On shifting ground: the revolutionary career of Francois Gerard

Langworthy, Jennifer

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/42421 Copy

Description

Title

On shifting ground: the revolutionary career of Francois Gerard

Author(s)

Langworthy, Jennifer

Issue Date

2013-02-03T19:37:58Z

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

O'Brien, David

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

O'Brien, David

Committee Member(s)

• Rosenthal, Lisa
• Vázquez, Oscar E.
• Greenhill, Jennifer

Department of Study

Art & Design

Discipline

Art History

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Francois Gerard
• French Portraiture
• French Revolutionary Art
• Davidian Art

Abstract

This dissertation examines the career of François-Pascal-Simon Gérard (1770- 1837) from its beginnings in the mid-1780s through the end of the French Revolution and provides a more complete understanding of Gérard as a key artist of the Revolutionary decade. A goal of this study is to set aside long-standing assumptions concerning Gérard’s political convictions and doubts about his artistic originality in order to shed light on Gérard’s critical contributions to Revolutionary art, and in particular, to the Davidian school. I demonstrate that, in the 1790s, Gérard moved away from the subjects and styles forged in Jacques-Louis David’s (1748-1825) studio. Most significantly, he reinvented classicism as a vehicle for moderate political themes, he reintroduced apolitical, sexualized imagery into classicism, and he established an artistic practice in which the serious business of the history painter was thoroughly integrated with that of the high-society portraitist. To do this, Gérard developed new modes of classicism, experimented with the emergent subject matter of Romanticism, and and explored issues of gender and sexuality in uncommon ways. During the tumultuous decade of the Revolution, when political consensus was at best fleeting and the traditional institutions of the French art world faltered, Gérard’s political and artistic flexibility allowed him not only to escape many of the consequences suffered by politically committed artists, but also eventually to thrive as a leading painter of the society of the late Directory. His career provides an alternative case for understanding the interplay of art, politics, and patronage in late-eighteenth century France.

Graduation Semester

2012-12

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/42421

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Langworthy

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