Jean-Baptiste Greuze. L'enfance en lumière

Description

Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805) ranks among the most important and daring artists of the 18th century. At each Salon, the painter triumphed: people admired his portraits and genre scenes, which he specialised in, but also, and above all, the figures of children that populate his work. Greuze knew better than anyone how to convey the psychological depth of children and their universal value. Through his painting, he expressed the crucial nature of education and the fundamental role of the family in a child's development. Under his brush, the family was not only a place of love and learning about the world; it could also be a theatre of disorder, where intimacy mingled with tragedy. By exploring the theme of childhood, but in the light of the great debates that animated 18th-century Paris, this book, whose thematic essays are accompanied by a rich iconography, reveals a body of work of unsuspected originality and modernity.