Mapping activities of artists in the past: a bibliometric study of the library of the Scandinavian Association in Rome until 1870.

The purpose of this study is to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the library collection at the Scandinavian Association in Rome. Data were gathered from the library catalog and then submitted to frequency and co-occurrence analyses. By examining keywords, authors, and the language of the books found in the library, we were able to draw conclusions about its role as a social rather than an academic institution, with the additional function of helping the SAR members find their way around in the city of Rome and to its historical sites. The bibliometric analyses proved useful in analyzing the function of the library and, to some extent, the general context of the library and the association. At the same time, they cannot be said to be useful for creating cognitive maps such as those being made in analyses of scientific fields.

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Bibliometric analysis, and especially author co-citation analysis, is a well-established method for mapping intellectual fields. (1) These various methods have been useful in the analysis of some scholarly fields, while in the arts and humanities the usefulness of co-citation analysis has been limited due to publishing and citation behavior in those fields. (2) This study tests bibliometric methods for mapping a nonacademic intellectual field consisting of Scandinavian artists residing in Rome during the late nineteenth century by analyzing the library at the Scandinavian Association in Rome (SAR). The SAR was founded in 1860 by Scandinavian artists living in the Eternal City. The association still exists, but its status as a gathering place for artists has diminished. One of the main activities of the SAR was to maintain a library, which was founded and mainly used by Scandinavian artists visiting or living in Rome.

The main research question is, What does the library collection tell us about the SAR and its activities and about the function the library served? This can be investigated by answering questions about the books found in the library and how they related to the specific time and environment, for example, how they reflected intellectual and aesthetic ideals. Can a mapping of the collection be said to also constitute a cognitive map of the Scandinavian artists in Rome during the nineteenth century? These questions are dealt with by analyzing author and language frequency as well as distribution and the relationships between keywords describing the books, subsequently related to the intellectual context of the time.

Even before the foundation of the SAR there had been Scandinavian libraries in Rome: Danish artists established a library in 1832, and from 1845 there was also a Swedish library. In 1854 a joint Scandinavian library was founded. Apart from maintaining a library, the main tasks of the SAR were to help economically troubled countrymen return home and to organize a variety of social activities. All of this had existed before, but with the foundation of the SAR the social life of Scandinavian artists in Rome became formalized. In its heyday the SAR was the intellectual center for Scandinavians visiting Rome; artists, authors, and scholars used the SAR as a base during their stay. The similarities between the Scandinavian artists and other groups such as the Germans are striking. Their organization, the Deutsche Kunstlerverein, was founded in 1845, and one of its main activities was maintaining a library. (3)

In the academic discipline of the history and theory of art different artistic expressions have been used as the main criteria for dividing artists into groups, both by art historians and the artists themselves. In the case of the foreign artists in Rome there are a few examples of groups formed as a result of aesthetics, though most groups were formed to fulfill other tasks. To keep a library was possibly the most important question for groups having no academy of their own, such as the French Academy. To study one of these libraries is, therefore, to study the internal life of a group of artists; and by analyzing the collections, questions about how the library was used and how the intellectual world of…