The Painter's Touch: Boucher, Chardin, Fragonard

Description

A new interpretation of the development of artistic modernity in eighteenth-century France The Painter's Touch is a radical reinterpretation of three paradigmatic French painters of the eighteenth century. In this beautifully illustrated book, Ewa Lajer-Burcharth provides close readings of the works of Francois Boucher, Jean-Simeon Chardin, and Je

Ewa Lajer-Burcharth is the William Dorr Boardman Professor of Fine Arts at Harvard University. Her books include Chardin Material and Necklines: The Art of Jacques-Louis David after the Terror.

"Ewa Lajer-Burcharth's book changes our sensibilities for eighteenth-century French art; it makes obscure images accessible and allows us to see familiar paintings afresh. While historically contextualized and psychoanalytically informed, this book seriously foregrounds the painter's touch and the materiality of images. It is positively driven by an art historical narrative, and its discussions of the object don't need the underpinning of topical anthropological thing theories. This beautifully produced and generously illustrated book, with close-up images supporting the thick descriptions, is a pleasure to read and to handle. And one wouldn't use these terms lightly after having savored the lessons of The Painter's Touch."---Mechthild Frend, Art Bulletin "Magisterially written . . . this book is a tour de force of interpretative analysis. Beautifully produced and generously illustrated, it offers a thoroughgoing, radical and at times controversial reassessment of the lives and careers of three of the eighteenth century's greatest painters."---Colin B. Bailey, Burlington Magazine "Ewa Lajer-Burcharth has written one of the first books that elevates eighteenth-century genre painting to the level of artistic and philosophical complexity that it truly deserves. One could say that it is a lesson in taking the art on its own terms. The result of close to a decade of sustained thought and research, the book is simply stunning. . . . It is Lajer-Burcharth's singular achievement to give us a very different eighteenth century, a 'luminous elsewhere' that's also right here with us. And radically ordinary."---Kevin Chua, Nonsite "Ewa Lajer-Burcharth's new work continues her radical and original accounts of eighteenth-century French painting. . . . The theories and ideas invoked belong both to eighteenth-century contexts and to unexpected modern inclusions, such as the psychoanalytic philosophy of Andre Green. The reader is involved in a vigorous and at times provocative debate, vital to our understanding of the origins of modernity."---Richard Hobbs, French Studies: A Quarterly Review "Provocative and unsettling. . . . [The Painter's Touch] will surely provide the starting point of new thinking about eighteenth-century French art for decades to come."---Katie Scott, Art History