£45.99
Theophile Gautier, Orator to the Artists
Art Journalism of the Second Republic
Introduction
"Theophile Gautier a envoye avec un feuilleton plus de trois mille personnes dans l'atelier de M. Ingres, wrote Champfleury in 1848. For artists, critics and readers alike, Gautier was the essential figure in French art journalism in the mid-nineteenth century."
Historical Context
During the short-lived but pivotal period of the Second Republic, when the new administration was committed to reforming all the institutions of the fine arts, Gautier deployed the full resources of his brilliant, flexible and authoritative writing to support and direct these developments in ways compatible with his commitment to an idealist aesthetic, itself under growing pressure from alternative trends in an increasingly competitive art market.
Significance
This first study of all Gautier's art journalism written during the Second Republic provides a long overdue reassessment of Gautier's importance in French nineteenth-century visual culture.
