Product Description
A celebrated painter in 18th-century France who eventually became pr,mier peintre to Louis XV in 1765, Fran ois Boucher (1703 - 1770) was equally gifted as a draftsman. His best-known drawings exemplify the intimate and light-hearted style of rococo, which dominated much of the 18th century. He produced some 10,000 drawings during his career, often employing his wife and children as sitters. This outstanding book assembles new research on Boucher's drawings, examining his role in shaping the growing market for drawings in 18th-century France. It explores his development as a draftsman, his range of subjects and his innovations in the context of the greatest French draftsmen of his time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Wonderful drawings of Boucher
The book is precious, I am very happy because it contains a lot of drawings of the most beautiful I make Boucher. The illustration is very good. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The seduction of the Rococo
"Seductive visions" by Jo Hedley was originally published as part of an art exhibition in Britain at The Wallace Collection. The subject is the French Rococo painter Francois Boucher, usually associated with the merry, decadent and aristocratic reign of Louis XV (mid-18th century). The Rococo style of painting, decoration and architecture became infamous for its frivolity, superficial beauty, eroticism and strange mixing of different styles.

The book follows Boucher from his birth in a lower middle class family in Paris, his career in painting, and his eventual rise to become an official painter at the French royal court, patronized by the king's equally official mistress, the famed Madame Le Pompadour. The book attempts to place the Rococo in a social context, discusses why Boucher's art became controversial, and details some of the controversies. The Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot was Boucher's most well known adversary. There is also a chapter on Boucher's legacy. During the 19th century, Boucher's erotic and frivolous paintings were interpreted as evidence that the painter himself must have been a libertine, and even pornographic forgeries were attributed to him! Today, his art is often used in purely commercial contexts, for instance as decoration of soap.

On some points, Jo Hedley strays from received wisdom about Boucher. For instance, she denies that the Irish teenager Marie Louise O'Murphy (one of the king's mistresses) ever served as Boucher's model. Nor was Boucher connected to Louis XV's infamous "brothel", where the king kept his young mistresses (or prostitutes).

"Seductive visions" isn't as deep as Melissa Hyde's "Making up the Rococo", but it's a good introduction to Boucher, his art and its time. Also, the book contains good reproductions of Boucher's paintings (and even a few later parodies), all in colour.

Recommended.
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Product Description
Boucher and Chardin examines the relationships between two iconic images of French art of the 18th century: Woman Taking Tea (1735) by Jean-Siméon Chardin and its pair, Madame Boucher (1743) by François Boucher. Both paintings are believed to represent the respective artists' wives. When considered together, the two paintings acquire a new resonance, showing the imaginative and Parisian response of two very different painters to a new interest in scenes from everyday life.

The paintings are examined in the context of a dozen further works by the artists, and prints, drawings, books, and decorative art objects including oriental textiles and porcelain. This provides an opportunity to address undercurrent social history themes, such as the artists' attitudes to fashion, interior decoration, and even the consumption of tea. Christoph Martin Mogtherr writes on genre painting of the period, and Ann Eatwell on the fashion for tea and its "equipage" in London and Paris. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
From the primitive clothes of prehistoric times to the whimsical fashions of today, the history of costume is a vast and popular subject. Why did people of a certain period dress in a particular way? How did contemporary fashion reflect the current social scene? Why did it vary from country to country? These and countless other questions are answered in this comprehensive survey. A fascinating text explores an endless succession of styles and fashions, materials and accessories, while nearly 1,200 illustrations drawn from every conceivable source - engravings, paintings, manuscript illuminations, sculptures, tapestries, drawings and photographs - provide a vivid, almost cinematic accompaniment to the text. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Every Costumer should own this book
Probably the best book published on the history of costume.It should be on the shelf of every costume designer.Fabulous research and wonderful use of artwork (paintings) to show the historical fashions by date.It is the most comprehensive bible of fashion history in print today.Can't recommend it more highly.My Costume Design professor wants all her design students to invest in this book, as it is invaluable in researching historical dress.She's owned it for over a decade and uses it in the classroom with her students for practically every project. ... Read more

