ARTH 539
The Matter of French Encounter (1564-1789) Fall 2024
Division I

The story of artistic production in the Ancien Régime usually focuses on painting and on Paris. In this seminar, we will chart an alternative history of early modern French art through a closer look at those materials forged in the cross-currents of armed trade, expansion, and colonial resistance between France and East Asia, India, the Ottoman Empire, North America, and the Caribbean. We will explore how luxury wares (such as porcelain, silver, and textiles), tools of observation (such as prints and drawings), and ornamental ensembles (such as furnished interiors and gardens) were all shaped by forces of circulation, appropriation, and extraction. Through these objects, we will ask the following questions: How did habits of production and consumption change in an era of pre-industrial globalization? How did material and visual culture construct notions of difference and hierarchy? What are the ethics of ascribing agency to inanimate things that emerged in an era of rampant dehumanization? Assignments will foster students’ ability to interpret and discuss artisanal and decorative objects that art history has traditionally kept at the margins. We will interrogate the utility of concepts such as turquerie, chinoiserie, and the “exotic,” and we will call upon both primary sources and contemporary theory to critically examine how alterity and subjectivity can be cultivated through things. Note: Final papers that address early modern intercultural encounters outside of France are welcome.