Greuze and the Painting of Sentiment

This book provides a reassessment of the work of the eighteenth-century French painter, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, and reconstructs the wider movement in French painting of which he was the leading figure. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary sources, from literature and philosophy to political economy and medical discourse, it offers new interpretations of Greuze’s work that help to account for the extraordinary popularity and high reputation that he enjoyed in his own lifetime. It shows that the scenes of family life that he exhibited in the Paris Salon between 1755 and 1769 exemplified and promoted an enlightened social vision. It also charts the subsequent evolution of Greuze’s imagery, as he shifted towards darker and more sensational scenes of family conflict, and argues that the more challenging aspects of his vision were toned down by younger artists, who appropriated the painting of sentiment to serve a more conservative agenda.

EMMA BARKER is Lecturer in Art History at the Open University. She is editor of Contemporary Cultures of Display (1999) and coeditor of The Changing Status of the Artist (1999). She has also published in the Oxford Art Journal and Art History.

Greuze and the Painting of Sentiment

EMMA BARKER

PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© Emma Barker 2005

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
jno reproduction of any part may take place without
jthe written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2005

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

Typeface Quadraat 10.25/14 pt.     System LATEX 2_e   [TB]

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Barker, Emma.
Greuze and the painting of sentiment / Emma Barker.
  p.   cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0 521 55508 6
1. Greuze, Jean-Baptiste, 1725–1805 – Criticism and interpretation. 2. Sentimentalism in art.
3. Family in art. 4. Painting, French – 18th century – Themes, motives. I. Title.
ND553.G8B37   2005
759.4 – dc22       2004045629

ISBN 0 521 55508 6 hardback

To my parents

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgements

In the protracted gestation of this book, I have incurred numerous debts. I would particularly like to thank Anita Brookner, who first awakened my interest in Greuze, and Katie Scott, who supervised the Ph.D. on which the book is based. I am also grateful to the following for reading drafts at various stages of the project: Tony Halliday, David Johnson, Ludmilla Jordanova, Susan Siegfried, Linda Walsh, Helen Weston and Richard Wrigley. For advice, encouragement and information of various kinds, I would like to thank Colin Bailey, Philippe Bordes, Thomas Crow, Bernadette Fort, Mark Ledbury, Edgar Munhall and Richard Rand. In addition, Colin Bailey and Edgar Munhall both provided invaluable assistance with picture research. I would also like to thank the following for assistance with picture research: Joseph Baillio, Nicholas Hall, Anastassia Novikova, George Ortiz, Nicole Willk-Brocard and Alan Wintermute. I am also very grateful to Isabelle Le Masne de Chermont for her generous hospitality to me on numerous trips to Paris.

   I must also thank the British Academy both for funding the Ph.D. research on which the book is based and for a grant to cover the cost of the reproductions. Further financial assistance was provided by the Arts Faculty Research Committee of the Open University and the university’s art history departmental fund.

   All the translations from French are my own but I have also benefited from consulting the translations of Diderot’s Salons and other writings on aesthetics by Geoffrey Bremner (Denis Diderot: Selected Writings on Art and Literature, Penguin, 1994) and John Goodman (Diderot on Art: I and Diderot on Art: Ⅱ, Yale University Press, 1995). I have also made use of Allan Bloom’s translation of Rousseau’s Emile (Penguin, 1979).

   I have made every effort to trace copyright holders for the illustrations. I apologize to any with whom I was unable to make contact.

Abbreviations