Overview

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.

Full Product Details

Author:   Susanna Caviglia
Publisher:   Liverpool University Press
Imprint:   Voltaire Foundation
Volume:   2020:02
ISBN:  

9781789620399

ISBN 10:   1789620392
Pages:   330
Publication Date:   10 February 2020
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

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

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Author Information

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).

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