1862  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

James Whistler's painting Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl (1862) caused controversy when exhibited in London and, later, at the Salon des Refusés in Paris. The painting epitomizes his theory that art should essentially be concerned with the beautiful arrangement of colors in harmony, not with the accurate portrayal of the natural world.

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Wikipedia Wiktionary Shop Featured: Rhombicuboctahedron by Leonardo da Vinci

Art and culture

• Fyodor Dostoevsky visits the Crystal Palace
• Swinburne meets Richard Monckton Milnes, who introduced him to Richard Burton and to the works of the Marquis de Sade.
• Bohemianism quote: "The term 'Bohemian' has come to be very commonly accepted in our day as the description of a certain kind of literary gipsey, no matter in what language he speaks, or what city he inhabits .... A Bohemian is simply an artist or littérateur who, consciously or unconsciously, secedes from conventionality in life and in art." ["Westminster Review"]
• Karl Ulrichs, speaking at a conference of Jurists in Munich, becomes the first person in modern times to declare himself homosexual. Although he used the term, "Urning," Ulrichs continued to speak out for gay rights.
• Elizabeth Siddall died of an overdose

Literature

• Salammbô by Gustave Flaubert
• 20 poems from the future Spleen de Paris collection by Charles Baudelaire are published
• Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
• Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Art

• The White Girl by Whistler
• The Turkish Bath by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
• La Source by Gustave Courbet
• The Cedars of Lebanon by Edward Lear
• The Birth of Venus by Duval

Technology

• Ponti's Megalethoscope

Births

• Gustav Klimt (1862 - 1918)
• Claude Debussy (1862 - 1918)
• Rupert Carabin (1862 - 1952)
• Arthur Schnitzler (1862 - 1931)
• Maurice Barrès (1862 - 1923)
• Joseph Carey Merrick (August 5, 1862 - April 11, 1890), known as "The Elephant Man",

Deaths

• Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)