Product Description
François Boucher (1703-1770) has suffered a curious fate: to have been so identified with the French Rococo as to have lost his visibility as an artist in his own right. Rethinking Boucher reclaims the artist's individuality, revealing not only the diversity of his talents but also the variety of visual and intellectual traditions with which he engaged.
Part one, "The Various Boucher," examines the artist's identity in relation to his portraits and self-portraits, his ingenious genre scenes, and his overlooked religious paintings. Part two, "The Unexpected Boucher," focuses on the network of social and cultural contexts in which the artist functioned, including the commercial print market, the theaters of Paris, and the contemporary textual explorations of the exotic. The final part, "The Enlightened Boucher," discusses Boucher's work as a vehicle for Enlightenment visions of the body, whether conjured by Denis Diderot and Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Madame de Pompadour, Boucher's most famous patron. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The boring Boucher
"Rethinking Boucher" is a scholarly anthology about the French painter Francois Boucher. It's frankly boring. Instead, read Melissa Hyde's own book "Making up the Rococo". It's much more interesting, even entertaining. At least if you enjoy transvestites and transgenders. (No kidding.)

Skip this one. Boucher himself would have fallen asleep, listening to this kind of lectures. He would probably have said: "Denis Diderot, come back, all is forgiven".

:P
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Customer Reviews (10)

One of the basic must-have items in any fashion researcher's library
I'd go so far, in fact, as to say that if you don't have _20,000 Years of Fashion_ in your library, or if you don't have ready access to a library that has this book, your credentials as a serious student of fashion would have to be called somewhat into question.This massive 440-page-plus tome could serve as a college text in costume history; and I make no doubt that, at some schools, it has filled just that role.Do bear in mind that this book covers fashion only up to about 1965 (that, however, may be no great hardship to those who believe that there hasn't really been any great couture since the last time Hubert de Givenchy designed something for Audrey Hepburn :) ). There is a truly staggering amount of illustrations in the book - over 1100, of which some 350 are full-color - and the array includes reproductions of many famous paintings and other artworks showcasing especially notable costumes.Every item of costume and couture is covered in detail, from head (hats) to feet (shoes) and in between.In contrast to some other pictorial works of fashion I've reviewed, there is a very extensive and detailed text, though, as another reviewer has noted, it was originally written in French and has been translated to English, with the possible loss of some nuances and idioms in the process.

Overall, I repeat my initial judgment: this is a mandatory item for anyone seriously interested in the history of costume to have in their library.

Essential Reference Book for any Costume Design Student
I would never have passed any of my Costume Design classes in college without this book and even now find it to be ridiculously useful when it comes to double-checking period dress I see in shows or movies.You wouldn't believe how many people get the costumes wrong!!!

Prepare to be WOWED!
I recently purchased 8 different books on the history of costume, and I am pleased to say that this book seems to be, by FAR, the best book, while also being the lowest priced work that I purchased!I purchased the books with the intention of using them to assist in dating eighteenth and nineteenth century portraits, and this book is PERFECT for the task.When you open this book and flip through the pages, you can't help but think that it is exactly what you were seeking.It is just bursting with text and images, all on quality glossy paper that makes the images easy to see.Many of the fashion books I have examined seemed to have either too much text at the expense of images, or too many images with no additional information to assist.This book offers substantial helpings of both!I have to disagree with the reviewers who say the text is hard to follow or that the pictures are too small.... The pictures are quite easy to see, and the only ones in black and white are of origiinal works thathappen to be in black and white, so I don't think this was a fair criticism.The text seems logically presented, with easy-to-follow section headings.I would never say that this book could serve as the "only" book you need if you are serious about obtaining specialist knowledge on the history of costume.However, I would certainly name it as the best "all-in-one" to start with.This book combines drawings of fashions, photographs of actual period clothing in museum settings, and plenty of examples of painted works depicting fashion trends.Being the critical person that I am, I cannot help but point out what I see as the one flaw:this book has extremely sparse information on military uniforms, so if you are interested in militaria you will need to seek a more specialized book.If you are interested in SEWING period clothing, I recommend Norah Waugh's works, "The Cut of Men's Clothing" and "The Cut of Women's Clothing".If you are interested in identifying period fashion trends, especially in small details such as accessories, hairstyles, buttons, etc. I HIGHLY recommend this book.I can honestly say that if it cost three times as much, I would still be recommending it as the best one I've seen yet.If it were an option, I wouldhave given this book SIX STARS!

