‘The Devil in the Studio‘ is an article by Professor Lynda Nead of Birkbeck College, London, which has just been published in the Tate’s online journal Tate etc. The essay covers the depiction of artists in films 1896-1910. Lynda Nead has been coming up with some of the most interesting new ideas and contextualisation in early film studies around at the moment. The essay has a lot to say about how the young art of film engaged with and challenged the elder statesman that was fine art (a theme recently the subject of comment on this blog). “The young upstart surpassed the illusionistic capacities of the traditional arts and flaunted its special effects to ridicule the artist.” Food for thought.