Enlightened Animals in Eighteenth-Century Art - Sensation, Matter, and Knowledge (Paperback)

How do our senses help us to understand the world? This question, which preoccupied Enlightenment thinkers in Western Europe, also emerged as a key theme in depictions of animals in eighteenth-century art. This book examines the ways in which painters, sculptors, porcelain modelers, and other decorative designers portrayed animals as sensing subjects who physically confirmed the value of material experience. The independent agency of animals with their own right to free existence, a topic of growing urgency in our own era, emerges in striking and often surprising ways within this early nexus of artistic experimentation. The sensual style known today as the Rococo encouraged the proliferation of animals as exemplars of empirical inquiry in the eighteenth century, ranging from the popular subject of the monkey artist to the alchemical wonders of the life-sized porcelain animals created for the Saxon court. Examining writings on sensory knowledge by La Mettre, Condillac, Diderot and other philosophers side by side with depictions of the animal in art, Cohen argues that artists promoted the animal as a sensory, thinking subject while also validating the material basis of their own professional practice.

General

Imprint:	Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Series:	Material Culture of Art and Design
Release date:	April 2023
Authors:	Sarah Cohen
Dimensions:	234 x 156mm (L x W)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	256
ISBN-13:	978-1-350-20362-4
Categories:	Books > Arts & Architecture > The arts: general issues > Theory of art Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Social & political philosophy Books > Arts & Architecture > Art forms, treatments & subjects > Art treatments & subjects > Iconography, subjects depicted in art > Nature in art, still life, landscapes & seascapes > General Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Social & political philosophy Promotions
LSN:	1-350-20362-9
Barcode:	9781350203624

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