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Painting and Narrative in France, from Poussin to Gauguin

Nina Lübbren editor Peter Cooke editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd

Published:16th Jun '16

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

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Painting and Narrative in France, from Poussin to Gauguin cover

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.

" As long as art is made for storytelling creatures, it is by telling good stories about it that we will understand it best, and this fine book contributes to that humanistic practice." - Andrei Pop, University of Chicago

ISBN: 9781472440105

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 612g

250 pages