38 thoughts on “Pre-Correlation Art; or, They Just Don’t Illustrate the Kids’ Magazine Like They Used To”

1. Holy Cow!! And it’s a photograph, no less.

2. Am I going to have to change your rating, young lady?!?

   Amazing. I cannot stop laughing. It’s beautiful but…

3. This is simply delightful.

4. I like! This is so cool.

5. Leave it to Ardis to bring us such a beautiful and surprising illustration. The title is perfect.

6. Wow! If I found this while plowing through a library, I’m afraid my first reaction would be to laugh or exclaim in a loud, un-library-ish way.

   Is there any accompanying text? I mean, is the image intended to be self-sufficiently edifying as is or does it extend or clarify a point made elsewhere in the magazine? Is it part of a series of “personifications”?

7. Don’t we have entirely too much fun with our history?!

   Edje, there is an “Art Personified” in the next issue, very similar style with slightly more fabric strategically placed. But neither seems to illustrate any text in the magazine.

   In an odd way, I think it speaks very well for the people of that era, that this could be presented and presumably seen as artistic classicism, with total innocence. Still, weren’t 12-year-old boys always 12-year-old boys?

8. Ardis, when we chatted on Tuesday about stirring things up a bit at your blog, I had no idea you had nudity in mind. I’ve come to grips with our JI blog not being considered “mainstream and orthodox,” but now I’m thinking the original JI might not have passed recents tests of orthodoxy either.

9. And when you think about all the bad press Hannah Montana got for showing a shoulder…

10. First, Ardis, I doubt that 12-year-old boys were spending much time reading the Instructor.

    And, second, who says that art appreciation ends at 13?

11. Who is credited with the photo (I cannot make out the words on the bottom)?

    Methinks that blue drapes are needed at a time like this.

12. Justin, it says “Copyrighted 1893 by A. Zeese & Co.” Like most of the illustrations in the JI, this must have been purchased as general stock from a supply house — no fears that it was some Beehive girl from Fillmore lured into the dens of the Deseret News photography studio for this one.

13. The tubes reveal that A. Zeese and Co. was an outfit in Chicago in 1893.

14. First, Ardis, I doubt that 12-year-old boys were spending much time reading the Instructor.

    I suspect that in August 1906, a great many 12-year-old boys were demonstrating increased piety.

15. Didn’t they used to have subscription drives, where they put the heat on and tried to get everybody to subscribe? Maybe this issue was timed to coincide with the armtwisting.

16. Great find, Ardis.

    A couple weeks ago I was volunteering with my wife to clean the SLC temple. While we were loading things down into the basement, we found a corner that was filled with old paintings and other various artistic items. Then, to our amazement, after we wiped off all the dust (I bet no one had touched them in years), we realized that they were all paintings and illustrations like the one you present here.

    Maybe it was a (however short) phase.

17. Ardis, weren’t you on a picture hunt recently? For old Salt Lake Temple paintings?

18. Jami, yes, we were discussing a Madonna and Child in a post Kristine wrote at BCC. Supposedly representatives of the Museum went through all church properties a few years ago cataloguing all artworks on display in public rooms, hanging in offices, and packed in storerooms. I’ll ask my contacts how thorough the sweep was.

19. Thanks for the info on the photographer. The thing that struck me about the photo was actually not the *ahem*, but the ethnicity of the subject.

    I could be entirely wrong, but she looks Polish to me. That gave me some pause yesterday because I didn’t know if there were any Poles in Utah at the time, so I dismissed the thought.

    Knowing that the photographer was based in Chicago, I just looked up whether Polish emigration to Chicago was underway by 1893 and the answer is yes. It started in the early 1830s. By the 1890s some Polish Americans were among the uppercrust of Chicago society. A couple of recognizable women of Polish ancestry that you might be familiar with are Marie Curie and Martha Stewart, both of whom share those prominent cheekbones with the subject of this photograph.

