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The Painter's Touch: Boucher, Chardin, Fragonard

By (author) Ewa Lajer-Burcharth

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A new interpretation of the development of artistic modernity in eighteenth-century France What can be gained from considering a painting not only as an image but also a material object? How does the painterâ€™s own experience of the process of making matter for our understanding of both the painting and its maker? The Painterâ€™s Touch addresses these questions to offer a radical reinterpretation of three paradigmatic French painters of the eighteenth century. In this beautifully illustrated book, Ewa Lajer-Burcharth provides close readings of the works of FranÃ§ois Boucher, Jean-SimÃ©on Chardin, and Jean-HonorÃ© Fragonard, entirely recasting our understanding of these paintersâ€™ practice. Using the notion of touch, she examines the implications of their strategic investment in materiality and sheds light on the distinct contribution of painting to the culture of the Enlightenment. Lajer-Burcharth traces how the distinct logic of these paintersâ€™ workâ€”the operation of surface in Boucher, the deep materiality of Chardin, and the dynamic morphological structure in Fragonardâ€”contributed to the formation of artistic identity. Through the notion of touch, she repositions these painters in the artistic culture of their time, shifting attention from institutions such as the academy and the Salon to the realms of the market, the medium, and the body. Lajer-Burcharth analyzes Boucherâ€™s commercial tact, Chardinâ€™s interiorized craft, and Fragonardâ€™s materialization of eros. Foregrounding the question of experienceâ€”that of the painters and of the people they representâ€”she shows how painting as a medium contributed to the Enlightenmentâ€™s discourse on the self in both its individual and social functions. By examining what paintings actually â€œsayâ€ in brushstrokes, texture, and paint, The Painterâ€™s Touch transforms our understanding of the role of painting in the emergence of modernity and provides new readings of some of the most important and beloved works of art of the era.