Session I: The beginning of the end. Hedonism and revolution in 18th-century French painting

This session analyses how a decorative and whimsical aesthetic was also an expression of subjectivity and the affirmation of the individual, a glimpse of a spirit of freedom that fuelled the revolutionary changes of the century. It also addresses the melancholic "fêtes galantes" and scenes that celebrated bourgeois private life, the salons and salinières, and the Enlightenment sensibility that promoted a fascination with nature and ruins, focusing on artists such as Watteau, Chardin, Boucher, Fragonard and Vernet.

Course leader: María Cunillera.