell pointed out the wide range of Victorian periodicals that generated critical discourse on the visual arts but also noted how art historians made only limited critical use of this remarkable resource, relying in the main on periodicals as works of reference or using them as archival documents, like letters and diary entries. Despite the introduction of poststructuralist theories, Codell lamented that art historians continued to regard the press as an unmediated voice and an objective response. The press, instead, Codell argued, created a network of allegiances, cultural interests and a political economy of art, and deserved to be critiqued as such. This essay aims to take Codell's invitation to a wider methodological approach as its premise and begin to recreate the networks of writers - their institutional and commercial connections - centered around three journals at the turn of the 20th century: the Art Journal (founded 1839), The Connoisseur (1901) and The Burlington Magazine (1903) - within one year, 1903. 'Network' is a concept greatly favoured in current literary studies and it...