Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


DELOUCHE_DISS.pdf (14.14 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Face Value: The Reproducible Portrait in France, 1830-1848

DeLouche, Sean
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1405798734

Abstract Details

2014, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, History of Art.
This dissertation examines the understudied topic of portraiture during the July Monarchy (1830-48), the constitutional regime that has long been associated with both the social and political rise of the bourgeoisie as well as the development of an extensive commercial culture in France. The second quarter of the nineteenth century witnessed the proliferation of portraits executed in a variety of alternative media that allowed for their mechanical reproduction and subsequent distribution to a mass audience of cultural consumers. This phenomenon coincided with the development of a new kind of celebrity, one that was dependent upon a brand of notoriety generated by the rapidly expanding press as opposed to lineage or professional accomplishment, the sources of more traditional forms of personal fame. This dissertation examines these intertwined phenomena in detail and posits them as evidence of a fundamental reconceptualization of the notion of the self during the July Monarchy. Both media-driven celebrity and the reproduction and large-scale distribution of portrait imagery attest to the fact that the self was no longer a solidly fixed identity emanating from some internal “essence” of the individual, but rather the product of an increasingly complex network of perceptions and representations. This dissertation begins with an investigation of the theoretical literature on selfhood and how it pertains to the crisis of self in the post-revolutionary age. Concurrent with the explosion of portraits in printed media was an unprecedented rise in the production of traditional, one-of-a-kind painted portraits and their public display at the Salon. As representations of contemporaries, portraits served as discursive and participatory sites not simply for aesthetic debates about representation but, more largely, about questions of class, politics, and gender—debates that in turn contributed to the generation and constantly changing discourses of the self. The second half of the dissertation focuses on the examination of three sets of portraits in reproducible media. I examine the role of the reproducible portrait in the solidification and dismantling of the political identity of King Louis-Philippe. The so-called “citizen-king” sought to market himself to the constantly shifting “middle” through a variety of often contradictory guises, which resulted in an incredibly unstable and uncontrollable image. In 1831, the journal L’Artiste began publishing a suite of portraits of the cultural icons of the day. Through their casual style and representational format, the portraits seek to create intimate, approachable images that immerse the famous sitters not in the world of their celebrity, but in that of the viewer. The lithographs recall the tradition of portrait drawing, thereby translating the vicarious one-on-one private experience of the unique portrait drawings to the mass-marketed celebrity culture. The dissertation concludes with an examination of the most famous portraits-in-multiple to be produced during the July Monarchy: the 500 portrait medallions by the republican sculptor David d’Angers. This chapter explores the tension between the sculptor’s rather grandiose conception of these portraits as perpetuating a long and distinguished tradition of artistic commemorations of grands hommes in France, on the one hand, and their status as small-scale commodities circulating on the open market, on the other.
Andrew Shelton (Advisor)
Lisa Florman (Committee Member)
Christian Kleinbub (Committee Member)
434 p.
Art History
19th-century French art; July Monarchy; 1830-1848; Louis-Philippe; identity; selfhood; portraiture; reproducible portraits; visual culture; celebrity; celebrity culture; Salon; art journals; Pierre-Jean David dAngers; medallions; Romanticism; lithography

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • DeLouche, S. (2014). Face Value: The Reproducible Portrait in France, 1830-1848 [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1405798734

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • DeLouche, Sean. Face Value: The Reproducible Portrait in France, 1830-1848. 2014. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1405798734.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • DeLouche, Sean. "Face Value: The Reproducible Portrait in France, 1830-1848." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1405798734

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1405798734
1,821
© 2014, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.