| Of the various types of people found in the nineteenth-century city of Paris, critical attention has yet to be focused on the amateur as lover of art. The word did not then connote dilettante in the way it now does, but rather was closer to its derivation from the Latin Amor . The amateur was a passionate collector of art, who often also made art as well. His collections were gathered according to his personal taste and were arranged in harmonious ensembles in the long-standing tradition of the private collector rather than in the newly chronologically-ordered installation of the museum.; In the Third Republic, when collecting art was becoming more and more popular, the amateur stood out as a self-consciously traditional figure. Rather than participating in the cult of the bibelot or the scholarly study of art, he maintained a very personal attachment to art. This love of art was couched in gender-specific language such that the amateur was always considered to be male, even in a time in which collecting by women was becoming more common.; The amateurs installed their collections such that the prevailing logic was one of dialogue in which the artwork was seen as changeable and interactive. The amateur was very close to the flâneur as a type and can understood as a kind of indoor flâneur, strolling amongst his artworks as amongst so many acquaintances, interacting with them as friends, or indeed as lovers.; This study will examine both the typology of the amateur and the display of art within the house of the amateur by means of a close examination of texts and images from the period, including sales catalogues and a photographic collection of portraits by the photographer known only as Dornac. Among the themes discussed are the social standing of the amateur, the discourse of taste and love with regard to the identity of the amateur, the practice of book collection as it relates to the divide between amateur and connoisseur and two case studies of spaces of collection: the cabinet de travail and the billiards room. |
