Paris Art Studies – January 2013
Love,
Courtship and the intellectual Salon
in French art of the 18th
century:
1715-1770 with Chris Boïcos
Course Schedule. Coffee and tea are served at gallery sessions between 1:30 and 2pm.
Mo. 28 Jan. 2pm – 3:30
pm – Gallery slide lecture – Women of
the Court, women of Paris – Love, Marriage and the intellectual Salon in the
Age of Enlightenment.
Mo. 4 Feb. 2pm – 3:30 pm – Visit to the Hôtel
de Soubise – Apartments of the Princesse
de Soubise - paintings by Boucher, Tremolières, and Natoire’s cycle of “Psyche
and Love”.
Meet courtyard of the Archives Nationales, 60 rue des Francs-Bourgeois
75003 (Metros: Hôtel de Ville and Rambuteau)
The Reign of Louis XV 1724 - 1774
1724 - The court
returns to Versailles.
1725 - The king
marries the Polish princess Marie Lezczinska.
1726 - Cardinal
Fleury named Prime Minister. Opening of a period of stability in home and
foreign affairs.
1733-36 - War of the
Polish succession.
1738 - First balanced
state budget in decades.
1741 - Beginning of
war of the Austrian Succession.
1743 - Death of
Fleury.
1746 - Madame de
Pompadour becomes official mistress of the king.
1748 - Peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle ends war. Montesquieu publishes L'esprit des lois.
1751 - Beginning of
the publication of the Encyclopédie.
1756 - Beginning of
Seven Years war in alliance with Austria against Prussia and England.
1757 - Damiens
attempts to assassinate the king who is growing increasingly unpopular.
1758 - Choiseul named
Prime minister. Next dozen years prosperous and stable.
1763 - End of war.
France loses Canada and India to England.
1764 - Jesuits
expelled from France. Death of Madame de Pompadour.
1765 - Death of the
Dauphin.
1769 - Madame du
Barry becomes the official royal mistress.
1770 - Choiseul fired.
New Dauphin marries Austrian princess Marie-Antoinette.
1774 - Death of Louis
XV. He is succeeded by his grandson, Louis XVI.
The
Arts:
After Watteau’s death in 1721
the fête galante continues be very
popular and becomes the key subject of his former assistants, Nicolas Lancret (1690-1743) and Jean Baptiste Pater (1695-1756). The older painter
Jean François de Troy (1679-1752)
who specializes in mythological and religious compositions also takes up the
subject with success. Love, nature, courtship and femininity become the
foundations of the style that will in the 1720’s be labeled “le style rocaille” or the Rococo style.
Architecture and principally
decoration become light and refined favoring undulating curves and floral
motifs over the vocabulary of classicism and geometry. This is the great period
of private and aristocratic rather than royal architecture and notably the hôtels particuliers of the Faubourg
Saint-Germain in Paris.
Enlightenment figures:
The Court:
Queen Marie Leczinska (1703-1768) wife of Louis XV
Anne de Mailly-Nesle, duchesse de Châteauroux (1717-1744) mistress of Louis XV
Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, marquise de Pompadour
(1721-1764) mistress of Louis XV
Salonnières:
Claudine Alexandrine Guérin de Tencin (1682 – 1749)
Marie Thérèse Rodet Geoffrin (1699 - 1777)
Marie Anne de Vichy-Chamrond,
marquise du Deffand (1697-1780)
Louise d’Epinay (1726-1783) patron of Jean Jacques Rousseau
Philosophers, writers,
scientists:
Jean le Rond d’Alembert (1749-55) Mathematician and co-director
of the Encyclopedia
Emilie du Châtelet (1706-1749) Voltaire’s mistress, mathematician ,
physician and translator of Newton
Denis Diderot (1713-1784) philosopher, art critic, art agent for Catherine
II of Russia and co-director of the Encyclopaedia
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) Swiss philosopher,
writer, memorialist, precursor of the Romantic sensibility
Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) 1694 – 1778. Playwright,
novelist, historian, satirist
