Masks and masking practices in old regime France and the French Revolution

Huang, Jun

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/127234 Copy

Description

Title

Masks and masking practices in old regime France and the French Revolution

Author(s)

Huang, Jun

Issue Date

2024-12-03

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Crowston, Clare H

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Crowston, Clare H

Committee Member(s)

• Koslofsky, Craig
• Symes, Carol
• Micale, Mark

Department of Study

History

Discipline

History

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Seventeenth-Century France
• Eighteenth-Century France
• Old Regime
• masks

Abstract

This dissertation explores masks and masking practices in France during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a period characterized by a rich and multi-faceted tradition of masking, including court ballets, theatrical performances, masked balls, carnivals, and sun screening. This culture of masking expanded dramatically since the reign of Louis XIV, as it became profoundly intertwined with the spectacular performances and construction of absolutist monarchical power. The vital role of masks in the political culture of absolutism not only gave rise to mask makers— a group of artisans whose significance in ancien régime France has been hitherto overlooked by historians—but also fueled the use of the word “mask” as a rhetorical symbol of artifice, secrecy, and hypocrisy in debates over authenticity, social order and disorder, and, more generally, human nature in the eighteenth century, particularly after the Enlightenment. The socio-racial realities of the Old Regime also contributed to the growth of masking practices during this period, as French women of high social status and wealth began to wear black masks to signal and accentuate their white complexions, thereby distinguishing themselves from people of African origins—both free and enslaved, at home and abroad. The increasing masking practices and mask-related discourses in the Old Regime explains the ubiquity of the metaphors of “masking” and “unmasking” in the consistent and widespread calls for authenticity and total transparency in the French Revolution.

Graduation Semester

2024-12

Type of Resource

Thesis

Handle URL

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/127234

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2024 Jun Huang

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