The Portrait Bust and French Cultural Politics in the Eighteenth Century

Download or read book The Portrait Bust and French Cultural Politics in the Eighteenth Century written by Ronit Milano and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-02-24 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Portrait Bust and French Cultural Politics in the Eighteenth Century, Ronit Milano probes the rich and complex aesthetic and intellectual charge of a remarkably concise art form, and explores its role as a powerful agent of epistemological change during one of the most seismic moments in French history. The pre-Revolutionary portrait bust was inextricably tied to the formation of modern selfhood and to the construction of individual identity during the Enlightenment, while positioning both sitters and viewers as part of a collective of individuals who together formed French society. In analyzing the contribution of the portrait bust to the construction of interiority and the formulation of new gender roles and political ideals, this book touches upon a set of concerns that constitute the very core of our modernity.