A fresh interpretation of the group of Fragonard's paintings known as the 'figures de fantaisie', Fragonard and the Fantasy Figure: Painting the Imagination reconnects the fantasy figures with neglected visual traditions in European art and firmly situates them within the cultural and aesthetic contexts of eighteenth-century France. Prior scholarship has focused on the paintings' connections with portraiture, whereas this study relocates them within a tradition of fantasy figures, where resemblance was ignored or downplayed. The book defines Fragonard as a painter of the imagination and foregrounds the imaginary at a time when Enlightenment rationalism and Classical aesthetics contrived to delimit the imagination. The book unravels scholarly writing on these Fragonard paintings and examines the history of the fantasy figure from early modern Europe to eighteenth-century France. Emerging from this background is a view of Fragonard turning away from the academically sanctioned 'invention', towards more playful variants of the imaginary: fantasy and caprice. Melissa Percival demonstrates how fantasy figures engage both artists and viewers, allowing artists to unleash their imagination through displays of virtuosity and viewers to use their imagination to explore the paintings' unusual juxtapositions and humour.

Fancy in the eighteenth century was part of a rich semantic network, connecting wit, whimsicality, erotic desire, spontaneity, deviation from norms and triviality. It was also a contentious term, signifying excess, oddness and irrationality, liable to offend taste, reason and morals. This collection of essays foregrounds fancy - and its close synonym, caprice - as a distinct strand of the imagination in the period. As a prevalent, coherent and enduring concept in aesthetics and visual culture, it deserves a more prominent place in scholarly understanding than it has hitherto occupied. Fancy is here understood as a type of creative output that deviated from rules and relished artistic freedom. It was also a mode of audience response, entailing a high degree of imaginative engagement with playful, quirky artworks, generating pleasure, desire or anxiety. Emphasizing commonalities between visual productions in different media from diverse locations, the authors interrogate and celebrate the expressive freedom of fancy in European visual culture. Topics include: the seductive fictions of the fancy picture, Fragonard and galanterie, fancy in drawing manuals, pattern books and popular prints, fans and fancy goods, chinoiserie, excess and virtuality in garden design, Canaletto's British 'capricci', urban design in Madrid, and Goya's 'Caprichos'.

A fresh interpretation of the group of Fragonard's paintings known as the 'figures de fantaisie', Fragonard and the Fantasy Figure: Painting the Imagination reconnects the fantasy figures with neglected visual traditions in European art and firmly situates them within the cultural and aesthetic contexts of eighteenth-century France. Prior scholarship has focused on the paintings' connections with portraiture, whereas this study relocates them within a tradition of fantasy figures, where resemblance was ignored or downplayed. The book defines Fragonard as a painter of the imagination and foregrounds the imaginary at a time when Enlightenment rationalism and Classical aesthetics contrived to delimit the imagination. The book unravels scholarly writing on these Fragonard paintings and examines the history of the fantasy figure from early modern Europe to eighteenth-century France. Emerging from this background is a view of Fragonard turning away from the academically sanctioned 'invention', towards more playful variants of the imaginary: fantasy and caprice. Melissa Percival demonstrates how fantasy figures engage both artists and viewers, allowing artists to unleash their imagination through displays of virtuosity and viewers to use their imagination to explore the paintings' unusual juxtapositions and humour.

The Swiss theologian Johann Caspar Lavater (1741-1801) is best known for his revival of physiognomy, or the ancient art of judging character from physical appearance. His writings on physiognomy, rapidly translated into the major European languages, made him a celebrity in his lifetime. Although they were always controversial, Lavater's theories had a pervasive and long-lasting influence on art, literature, medicine, and the emerging social sciences. Physiognomy in Profile affirms and assesses Lavater's contribution to European culture in the two hundred years since his death. It examines how his vision of physiognomy as a viable method of interpreting the modern world has repeatedly been affirmed and challenged. Even today, at the turn of the twenty-first century, this study reveals that Lavater's ideas have a surprising resilience. The book adopts a cross-disciplinary approach, focusing on the novel, press and periodical literature, painting, drawing, photography, caricature, encyclopedias, and medical texts. It brings together the work of scholars from North America, Europe, and Australia.