The mechanics of mischief : genre painting and painting genres in the time of Louis XV

Abstract

The present thesis is an invitation to systematic study of genre in the field of art history. To explore questions of genre, it turns to the genre painting of the time of Louis XV (r. 1715–1774). In many ways, genre painting was ‘the’ genre of the epoch. It adorned the walls of all – royal residences, aristocratic hôtels, and the Salon Carré of the Louvre, where the first French public exhibition was held. It was actively reproduced in print and used in the design of luxury goods – fans and snuffboxes, wallpaper and tapestries, tea sets and furniture. Imported from the Netherlands and reimagined by artists like Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699–1779), François Boucher (1703–1770), Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805), and Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806), eighteenth-century genre painting was not a homogenous entity but a vast array of different categories – the tableau de mode, the fête galante, the fantasy figure, the military / hunting halt, the pastoral, and others – each with its own formal canon, market, and function. Yet, paradoxically, none of those were recognised by the theorists and critics of the time. Nor could they be found on the list of specialisations of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, the most influential artistic institution of the time. It is this paradox between the omnipresence and the invisibility of genre painting in France of Louis XV that the present thesis attempts to resolve. By exploring the various functions – theoretical, sociohistorical, formal, and institutional – that genre painting performed at the time, it fills some gaps in the current research on French eighteenth-century painting and, at the same time, develops new methodological frameworks that can be used for the study of painting genres in future art historical scholarship.