8 a.m., Nov. 20, 2009----Isabelle Havet, an art history graduate student at the University of Delaware, received the Naomi Schor Memorial Award, a juried prize, for the best essay at the 35th annual Nineteenth-Century French Studies Colloquium, an international conference that attracts scholars worldwide that was held Oct. 22-24 in Salt Lake City

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A professional development grant from the UD Office of Graduate Studies and funding from the Department of Art History made it possible for Havet to attend the conference. “I appreciate the support from UD. It was a wonderful experience and broadened my perspective, and winning the award was a totally unexpected honor,” she said.

The theme of the conference was “Fossilization and Evolution.” The theory of evolution was an important topic of the 19th century and had a huge influence on French thinking and culture, according to Havet.

Her winning paper was entitled “Fernand Cormon's Cain: Man Between Primitive and Prophet.” The painting, which now hangs in the Musée d'Orsay, was shocking when it was first shown in 1880 because it shows Cain and his family as prehistoric cavemen, fleeing across the desert.

One of the concerns of French thinkers of the era was that evolution could go backwards to degeneration instead of forward, and Cain visualized this concept. Cain is a bleak painting but won a gold medal and earned government commissions for Cormon, Havet said.

In addition to receiving the award, Havet was asked, with others on her panel, “Origins, Degeneration and Evolution,” to publish the paper she presented in an upcoming collection of essays on evolution and extinction in France, edited by Fae Brauer, an eminent scholar in the field.

Originally from San Francisco, Havet is a graduate of Brandeis University and has a master's degree from UD. Her adviser is Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, professor of art history and chairperson of the Department of Art History.

Article by Sue Moncure
Photo by Ambre Alexander