Towards a New French Renaissance: Memory, Tradition and Cultural Conservatism in France before the First World War
-
Neil McWilliam [1]
-
[1] Duke University
Duke University
Township of Durham, Estados Unidos
-
- Localización: Art history: journal of the Association of Art Historians, ISSN 0141-6790, Vol. 40, Nº. 4, 2017, págs. 724-743
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
-
Resumen
Conflicts over cultural memory represent a significant stake in definitions of Frenchness advanced by opposing nacionalist groups in the years before the First World War. The concept of a new 'renaissance française', broached by conservative critics and historians of art and literature often at odds with prevailing democratic republicanism, looked to the past to fashion a programme of renewal that challenged both the artistic vanguard and royalists' advocacy of a Latinist classicism. This essay maps the social and cultural forces that shaped critics' promotion of a new generation of artists credited with reinvigorating an indigenous tradition rooted in Gothic and in a vernacular classicism associated with figures such as the Le Nains and Chardin. This loose grouping sought to reassert France's cultural leadership in Europe under the aegis of a creative elite committed to the synthesis of the nation's exceptional qualities embedded in its diverse, though complementary, artistic traditions.
