Moved by Love by Mary D Sheriff

Moved by Love by Mary D Sheriff

In eighteenth-century France, the ability to "lose oneself" in a character or scene marked both great artists and ideal spectators. Yet it was also thought this same passionate enthusiasm, if taken to unreasonable extremes, could lead to sexual deviance, mental illness, and 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 artistic 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 scrutinizes the different forms of deviance ascribed to male and female artists. Sheriff also demonstrates that the perceived connections among sexuality, creativity, and disease also opened artistic opportunities for women - and creative women took full advantage of them.

"[Sheriff's] Exceptional Woman and Fragonard are already essential reading for anyone interested in the art and culture of 18th-century Europe, and Moved By Love promises to join those books on the shelves of scholars and students everywhere" - David T. Gies, Virginia Quarterly Review"

Mary D. Sheriff is the Daniel W. Patterson Distinguished Term Professor of Art and department chair at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the author of The Exceptional Woman: Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun and the Cultural Politics of Art and Fragonard: Art and Eroticism, both published by the University of Chicago Press.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780226752884
ISBN 10	0226752887
Title	Moved by Love
Author	Mary D Sheriff
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	The University of Chicago Press
Year published	2007-06-01
Number of pages	320
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.