Absorption and theatricality : painting and beholder in the age of Diderot

With this widely acclaimed work, Fried revised the way in which eighteenth-century French painting and criticism were viewed and understood."A reinterpretation supported by immense learning and by a series of brilliantly perceptive readings of paintings and criticism alike. . . . An exhilarating book."--John Barrell, "London Review of Books" "With this widely acclaimed work, [the author] revised the way in which eighteenth-century French painting and criticism were viewed and understood. Analyzing paintings produced between 1753 and 1781 and the comments of a number of critics who wrote about them, especially Denis Diderot, [the author] discovers a new emphasis in the art of the time, one based not on subject matter or style but on values and effects. The particular effect [he] focuses on is that of absorption - the human figure engrossed in an activity as if in denial of an audience. He then demonstrates the importance of this issue - the need to establish the fiction that the beholder does not exist - in the evolution of French painting during the last decades of the Ancien Regime"-Back cover 1. The Primacy Of Absorption -- 2. Toward A Supreme Fiction -- 3. Painting And Beholder -- Appendix A. Grimm On Unity, Instantaneousness And Related Topics -- Appendix B. Two Related Texts: The Lettre Sur Les Spectacles And Die Wahlverwandtschaften -- Appendix C. David's Homer Drawings Of 1794 Notes Index. Michael Fried. Originally Published: University Of California Press, 1980. Includes Index. Bibliography: P. 179-242. Contents 1 Illustrations 4 Introduction 7 [1] The Primacy of Absorption 10 [2] Toward a Supreme Fiction 42 [3] Painting and Beholder 60 Appendix A: Grimm on Unity, Instantaneousness and Related Topics 87 Appendix C: Two Related Texts - The Lettre sur les spectacles and Die Wahlverwandtschaften 90 Appendix C: David's Homer Drawings of I794 94 Notes 97 Absorption and Theatricality by Michael Fried. University of Chicago Press,1980