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A Companion to French Art

Natalie Adamson (Edited by), Adamson (Author), Richard Taws (Edited by)

9781119370468, Wiley

Hardback, published 19 February 2026

624 pages
26.4 x 19.3 x 5.6 cm, 1.383 kg

A comprehensive exploration of the evolutions, innovations, and legacies of French art from the late eighteenth-century to the present

Charting the artistic eras from the transformative upheavals of the French Revolution to the dynamic global intersections of contemporary art in the 21st century, A Companion to French Art, provides an unparalleled analysis of French art. Edited by Richard Taws and Natalie Adamson, this authoritative volume offers new ways to consider the broad history of French art through critical attention to diverse objects, mediums, and practices that have shaped French art across centuries.

Shedding new light on how art has interacted with and challenged established narratives, this volume features 30 essays by leading and emerging scholars, offering insights into a wide range of topics, including revolutionary iconography, modernist movements, colonial legacies, and contemporary art's engagement with global issues. Going beyond traditional frameworks, these chapters present new methodologies and innovative interpretations that reflect the evolving questions and challenges in art history. Addressing essential themes while expanding the boundaries of how French art is understood today, A Companion to French Art:

  • Offers comprehensive coverage of French art with a uniquely wide topical and temporal scope
  • Examines diverse media and materials including painting, sculpture, photography, film, ceramics, industrial design, and fashion
  • Engages with cutting-edge methodologies such as post-colonial critique and feminist theory
  • Draws on in-depth archival research and previously unexplored materials for fresh insights

Essential for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in French art history, A Companion to French Art, is also an invaluable resource for academics, museum professionals, and researchers worldwide.

List of Figures ix
About the Editors xv
Notes on Contributors xvii
Series Editor's Preface xxiii
Acknowledgments xxv

Introduction 1
Natalie Adamson and Richard Taws

Part 1 Post- Revolutionary Visions 19

1 The Smiling Face of Terror: Étienne Béricourt's French Revolution 21
Richard Taws

2 After the Terror, Passing Scenes: Historical Experience in Robertson's Paris Phantasmagoria 39
Jillian Lerner

3 Portraits and Pathologies: Clinical Pictures in Early Nineteenth-Century France 59
Mechthild Fend Copyrighted Material

4 Costuming in History Painting 77
Susan L. Siegfried

5 The Déjeuner Culture et récolte du cacao: Staging Fantasies of Regression in Nineteenth-Century French Porcelain 95
Iris Moon

6 The Album des Deux Frontières: Lithography at the Nation's Limit 113
Kelly Presutti

Part 2 Materialising Modernity 129

7 The Ground of Painting: Modernism and Materiality in Gustave Courbet's L'atelier du peintre (1855) 131
Veronica Peselmann

8 Designing with Iron in Mid- Nineteenth- Century France 149
Amy F. Ogata

9 Camille Pissarro at the Crossroad of the Plantation 167
Helene Engnes Birkeli

10 Gloomy Renoir 189
Hollis Clayson

11 Playing Doctor with Toulouse- Lautrec: Male Friendship, Medicine, and Identity 205
Mary Hunter

12 Monet's Series Reconsidered: Instantaneity in Standard Time 223
André Dombrowski

Part 3 Media, Publics, Subjects 241

13 In the Tradition: Grappling with the Past in the Long Nineteenth Century 243
Neil McWilliam

14 Precious Works of Art: Rodin's Hanakos and Hanako's Rodins 261
Juliet Bellow

15 L'Inhumaine (1924), the "Plastic" Arts, and Cinematic Specificity 281
Malcolm Turvey

16 The Public Turn in French Art during the 1930s 299
Toby Norris

17 Surrealism: Revolution of the "Never Seen" 317
Susan Laxton

18 The Film Photo- Novel "Made in France" 335
Jan Baetens

Part 4 Contesting the Nation 349

19 Entangled Modernisms: Vietnamese Modern Art in Paris 351
Phoebe Scott

20 "What the Black Man Contributes": Présence Africaine, l'art nègre, and Modernism in Post- War Paris 373
Alastair Wright and Kathleen Rawlings

21 Bidonville Aesthetics and Genealogies of Modernity from Algiers, 1953/1963 393
Sheila Crane

22 Universality as a Radical Form: The Philips Pavilion at Expo 58 411
Noit Banai

23 The World in Question: Post-Imperial Solidarities in Narrative Figuration 429
Ming Tiampo

24 The "École de Paris" in Dakar 449
Maureen Murphy

Part 5 Archives of the Present 467

25 Building the "Museum Without Walls": Innovations in Photographic Art Reproduction in France, 1860-1960 469
Kim Timby

26 Unlearning at the École des Beaux- Arts de Paris 491
Déborah Laks

27 Seeing the Dark Continent in the City of Light: Women's Transnational Networks in 1970s Paris, Capital of the Arts 509
Rakhee Balaram

28 Art and Fashion in the 1980s 529
Sophie Cras

29 Photographic Investigations: Between Art, Human Sciences, and Investigative Journalism 545
Danièle Méaux

30 Unsunk Archives: The Resurfacing of Colonial Historical Records in Contemporary Art 563
Katarzyna Falęcka

Index 581

Subject Areas: History of art / art & design styles [AC]
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