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9780271061948

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Amy Freund's incisive analysis of revolutionary portraiture and its engagement with political ideology and consumer culture provides a much-needed account of the thriving portrait market during the French Revolution--and of portraiture's role in the redefinition of personal identity, social categories, and aesthetic hierarchies that emerged in the beginning of the modern era. Her book is an indispensable addition to the body of recent scholarship that looks beyond the privileged genre of history painting to offer a wholesale reassessment of the significance of portraiture during the eighteenth century and the revolutionary period. Persuasive, thoughtful, and lucidly written, Portraiture and Politics in Revolutionary France will appeal to anyone interested in portraiture and the political functions of art. --Melissa Hyde, University of Florida

Amy Freund's rich and beautifully illustrated study, <em>Portraiture and Politics in Revolutionary France</em>, tackles the fascinating collaborative role played by portrait artists and their sitters in the 'reimagining of selfhood' (5) and construction of the 'citizen' within the context of the new political and social order(s) from the fall of the Bastille to the rise of Napoleon. By tightly focusing on the period 1789-1804, Freund highlights the close correlation between changing regimes--from the Estates-General to the National Assembly, through the Terror, the Directory, and the Consulate--and the visual representation of French subjecthood, identity, and political agency. </p>--Alexandra K. Wettlaufer, <em>Nineteenth-Century French Studies</em></p>

Amy Freund's incisive analysis of revolutionary portraiture and its engagement with political ideology and consumer culture provides a much-needed account of the thriving portrait market during the French Revolution--and of portraiture's role in the redefinition of personal identity, social categories, and aesthetic hierarchies that emerged in the beginning of the modern era. Her book is an indispensable addition to the body of recent scholarship that looks beyond the privileged genre of history painting to offer a wholesale reassessment of the significance of portraiture during the eighteenth century and the revolutionary period. Persuasive, thoughtful, and lucidly written, Portraiture and Politics in Revolutionary France will appeal to anyone interested in portraiture and the political functions of art. --Melissa Hyde, University of Florida

Amy Freund s rich and beautifully illustrated study, Portraiture and Politics in Revolutionary France, tackles the fascinating collaborative role played by portrait artists and their sitters in the reimagining of selfhood (5) and construction of the citizen within the context of the new political and social order(s) from the fall of the Bastille to the rise of Napoleon. By tightly focusing on the period 1789 1804, Freund highlights the close correlation between changing regimes from the Estates-General to the National Assembly, through the Terror, the Directory, and the Consulate and the visual representation of French subjecthood, identity, and political agency. Alexandra K. Wettlaufer, Nineteenth-Century French Studies

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Amy Freund is Assistant Professor and the Kleinheinz Family Endowment for the Arts and Education Endowed Chair in Art History at Southern Methodist University

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