Fleshing out surfaces Skin in French art and medicine, 1650-1850

Fleshing out surfaces is the first English-language book on skin and flesh tones in art. It considers flesh and skin in art theory, image making and medical discourse in seventeenth to nineteenth-century France. Describing a gradual shift between the early modern and the modern period, it argues tha...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Fend, Mechthild
Format: eBook Book
Language:English
Published: Manchester Manchester University Press 2017
Edition:1st ed.
Series:Rethinking art's histories
Subjects:
ISBN:1526104660, 9781526104663, 0719087961, 9780719087967
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Fleshing out surfaces is the first English-language book on skin and flesh tones in art. It considers flesh and skin in art theory, image making and medical discourse in seventeenth to nineteenth-century France. Describing a gradual shift between the early modern and the modern period, it argues that what artists made when imitating human nakedness was not always the same. Initially understood in terms of the body's substance, of flesh tones and body colour, it became increasingly a matter of skin, skin colour and surfaces. Each chapter is dedicated to a different notion of skin and its colour, from flesh tones via a membrane imbued with nervous energy to hermetic borderline. Looking in particular at works by Fragonard, David, Girodet, Benoist and Ingres, the focus is on portraits, as facial skin is a special arena for testing painterly skills and a site where the body and the image become equally expressive.
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references (p. [281]-303) and index
ISBN:1526104660
9781526104663
0719087961
9780719087967
DOI:10.7765/9781526104663