Interior portraiture and masculine identity in France, 1789-1914

Focusing specifically on portraiture as a genre, this volume challenges scholarly assumptions that regard interior spaces as uniquely feminine. Contributors analyze portraits of men in domestic and studio spaces in France during the long nineteenth century; the preponderance of such portraits alone supports the book's premise that the alignment of men with public life is oversimplified and more myth than reality. The volume offers analysis of works by a mix of artists, from familiar names such as David, Delacroix, Courbet, Manet, Rodin, and Matisse to less well-known image makers including Dominique Doncre, Constance Mayer, Anders Zorn and Lucien-Etienne Melingue. The essays cover a range of media from paintings and prints to photographs and sculpture that allows exploration of the relation between masculinity and interiority across the visual culture of the period. The home and other interior spaces emerge from these studies as rich and complex locations for both masculine self-expression and artistic creativity. Interior Portraiture and Masculine Identity in France, 1789-1914 provides a much-needed rethinking of modern masculinity in this period. Temma Balducci is an Assistant Professor of Art History at Arkansas State University. She has published on the gaze and spectacle in nineteenth-century French art and on feminist art of the 1970's. Heather Belnap Jensen is Assistant Professor of Art History at Brigham Young University. Her research and publications examine women's contributions to early nineteenth-century culture. Pamela J. Warner is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Rhode Island. Her research focuses on art criticism in France during the nineteenth century, and she has published articles in Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, Studies in the Decorative Arts and the Cahiers Edmond et Jules de Goncourt. Her book in progress focuses on the critical reception of Realism and its ties to materialist philosophy. --Book Jacket.