Watteau and the Cultural Politics of Eighteenth-Century France

by Julie Anne Plax

Overview

In Watteau and the Cultural Politics of Eighteenth-Century France, Julie Anne Plax engages in an interdisciplinary examination of several categories of Watteau's paintings—theatrical, military, fetes, and the art dealer. Arguing that Watteau consistently applied coherent strategies of representation aimed at subverting high art, she shows how his paintings toyed ironically with conventions and genres and confounded traditional categories. Plax connects these strategies to broader cultural themes and political issues that Watteau's art addressed throughout his career, thereby revealing the substantial unity of his oeuvre.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521200844
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/28/2011
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	274
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.70(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. Watteau's Departure of the Italian Comedians in 1697 and the battle of the theater; 2. Watteau's military paintings: conflicts and confluences; 3. The Fête Galante and the cult of Honnêteté; 4. The meeting of high and low culture in Watteau's Gersaint's Signboard.

Editorial Reviews

"Carefully and clearly argued, Plax's book sets a model for actively integrating visual, historical and theoretical concerns." CAA Reviews

"Plax does well to call our attention in a new way to this capacity for transformation of self and culture represented by Watteau's figures." Eighteenth-Century Studies

From the Publisher