A book for everyfashion history lover
I really debated between giving this 4 or 5 stars. This is a book I reference when I need a little more in-depth info about a certain period or style. As some of the other reviewers have said it is not an easy or engaging read. However, the text is very scholarly and deals a lot with political and economic factors that influenced the world of fashion (many books simply describe the developments in the garments without dealing much with the "why"). There are many images to show the progression of fashion changes and Boucher includes photos of extant garments (where possible), statues, accessories, etc. alongside reproductions of paintings. Each period is introduced by a general overview of the European world of the time (politics, economy, etc.) and then divided into sections such as Spanish Costume, or Military Costume. If you need a general overview of the complete history of (Western) fashion with a lot of scholarly text to back it up, look no further.

Good pictures, bad text
This book is a great source for pictures but the text is not as useful. It is more anthropological than historical and has been translated from French so is sometimes unclear. ... Read more

Product Description
In 1761, Denis Diderot ascribed the fabulous success enjoyed by Francois Boucher (1703-1770) to "the libertinage, the brilliancy, the pompons, the bosoms and bottoms" that proliferated in the artist's canvases. For while Boucher's art charmed nouveau riche buyers and titled patrons, this was not always the case with critics, and modern scholarship has done little to challenge Diderot's eventual judgment that to admire Boucher's work is to be a stranger to "real taste, to the truth, to just ideas, and to the seriousness of art." This engaging study examines the motives behind the contemporaneous critical response to Boucher's picturesque repertoire of amorous peasants, blithe aristocrats, and fanciful mythological scenes, and to the rococo style in general. The vision of t rococo (feminine, aristocratic, decadent) and of Boucher (facile, libertine, debauched) that lingers in modern art history was invented by eighteenth-century critics bent on reform, both aesthetic and political.Exploring how the discrediting of Boucher and his school intersected with cultural debates about gender and class, this account of Boucher's art should persuade critics and admirers alike to take another, more considered look. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Transgendering the Rococo
The Rococo is an art style that flourished during the reign of king Louis XV of France (who died in 1774). It's also closely associated with the king's official mistress, the legendary Madame Le Pompadour. The most well-known Rococo painter was Francois Boucher. Already during its heyday, the Rococo was severely criticized, accused of being frivolous and indecent. After the death of Louis XV, and even more after the French Revolution, the Rococo was replaced by the more sober and serious Neo-Classical style in both art and architecture. After a short revival under Napoleon III, the Rococo definitely went out of fashion, and every one who still admires Boucher risks being rebuked for having really bad taste.

Naturally, a much-maligned art style such as this is due for a reappraisal. The rehabilitation is made by Melissa Hyde, an associate professor of art history. Not only does Hyde seem to like Boucher, she even suggests that the Rococo was feminine, transgendered and somewhat gay!

