History, painting, and the seriousness of pleasure in the age of Louis XV

Susanna Caviglia (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

330 Seiten

2020
Voltaire Foundation (Verlag)
978-1-78962-039-9 (ISBN)

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French painting of Louis XV’s reign (1715–74), generally categorized by the term rococo, has typically been understood as an artistic style aimed at furnishing courtly society with delightful images of its own frivolous pursuits. Instead, this book shows the significance and seriousness underpinning the notion of pleasure embedded in eighteenth-century history painting. During this time, pleasure became a moral ideal grounded not only in domestic life but also defining a range of social, political, and cultural transactions oriented toward transforming and improving society at large.

History, painting, and the seriousness of pleasure in the age of Louis XV reconsiders the role of history painting in creating a new
visual language that presented peace and happiness as an individual’s natural rights in the aftermath of Louis XIV’s bellicose reign (1643-1715). In this new study, Susanna Caviglia reinvestigates the artistic practices of an entire generation of painters born around 1700 (e.g. Francois Boucher, Charles-Joseph Natoire, and Carle Vanloo) in order to highlight the cultural forces at work within their now iconic images.

Susanna Caviglia is Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of Art History at Duke University. Her work focuses on early modern European art and culture with an emphasis on France and Italy. Her interests include the body in art, theory and practice of drawing, and cross-cultural relationships within the Mediterranean world. She is the author of 'Charles-Joseph Natoire (1700-1777)' (Arthena, 2012).

List of illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction
Historical perspective: the peaceable kingdom of Louis XV
The painters
Toward a new artistic idiom

I. Historia in stasis

Chapter 1: The action de repos
Prolegomena to the theory and practice
Meditation, contemplation
The dynamic body suspended
Narrative disrupted
Moments in the present and the future

Chapter 2: Corporeality and repose
Fontenelle’s ideal
Corporeal conversations
Figures of seduction
The expression of repose
From narrative representation to figural presentation

II. The figure in artistic practice

Chapter 3: Figure/study/artwork
Copying the figure
The whole and the part
The emergence of corporeal repose
The new body language

Chapter 4: The story beyond the figure
From study to subject
Autonomous figures in painting
Repertoires of models
Life study and historical subject

III. The fabrication of a new grand genre

Chapter 5: Before the painting
The figure: from the idea to the painting
The emergence of new creative practices
The single body and the multiplication of bodies
The figure: from reuse to quotation

Chapter 6: Epilogue: on novelty in painting
Brand new beauties
The painting of the present

Bibliography
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	01.04.2020
Reihe/Serie	Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment ; 2020:02
Zusatzinfo	24 Plates, color; 63 Halftones, black and white
Verlagsort	Liverpool
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Kunstgeschichte / Kunststile
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie der Neuzeit
ISBN-10	1-78962-039-2 / 1789620392
ISBN-13	978-1-78962-039-9 / 9781789620399
Zustand	Neuware