Splendors and Miseries. Images of Prostitution 1850-1910.
Flammarion| N° d'inventaire | 19674 |
| Format | 30 x 25 |
| Détails | 305 p., color illustrations, hardcover. |
| Publication | Paris, 2015 |
| Etat | Occasion |
| ISBN | |
On the occasion of the first major event devoted to the theme of prostitution, Splendeurs et misères. Images de la prostitution en France, 1850-1910 traces the way in which French and foreign artists, fascinated by the actors and sites of this social phenomenon, constantly sought new pictorial means to represent its realities and fantasies. From Manet's Olympia to Degas's L'Absinthe, from the brothel forays of Toulouse-Lautrec and Munch to the daring figures of Vlaminck, Van Dongen, and Picasso, the book seeks to demonstrate the central place occupied by this underworld in the development of modern painting. The phenomenon is also explored in its social and cultural dimensions through Salon painting, sculpture, the decorative arts, and photography in eight major sections, thus revealing its preponderant place in all aspects of 19th-century culture. Social and legal history, its links with literature, the question of ambiguity are all themes that propel us into this universe surrounded by fantasies of the Paris of Balzac and Zola: the Folies Bergère, the café concerts, the Opera boxes, the toilet, the preparations and the intimate scenes, but also the soliciting, the clients. A rich documentary material finally allows us to evoke the ambivalent status of the prostitutes, from the splendor of the demi-mondaines to the misery of the "piercing women."
On the occasion of the first major event devoted to the theme of prostitution, Splendeurs et misères. Images de la prostitution en France, 1850-1910 traces the way in which French and foreign artists, fascinated by the actors and sites of this social phenomenon, constantly sought new pictorial means to represent its realities and fantasies. From Manet's Olympia to Degas's L'Absinthe, from the brothel forays of Toulouse-Lautrec and Munch to the daring figures of Vlaminck, Van Dongen, and Picasso, the book seeks to demonstrate the central place occupied by this underworld in the development of modern painting. The phenomenon is also explored in its social and cultural dimensions through Salon painting, sculpture, the decorative arts, and photography in eight major sections, thus revealing its preponderant place in all aspects of 19th-century culture. Social and legal history, its links with literature, the question of ambiguity are all themes that propel us into this universe surrounded by fantasies of the Paris of Balzac and Zola: the Folies Bergère, the café concerts, the Opera boxes, the toilet, the preparations and the intimate scenes, but also the soliciting, the clients. A rich documentary material finally allows us to evoke the ambivalent status of the prostitutes, from the splendor of the demi-mondaines to the misery of the "piercing women."