Kirjahaku

This book, now recognised as a classic, has done perhaps more than any other single work to change the face of art criticism in the twentieth century. Whereas previous books on French painting looked only at the history of painting as an evolution of artistic styles (baroque, rococo, neo-classical, and so on), Norman Bryson examines the evolution of narrative styles: the kinds of stories paintings tell, the ways they communicate their information, the different techniques of presenting the body as an instrument for incorporating textual messages. The procedure is applied to a number of painters: LeBrun, Watteau, Greuze, David and others, and the author demonstrates that the relation of formal and ‘literary’ elements was regarded by painters and critics in the eighteenth century as the primary issue to be confronted in the production of a painting.

In this classic Reaktion title, Norman Bryson analyses the origins, history and logic of still-life, one of the most enduring forms of Western painting. From Roman wall-painting to Cubism, and from seventeenth-century Dutch still-life to Bryson’s conclusion that the persisting tendency to downgrade the genre of still-life is profoundly rooted in the historical oppression of women, Looking at the Overlooked is Norman Bryson is at his brilliant best.

In 1799, when the French artist Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825) exhibited his Intervention of the Sabines, a history painting featuring the ancient heroine Hersilia, he added portraits of two contemporary women on either side of her—Henriette de Verninac, daughter of Charles-François Delacroix, minister of foreign affairs, and Juliette Récamier, a well-known and admired socialite. Drawing on many disciplines, Norman Bryson explains how such a combination of paintings could reveal the underlying nature of the Directoire, the period between the vicious and near-dictatorial Reign of Terror (1793–94) and the coup in 1799 that brought Napoleon to power. Hersilia’s Sisters illuminates ways that cultural life and civil society were rebuilt during these years through an extraordinary efflorescence of women pioneers in every cultural domain—literature, the stage, opera, moral philosophy, political theory, painting, popular journalism, and fashion. Through a close examination of David’s work between The Intervention of the Sabines (begun in 1796) and Bonaparte Crossing the Alps (begun in 1800), Bryson explores how the flowering of women’s culture under the Directoire became a decisive influence on David’s art. With more than 150 illustrations, this book provides new and brilliant insight into this period that will captivate readers.