The Fabrication of Louis XIV by Peter Burke
Louis XIV was a man like any other, but the money and attention lavished on his public image by the French government transformed him into a godlike figure. In this engrossing book, an internationally respected historian gives an account of contemporary representations of Louis XIV and shows how the making of the royal image illuminates the relationship between art and power. Images of Louis XIV included hundreds of oil paintings and engravings, three-hundred-odd medals struck to commemorate the major events of the reign, sculptures, and bronzes, as well as plays, ballets (in which the king himself sometimes appeared on stage), operas, odes, sermons, official newspapers and histories, fireworks, fountains, and tapestries. Drawing on an analysis of these representations as well as on surviving documentary sources, Peter Burke shows the conscious attempt to invent the image of the king and reveals how the supervision of the royal image was entrusted to a commitee, the so-called small academy. This book is not only a fascinating chronological study of the mechanics of the image-making of a king over the course of a seventy-year reign but is also an investigation into the genre of cultural construction. Burke discusses the element of propaganda implicit in image-making, the manipulation of seventeenth-century media of communication (oral, visual, and textual) and their codes (literary and artistic), and the intended audience and its response. He concludes by comparing and contrasting Louis's public image with that of other rulers ranging from Augustus to contemporary American presidents.
Alvaro Jaramillo was born in Santiago, Chile, but raised in Toronto, where he became a birder at the age of 11. He holds a Zoology degree and a Masters degree in Ecology and Evolution from the University of Toronto. He currently works for the Coyote Creek Riparian Station, a bird observatory and research facility in San Jose, California. He also leads birding trips in North and South America. He is currently working on a field guide to the birds of Chile with Peter Burke and David Beadle. Peter Burke, a Biology graduate, has been drawing and painting birds for twenty years, but has been a professional artist only since the mid-1990s. He has traveled to Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Mexico to prepare sketches for this guide. He has also illustrated a guide to the dragonflies and damselflies of eastern Canada
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780300059434 |
| ISBN 10 | 0300059434 |
| Title | The Fabrication of Louis XIV |
| Author | Peter Burke |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Yale University Press |
| Year published | 1994-03-23 |
| Number of pages | 256 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |