Book Reviews ing with eating disorders range from traditional (set realistic standards for beauty, don’t resort to dieting) to unique (reconnect with food, learn to cook). She presents a prototypic model for treatment of eating disorders called “Appetite for Change.” This group, for women with disordered eating patterns, combines group therapy, cooking and nutrition lessons, and dinner, allowing women to connect both with other women and with food. My only complaint about Manton’s presentation of the “Appetite for Change” group is that it may leave some readers frustrated, wondering how to find such a group. Manton introduces the therapy group without clearly stating when and where it took place, or how to get involved with a similar group. Manton does make one basic assumption that I have difficulty agreeing with. Women’s relationship with food may be an evolutionary fact, but I remain unconvinced that food production is, or should be, a central part of women’s role or identity. In one instance, she writes, “The disintegration of women’s traditional food role has created a condition of dis-ease for many women in America today. Absence of the ‘identityanchors’ food traditionally provided women has increased their vulnerability to cultural presences that can lead to eating disturbances” (pp. 87–88). Manton argues that food preparation should be thought of in a positive light rather than as drudgery. Women can, in her opinion, begin to transform their relationships with food by taking an active role in its preparation. Borrowing on the idea that the “personal is political,” women can also “vote with their forks” to take back some of the control that big business has exerted over them. While I feel that these are all good suggestions for healing disordered eating patterns, I am cautious about accepting any point of view that equates women’s identity with traditionally feminine roles. Despite my reservation, I feel that this book provides an excellent addition to our current understanding of eating disorders in women. By including an analysis of the forces of capitalism and evolutionary history, Manton introduces a layer of complexity that is missing from such classics as Fat is a Feminist Issue. For this reason, I find this book to be monumentally important reading for anyone who wishes to have a complete, contextual understanding of the forces that affect women’s eating patterns. BLAISE ASTRA PARKER Department of Psychology University of Georgia Statham, GA United States PII S0277-5395(00)00118-7 OVERCOMING ALL OBSTACLES: THE WOMEN OF THE ACADÉMIE JULIAN, edited by Gabriel P. Weisberg and Jane R. Becker, 170 pages. The Dahesh Museum and Rutgers University Press, 1999, US $65.00 cloth, US $35.00 paper. Weisberg and Becker’s volume, produced to coincide with their exhibition on the same subject currently being held at the Dahesh Museum New York, is a timely and useful contribution to a generally under-researched 523 field.1 Although Carl Goldstein’s recently published account of the history of art academies and art training in the West considers the positions left open to women within this history, it does so within a much wider remit against which Weisberg’s and Becker’s text can usefully be set.2 Catherine Fehrer is well placed to provide the general “Introduction” to the catalogue because it is her extensive scholarship that underpins this subsequent research in bringing the work of women artists trained at the Académie Julian in Paris to wider public recognition via the accompanying exhibition. Fehrer outlines the basic history of the Académie since its foundation in 1868 and discusses the role of its founding member, Rodolphe Julian, in establishing a unique artistic training ground that was open to both men and women. In principle the Académie’s role was to prepare students who wished to try for entry into the state’s prestigious École des Beaux Arts, yet since women’s entry into the École des Beaux Arts was refused until 1897, one might wonder why Julian decided to offer women artists such preparatory training as early as he did. The answer to this in part can be found in Weisberg’s essay, which follows closely the framework set out by Fehrer’s introduction but discusses the work of women artists who trained at the Académie in more depth. Weisberg paints a picture of Julian as an astute businessman who recognised a gap in the market and knew how to exploit it. Julian’s market of potential female students were generally wealthy and of independent means and indeed were charged more for their training than were their male peers.3 There was no shortage of women who wished to train as artists, yet there was an acute shortage of established schools where they could receive the academic training required of a professional artist in France. The Académie Julian fulfilled this need. This is not to say that Julian’s motives were wholly financial, and indeed Weisberg is careful to delineate the support and encouragement that was offered to all artists who trained there. He also emphasises the particular skills in drawing that were fostered and that helped to establish the Académie with an international reputation for excellence. Jane Becker’s contribution to the catalogue focuses on a case study of two of the Académie’s most notorious rival’s, the Russian aristocrat Marie Bashkirtseff (1858–1884) and the German-born Louise-Catherine Breslau (1856–1927), both of whom thrived under the spirit of competition established by the teachers at the Académie when they entered in the mid 1870s. Becker contrasts Bashkirtseff’s diary entries (revolving around the period of her artistic training at Julian’s) with documentary evidence by other women artists who also trained in the studio at the same time. One of the results of this is a careful and entertaining deconstruction of some of the mythologies that have evolved due to Bashkirtseff’s self-aggrandisement of her skills as a trainee artist. Becker reveals that Bashkirtseff’s position amongst the other women who trained with her was often one of bemused tolerance held in place by the rigid class structures of the time. Bashkirtseff regarded herself as socially superior to the other students and hoped that this superiority would extend to her artistic talents as well. However, as Becker demonstrates, Breslau, a talented artist of lower middle-class origins whose name has largely been lost to art history, contin- 524 Book Reviews ued to trouble Bashkirtseff’s belief in her own ability. As Becker points out, such anxieties and insecurities were not lost on the teachers at the Académie Julian who took every opportunity to encourage Bashkirtseff both through gentle comparison yet also with lavish praise. For the teachers at the Académie Julian, a woman of Bashkirtseff’s social standing was not to be lost because she “was their winning ticket to success and popularity with [other] young aristocratic female students for years to come,” (p.78). Becker’s essay is an entertaining insight into the complexities of women’s social role within the historical context of nineteenthcentury Paris and also serves to highlight the work of Louise-Catherine Breslau through the inclusion of a number of high-quality reproductions of her work coupled with interesting critical and historical insights. Finally, Tamar Garb’s essay continues her exploration into the gendered power relations between female artists and male critics of the academic art establishment of nineteenth-century Paris based on her extensive research into the period, including the leading art journals of the time.4 The essay traces the historical and critical background to the training of women artists in the “burgeoning académies payantes” (p. 124) of nineteenth-century Paris. Garb points out that one of the main obstacles for women training to be artists during this period was their limited access to space in which they were free to study figure-drawing from a live model. It is in this context that she argues that the role of the Académie Julian cannot be overestimated in its provision of just such a facility for women. However, she also notes that despite the increasing access that women had to art training during this era (leading eventually to their hard-won battle to gain entry to the state-funded École de Beaux Arts by the end of the century), the cultural constructions of idealised domesticated femininity promoted by leading French critics and journals was not so easily dislodged. Thus, despite all of the practical obstacles to achieving professional status, the deeply embedded cultural constructions of women’s role in social life were still to be fought over in the new century. In conclusion, Weisberg and Becker’s publication makes a thoughtful contribution to a rich field of study and will be useful to all students of the period who wish to find out more about the practice and discourse of nineteenth-century French art and culture. Dorothy Rowe Froebel College University Surrey Roehampton London United Kingdom PII S0277-5395(00)00115-1 ENDNOTES 1. The exhibition itinerary is as follows: The Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, Massachusetts, October 2, 1999–January 2, 2000; Dahesh Museum, New York, January 18–May 13, 2000; The Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Tennessee, July 9–September 24, 2000. 2. Goldstein, Carl. (1996). Teaching Art: Academies and Schools from Vasari to Albers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 3. Weisberg explains that women were charged more than men in the belief that women would inevitably receive external sources of financial support from members of their family and or supporting patrons. This of course made it much harder for those many women who did not receive such support to maintain their presence within the Académie, and indeed it is clear from this and other essays within this volume that one of Julian’s main concerns was to attract women of wealth into the Académie. See p. 14 for further details regarding the cost of art training. 4. For other work in this area see, for example, Garb, Tamar. (1994). Sisters of the Brush: Women’s Artistic Culture in Late Nineteenth Century Paris, New Haven: Yale University Press. MODERN GIRLS, SHINING KYO, by Phyllis Birnbaum, STARS, THE SKIES OF TO255 pages. New York, Columbia University Press, 1999. US $24.95 cloth. Phyllis Birnbaum’s interesting treatment of five women in Japan, all literary or artistic figures coming of age in changing, modernizing Japan since the end of the nineteenth century, portrays some unique lives and raises questions about history, gender, culture, and social class as they affect the capacities of individuals for selfexpression and choice. For the most part, her book is successful in capturing the reader’s attention, for conveying personality and a sense of time and place. There are, however, in this reader’s view, ambiguities about perspective and context in this novel form of portraiture combining historical detail, authorial commentary, and expostulations about the women’s lives with a fairly loose form of documentation. I am much taken with the stories of the women themselves, and Birnbaum has a trustworthy grasp of their times, but the book suffers from the unnecessary attempt to make the women even more engaging and sometimes even more “modern.” These women were all artists of varying trades, and all are interesting. None represented completely the norms of her times, her class, or her gender, but all were affected by contemporary mores and institutions. They are shown to be rebels or to be part of a counter culture of their times. They are fascinating windows into these eras in which bucking the system was—and still is—difficult. There have been at any time in postMeiji-Period Japan significantly different models for good womanhood, and rarely do these women conform to any of them. The “good wife, wise mother” model, supported by state ideology and social policies, has not served them well. Some of these women engaged other models, such as that of the artistic bohemian, but found pressures to maintain at least the facade of “good wife, wise mother” too strong to resist. The “doubleness” of their lives was another strain in an already strong role conflict. These women were neither “traditional” nor “Western,” neither “feminist” nor Confucian. No ideology seems to fit them, and their motivations are drawn as often capricious rather than driven by social or political revolution. It would have been interesting to examine the lives of women who were involved with the latter at the same time—some are mentioned in the text, such as Hiratsuka Raichoo—to see how much diversity