Synopses & Reviews
In this classic text on the 18th century and neoclassicism, Jean Starobinski pursues a subtle and brilliant meditation on the connections between art and revolution, comparing the style of the French Revolution as a political event to style in the contemporary visual arts.
Rather than seeking a set of causal links between history and art, Starobinski finds ways to read the messages of both. Moving with graceful erudition over painting, architecture, music, philosophy, and political history, he enables us to see the art of David, Fuseli, Goya, Mozart, Boullée, Ledoux, and a host of others in a new perspective, as integral part of the events that changed the course of modern history.
Jean Starobinski is a Professor Honoraire at the University of Geneva.
Review
"'More than at any other time in history,' Starobinski writes of 1789, 'it is as if we were looking at a written text with a style of its own.' Starobinski's readings of that text, substantially revise many of our notions about art history, aesthetics, and the dynamics of culture ... [the book] is indispensable to anyone interested in the birth of the, world and the spirit of the modern"
- Peter Brooks, Yale University
Synopsis
In this classic text on the 18th century and neoclassicism, Jean Starobinski pursues a subtle and brilliant meditation on the connections between art and revolution, comparing the style of the French Revolution as a political event to style in the contemporary visual arts.
Synopsis
Jean Starobinski is a Professor Honoraire at the University of Geneva.
About the Author
Jean Starobinski is Professor of the History of Ideas and French Literature at the University of Geneva. His books in English include Blessings in Disguise: Or, the Morality of Evil; The Invention of Liberty, 1700-1789; Montaigne in Motion; Revolution in Fashion: European Clothing, 1715-1815; Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and Obstruction; A History of Medicine; and The Living Eye.