Before Modernism, narrative painting was one of the most acclaimed and challenging modes of picture-making in Western art, yet by the early twentieth century storytelling had all but disappeared from ambitious art. France was a key player in both the dramatic rise and the controversial demise of narrative art. This is the first book to analyse French painting in relation to narrative, from Poussin in the early seventeenth to Gauguin in the late nineteenth century. Thirteen original essays shed light on key moments and aspects of narrative and French painting through the study of artists such as Nicolas Poussin, Charles Le Brun, Jacques-Louis David, Paul Delaroche, Gustave Moreau, and Paul Gauguin. Using a range of theoretical perspectives, the authors study key issues such as temporality, theatricality, word-and-image relations, the narrative function of inanimate objects, the role played by viewers, and the ways in which visual narrative has been bound up with history painting. The book offers a fresh look at familiar material, as well as studying some little-known works of art, and reveals the centrality and complexity of narrative in French painting over the course of three centuries.
Edited by:
Peter Cooke,
Nina Lübbren
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Weight: 467g
ISBN: 9780367200275
ISBN 10: 0367200279
Series: Studies in Art Historiography
Pages: 218
Publication Date: 23 May 2019
Audience:
College/higher education
,
General/trade
,
Primary
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Contents List of Figures vii Notes on Contributors xii Acknowledgements xv Introduction: Narrativity and (French) Painting Peter Cooke and Nina Lübbren Section I Ancien Régime 1 Units of Vision and Narrative Structures: Upon Reading Poussin’s Manna Claudine Mitchell 2 Figures of Narration in the Context of a Painted Cycle: The North Bays of the Grande Galerie at Versailles Marianne Cojannot-Le Blanc 3 The Crisis of Narration in Eighteenth-century French History Painting Susanna Caviglia 4 Obscure, Capricious and Bizarre: Neoclassical Painting and the Choice of Subject Mark Ledbury SECTION II Restoration and July Monarchy 5 Delacroix and ‘The Work of the Reader’ Beth S. Wright 6 Narrative and History in Léopold Robert’s Arrival of the Harvesters in the Pontine Marshes Richard Wrigley 7 Narrative Strategies in Paul Delaroche’s Assassination of the Duc de Guise Patricia Smyth SECTION III Second Empire and Third Republic 8 Eloquent Objects: Gérôme, Laurens and the Art of Inanimate Narration Nina Lübbren 9 Tyrannical Inopportunity: Gustave Moreau’s Anti-narrative Strategies Scott C. Allan 10 Theatricality Versus Anti-Theatricality: Narrative Techniques in French History Painting (1850−1900) Pierre Sérié 11 The Conflicted Status of Narrative in the Art of Paul Gauguin Belinda Thomson SECTION IV Key Issues of Pictorial Narrative 12 Narrativity, Temporality and Allegorisation, from Poussin to Moreau Peter Cooke 13 Towards a Study of Narration in Painting: The Early Modern Period Étienne Jollet Index
Peter Cooke is Senior Lecturer in French Studies at the University of Manchester, UK. His most recent book is Gustave Moreau: History Painting, Spirituality and Symbolism. Nina Lübbren is Art Historian and Principal Lecturer in Film Studies, and Deputy Head of Department of English, Communication, Film and Media, Anglia Ruskin University, UK.
Reviews for Painting and Narrative in France, from Poussin to Gauguin
'The introduction [...] is a model of its kind; no better overview could have been written of the characteristics of narrative painting and of how critics have construed it from the time of Lessing onwards. It sparkles with ideas about the fundamental nature and complexity of narrative and will become required reading for anyone with a serious interest in French history painting. This high standard is continued in the following thirteeen essays [...].' (Simon Lee, The Burlington Magazine, September 2018)
