ABSTRACT

The French Revolution had a marked impact on the ways in which citizens saw the newly liberated spaces in which they now lived. Painting, gardening, cinematic displays of landscape, travel guides, public festivals, and tales of space flight and devilabduction each shaped citizens’ understanding of space. Through an exploration of landscape painting over some 40 years, Steven Adams examines the work of artists, critics and contemporary observers who have largely escaped art historical attention to show the importance of landscape as a means of crystallising national identity in a period of unprecedented political and social change.

chapter |13 pages

Introduction

Landscape and landscape painting in Revolutionary France

chapter 1|29 pages

Landscape painting and the pastoral vision

Art and spatiality during the ancien régime

chapter 2|29 pages

Making space for the Revolution

chapter 3|28 pages

‘The passive instrument of the First Consul’s will’

Painting landscapes for Napoléon Bonaparte

chapter 4|31 pages

Blindness, amnesia and consumption

Painting landscapes in Restoration France