Moved by love : inspired artists and deviant women in eighteenth-century France / Mary D. Sheriff.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sheriff, Mary D.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Arts, French--18th century--Themes, motives.

Arts, French.

Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.).

Pygmalion (Mythological character).

Pygmalion.

Héloïse, approximately 1095-1163 or 1164.

Héloïse.

Themes, motives.

Physical Description:

xiii, 303 pages : illustrations ; 27 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2004.

Summary:

In eighteenth-century France, the ability to lose oneself in a character or scene marked both great artists and ideal spectators. Yet it was thought this same passionate enthusiasm, if taken to unreasonable extremes, could also lead to sexual deviance, mental illness -- even death. Women and artists were seen as especially susceptible to these negative consequences of creative enthusiasm, and women artists, doubly so. Mary D. Sheriff uses these very different visions of enthusiasm to explore the complex interrelationships among creativity, sexuality, the body, and the mind in eighteenth-century France. Drawing on evidence from the visual arts, literature, philosophy, and medicine, she portrays the deviance ascribed to both inspired men and women. But while various mythologies worked to normalize deviance in male artists, women had no justification. For instance, the mythical sculptor Pygmalion was cured of an abnormal love for his statues through the making of art. He became a model for creative artists, living happily with his statues come to life. No happy endings, though, were imagined for such inspired women writers as Sappho and Heloise, who burned with an erotomania their art could not quench. Even so, Sheriff demonstrates that the perceived connections among sexuality, creativity, and disease also opened artistic opportunities for women -- and creative women took full advantage of them. Brilliantly reassessing the links between sexuality and creativity, artistic genius and madness, passion and reason, Moved by Love will profoundly reshape our view of eighteenth-century French culture.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Enthusiasm: Reason's Masterpiece 15

Chapter 2 The Artist and the Woman 43

Part 1 Just Like a Woman?

Part 2 Possession and Emulation

Chapter 3 Deviant Spectators: Ignorant Girls and Women Who Know Too Much 85

Chapter 4 Pygmalion's Enthusiasm and the Fires of Nymphomania, or The Psychology of Art and Desire 125

Chapter 5 The Model Pygmalion and the Artist Galatea 159

Part 1 A Model for the Artist

Part 2 Playing Galatea

Chapter 6 Inspired by Heloise 201

Conclusion: Closing the Circle, Opening the End 241.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 283-295) and index.

ISBN:

0226752879

0226752887

OCLC:

51519554