The Rococo was connected with aristocratic culture. But what exactly does that mean? According to Hyde, the French aristocracy had more gender equality than was considered usual at the time. The sexes of elite society were seen by outsiders (and critical insiders) as too similar and uniform. In the upper class salons, men and women shared ideas and tastes, and frequently even appearances. The fact that both men and women used make up was particularly damning to the critics. (Hence the title of Hyde's book.) Wealthy women played a prominent part as financiers or buyers of art, and sometimes even as painters. To the critics, it seemed as if French culture was controlled by women. The most obvious symbol of female influence was Madame Le Pompadour, the upstart who had become the de facto ruler of France by her unnatural liaison with Louis XV.

Hyde further points out that cross-dressing and out-right transvestism were socially acceptable, at least in elite circles. This can be seen in theatre plays from the period. They frequently featured gender play, travesty roles and cross-dressing plots. Pompadour herself played male roles in theatre plays at the royal court.In anti-royal propaganda, Louis XV was compared to a transvestite. There are also examples of homoerotical theatre. Charles-Simon Favart composed comic operas where the male and female roles are similar, have similar names, and the male lead is played by a woman! It was quite common that women dressed and passed as men, and men as women. One male heterosexual transvestite even published an autobiography about his life as a woman. Hyde comments: "Travesty begins to mutate into transvestism".

Francois Boucher, the famed Rococo painter, was very much a part of this context. Favart was one of his friends, and there are several connections between Boucher's art and Favart's comic operas. Boucher often painted pastoral motives. Many theatre plays with transgendered themes were also based on pastorals. Boucher's critics often complained about the male and female characters on his paintings being too similar. Indeed, Boucher did avoid the standard artistic conventions about how gender differences should be depicted. Shepherds appear in roles and postures that were traditionally seen as feminine, and shepherdesses appear in postures seen as masculine. Often, Boucher used the same models for both female and male characters on his paintings! He was also very fond of painting the mythological motif of how Jupiter in the guise of a woman attempts to seduce the female nymph Callisto. Since both protagonists look like women, the paintings of Jupiter and Callisto look lesbian!

Another connection between Boucher and high society was, of course, Pompadour herself. She was his foremost patron, and Boucher made several portraits of her. One of them shows Pompadour at her make up table. As already pointed out, make up was used by both men and women among the aristocracy. Indeed, Boucher was often criticized for using pink colours in his paintings, pink being the preferred colour of ladies applying make up.

Many of Boucher's critics were supporters of the Enlightenment, the most prominent being Denis Diderot (although his criticism wasn't published until after his death). Hyde believes that the Enlightenment, while being positive overall, nevertheless had a darker side: misogyny. The Enlightenment philosophers emphasized the differences between men and women, seeing the men as better. They therefore despised "effiminate" aristocratic culture. The backstage rule of Pompadour, and the political impotence of the king, was particularly damning. The decadent aristocrat was stereotyped as effete, and the decadence of French culture was blamed on the influence of women. The gender ambiguity of the aristocracy was naturally seen in a negative light, and that was one of the reasons why Boucher came under attack. Not only was his art rejected as frivolous, indecent and lacking in serious political message. As already indicated, it was very specifically accused of minimizing gender differences, making men and women look alike.

