François Boucher and the L’Odalisque b
rune: Revelations concerning the unknown origins of a secret and liber
tine work
A curatorial lecture by Guillaume Faroult
This event is
free and open to the public. Please join us for a reception following the
talk.
Please contact the AHVA Visual Resources Centre for access to t he event recording: ahva.vrc@ubc.ca.
The painter François Boucher (1703–1770) is known for an artistic care er that was arguably one of most brilliant of the European Enlightenment. C alled upon not only by the French court but also by many foreign government s\, Boucher’s artistic imagination provided many models and images that ins pired artists throughout Europe. In 1765\, he was named The First Painter o f the King and thereby became the Director of the French Academy of Paintin g and Sculpture. During this same year\, a highly suggestive engraving surf aced which allowed the French public to gain a glimpse of one of his most d aringly erotic works\, L’Odalisque brune. Indeed\, this work was p art of a secret corpus of paintings for which libertine collectors clamoure d throughout the Century. Painted in 1745 for a discrete connoisseur\, this work by Boucher characterises a century at once filled with curiosity for all things related to freedom and liberty and possessing a voracious appeti te for moral licentiousness. The lecture will attempt to retrace the genesi s of this painting at the same time as it uncovers the many meanings and fu nctions belonging to a highly original work. Its combination of seduction a nd ambiguity underscores that remarkable taste for masks and oriental fanta sies that typifies the French Enlightenment.
Guillaume Faroult is sen ior curator of the Louvre Museum in charge of French paintings from the 18t h century as well as British and American art. Specialising in French and B ritish painting spanning the 18th century until the early 19th\, he has pub lished numerous books and articles on this period. His interests lie more s pecifically in the historical reception of art\, the practices of art colle ctors\, the relationship between art and literature and in studying the his tory of artistic institutions such as museums. Faroult has curated many exh ibitions\, including La Caze Collection (Paris\, Louvre and London \, Wallace Collection\, 2007–2008)\, Turner and the Masters (Londo n\, Tate Britain\; Paris\, Grand Palais\; Madrid\, Prado\, 2009–2010)\, Antiquity Revived: Neoclassical Art in the Eighteenth Century (Paris\ , Louvre and Houston\, Museum of Fine Arts\, 2010–2011)\, Fragonard amo ureux. Galant et libertin (Paris\, Luxembourg Museum\, 2015–2016) and Hubert Robert (Paris\, Louvre and Washington\, National Gallery of Art\, 2016). For 2020\, he is curating two exhibitions of British painting to be held in the Museum of Fine Art in Bordeaux\, France.
Presented by the Department of Art History\, Visual Art and Theory\; Department of F rench\, Hispanic and Italian Studies\; and the Consulate General of France in Vancouver
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