    Following Mark IV’s link, A. Zeese comes up just a handful of times in the Library of Congress online catalog and it is always for ethnic photographs. (Plus one fur trader.)

    Another trail to follow in identifying this portrait: 1893 Chicago was the site of the World’s Columbian Exposition, also known as the World’s Fair. It would have been a time for a great volume of artistic output and at that point there would have been gathered to Chicago from many of the nations of the earth. A. Zeese may only have been in Chicago for the Eexposition.

20. …or Exposition…

21. I can well imagine that if this young woman had been from Manti or Brigham City or Smithfield, her dance card at the next stake dance would have filled up very quickly.

22. I did some research and discovered that A. Zeese appears to be Alexander Zeese, who was born in Saxony in 1827, emigrated to the U.S. in 1852, and set up an electrotype business with a partner in Chicago in 1856. The Chicago firm of A. Zeese & Co., formed in 1861, handled electrotyping, process engraving, and map and relief-line work. The firm exhibited process engravings and electrotypes at the Columbian Exposition. Zeese was killed by a fall in Chicago in Jan. 1899.

23. This photograph suggests that we have become more puritanical than our forebears (or at least than the editorial staff of the Instructor in 1906. (Wasn’t President McKay the President of the Deseret Sunday School Union back then?)

    On that topic, can’t we find some photographs of BYU coeds wearing strapless or spaghetti-strap gowns back in the 1950s? Or is my memory playing tricks on me?

24. And I’m reminded again why this is one of my favorite blogs to visit….

25. Am I the only one that noticed the breast is lighter than the rest of the skin? That looks just a tad fishy…

26. Yeah, sort of fishbelly white fishy.

27. The homecoming queen portraits on the 3rd floor of the Wilk definitely had off-the-shoulder dresses, and were up during my time at BYU (03-08).

    For the record, my breasts are lighter than my skin. I think it may be related to sun exposure, but I’m not sure. 🙂

28. Also, I am surprised that the exposed breast somehow seems so much bigger than the covered breast.

29. Perhaps I am an artistic reprobate, but I do not find the image to be an adequate personification of music. Muse, yes . . .

30. It is fun, though.

31. Personally, I believe that at least some of the 12 year boys of 1906 once they got wind of this illustration, sought out copies of the JI not only for their own edification but also for their friends. Those precocious bounders were also likely to be out back behind the barn experimenting with tobacco and demon rum. A few years later, when they knew that a mission call might arrive any day, called themselves to repentance and later went forth to serve. By the time they returned they were well and truly converted and would blush when an old friend reminded them of those ‘good old days’. After all, men are such dogs!
    As to the paleness of the bared breast, this could also be attributed to the fact that it might discreetly be covered in a fine fabric such as silk or ‘chiffon’.

32. I doubt anyone noticed — after all, they “just read it for the articles.”

33. I wonder if during that time period art students at BYU were allowed to use nude models to learn their craft? Or if they still had to wait until they were married to learn what the muscles underneath the clothing looks like.

34. I’m trying not to look too hard, but is it possible the breast was “photoshopped” by whatever mechanical and artistic methods were availlable at that time? Perhaps the female commenters can tell whether it’s real or “Mammary”-Ex, but I’m not so sure.

35. IDIAT, it’s real, and it’s spectacular.

36. Ardis @35 for the win.

37. When people wring their hands over the deep, dark secrets of Mormonism, how do they fail to include this dubious episode in the standard list of polygamy, MMM, etc. You’ve had this up on Keepa since 2008, Ardis! 2008, people!! When people start discovering this photo a few years down the road, they’ll be shocked — shocked — that this wasn’t in the curriculum, and start blaming anyone, everyone, for not letting them know.

38. Well, Anonymous, if only the church had kept us abreast of this deep (but not all that dark–at least, it looks pretty non-dark to me) secret, there wouldn’t have been a problem.

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