I have no idea whether the analysis in this book is correct or not. However, it's interesting and written in a relatively accessible style. The last chapters on pastorals, comic operas and Boucher's use of models, are almost entertaining. I recommend the book to all serious students of art history in general, and the conflict between the Rococo and Neo-Classicism in particular.
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Product Description
Chapters: François Boucher, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Jacopo Amigoni, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Alessandro Magnasco, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Antoine Watteau, Lorenzo de Caro, Gaspare Traversi, Giuseppe Bazzani, Giovanni Battista Cipriani, Corrado Giaquinto, Jean-Baptiste Pillement, Antonio Bellucci, Francesco Fernandi, Ulrika Pasch, Jean François de Troy, Antonio Balestra, Jean-Baptiste Van Loo, Giovanni Domenico Ferretti, Domenico Corvi, Gottlieb Welté, Carlo Carlone, Gaetano Gandolfi, Giambattista Pittoni, Andrea Casali, Pier Leone Ghezzi, Giuseppe Nogari, Placido Costanzi, Nicola Peccheneda, Louis-Michel Van Loo, Bartolomeo Nazari, Charles-Amédée-Philippe Van Loo, Giambettino Cignaroli, Giuseppe Marchesi, Charles Joseph Flipart, Giampietro Zanotti, Jean-Baptiste Pater, Giuseppe Bonito, Francesco Monti, Anna Maria Hilfeling, Francescantonio Coratoli, Paolo Anesi, Antonio Rossi, Lorenzo Baldissera Tiepolo, Giuseppe Dallamano, Pietro Capelli, Francesco Zugno, Giorgio Anselmi, Angelica le Gru Perotti, František Jakub Prokyš. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 150. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (March 5, 1696 March 27, 1770), also known as Gianbattista or Giambattista Tiepolo, was a Venetian painter and printmaker. He was prolific, and worked not only in the region of Veneto or Venetia, one of Italy's twenty regions, but also in Germany and Spain. Death of Hyacinth. Apotheosis of Spain in Royal Palace of Madrid. Born in Venice, Tiepolo was the youngest of six children born to Orsetta, Tiepolo's mother and his father, Domenico Tiepolo, a sea captain. While the Tiepolo surname belongs to a patrician family, Giambattista's father did not claim patrician status. The future artist was baptised in his parish church (San Pietro di Castello) as Giovanni Battist...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=216781 ... Read more

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Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Muhammad Ibn Abd-Al-Wahhab, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, François Boucher, Louis D'orléans, Duke of Orléans, Shah Waliullah, Theophilus Cibber, Marie Leszczyńska, Thomas Clap, Edmund Law, Ostenaco, Jacques-Nicolas Bellin, Peter Warren, Ferdinand Konščak, Henriette Louise de Bourbon, Jack Broughton, Anton Wilhelm Amo, George Cholmondeley, 3rd Earl of Cholmondeley, Thomas Clarke, François Bigot, Sir Henry Cheere, 1st Baronet, Edmund Quincy, Antoine Deparcieux, Robert Dodsley, François-Marie le Marchand de Lignery, Simon Carl Stanley, Thomas Cooke, James Delancey, Corrado Giaquinto, John Winslow, Lorenzo Ricci, Daniel-Charles Trudaine, Charlotte Howe, Viscountess Howe, Henry Brooke, Gilbert Tennent, Edward Shippen, Iii, John Holmes, Henry Holmes, Gilbert West, Francis Fauquier, Andrea Soldi, William Battie, Vasily Trediakovsky, Anne Van Keppel, Countess of Albemarle, Chiyo-Ni, Guillaume-François Rouelle, Alexander V of Imereti, Ibrahim Hakkı Erzurumi, Abraham Creighton, 1st Baron Erne, Andrew Rollo, 5th Lord Rollo, Andrew Stone, James Miller, John Entick, Louis de La Corne, Chevalier de La Corne, John Taylor, Sir James Douglas, 1st Baronet, José Francisco de Isla, Christophe de Beaumont, Arthur Gore, 1st Earl of Arran, James Hamilton, 5th Duke of Hamilton, John Swinton, George de Benneville, William Worthington, Lord Sidney Beauclerk, Changchub Dorje, George Morrison, Joseph-Hector Fiocco, Johann Theodor of Bavaria, Jean-Louis Calandrini, Ignazio Hugford, Ayagawa Gorōji, Edward Barradall, Cajsa Warg, Ferdinand Konsag, James West, Aleksei Chirikov, Carlmann Kolb, Thomas Foley, 2nd Baron Foley, André Levret, Johann Ernst Hebenstreit, Johann Gottlieb Graun, Thomas Hancock, John Brine, Robert Lamb, Joseph Lieutaud, Tekla Róża Radziwiłł, Jean Monnet, David Nitschmann Der Syndikus, Rober...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=42411 ... Read more