Acknowledgements

Crow, Thomas E.

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Acknowledgements

Thomas E. Crow

Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris

Acknowledgements

Author

Thomas E. Crow

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23031

Acknowledgements

The work on this book has consumed a number of years and many people have helped its passage. The text as it stands owes much to the careful reading and comments of Thomas DaC. Kaufmann, John Shearman, Svetlana Alpers, Carol Armstrong, and Patricia Brown. Earlier versions of material in chapters IV, VI and VII benefited greatly from Francis Haskell’s interest and close criticism. Serge Guilbaut likewise gave that manuscript a patient and incisive reading. Joseph Baillio, Jerrine Mitchell, Edgar Munhall, Julie Ann Plax, and Richard Wrigley have generously made available findings from their unpublished research.

Many thanks must go to those at Princeton University who provided crucial practical assistance. Mary Schmidt and the staff of Marquand Library made every effort to secure needed sources. Without Shari Taylor’s energy and efficiency, the task of gathering photographs would have been infinitely more difficult. The Spears Fund of the Department of Art and Archaeology has generously sustained my research here and abroad during the last four years. Further support was provided by the Humanities Research Council of the university. The germ of this book was my dissertation, written at the University of California, Los Angeles. I completed its research and writing while holding an Edward A. Dickson History of Art Fellowship. The University of Chicago also provided needed assistance for travel. At Yale University Press, John Nicoll and Gillian Malpass have given a first book the best kind of editorial attention.

From beginning to end, this project has drawn most from the advice and friendship of Timothy Clark. Other friends, particularly Deborah and Steven Weiner, have helped more than they know. From Catherine Phillips I continually learn how to see the work of art.

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BOOKPainters and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris

Thomas E. Crow

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00329

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23029

It was at the free, open Salon exhibitions of the French Academy that artists were first consistently confronted by a "public"—a large and broadly based audience encouraged to look on works of art in an attitude of aesthetic contemplation. This book discusses the growth of public opinion about the arts in eighteenth-century France and the reciprocal effect of that opinion on official institutions and differing styles of painting.

As he analyzed the history of the Salon under the Old Regime, Crow discovers that it encompassed a complex process in which a number of groups of very different social character and political outlook sought to enlist painting as an expressive vehicle for their various agendas. Even the art of Watteau—seemingly so private in character—was decisively informed by new urban forms of artistic culture. The most important artists of the later eighteenth century—Greuze and David—were initially useful to the state in their common ability to grasp official priorities and embody them in a narrative art that was accessible to a broad public audience. But both artists, stimulated by the vigorous, new interest being shown in the Salons by Painters and public alike, also broke new ground with works that announced the advent of modernism.

Tracing the patterns and interplays between the ambitions of the artist and the wishes and tastes of the authorities, collectors, and crowds of salon visitors, Crow makes a fascinating and highly original contribution to art history.

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Author

Thomas E. Crow

PublisherYale University Press

Print publication date February 1985 (out of print)

Print ISBN 9780300033540

EISBN 9780300272376

Illustrations 125

Print Status out of print

Publisher (out of print)

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