Art, Theatre, and Opera in Paris, 1750-1850

Art, Theatre and Opera in Paris, c.1750-1850: Exchanges and Tensions maps some of the many complex and vivid connections between art, theatre and opera in a period of dramatic and challenging historical change, thereby deepening an understanding of familiar (and less familiar) artworks, practices and critical strategies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Throughout this period, new types of subject matter were shared, fostering both creative connections and reflection on matters of decorum, legibility, pictorial and dramatic structure. 'Correspondances' were at work on several levels: conception, design and critical judgement. In a time of vigorous social, political and cultural contestation, the status and role of the arts and their interrelation came to be a matter of passionate public scrutiny. Scholars from art history, theatre studies and musicology trace some of those connections and clashes, making visible the intimately interwoven and entangled world of the arts. Protagonists include Diderot, Sedaine, Jacques-Louis David, Ignace-Eugene-Marie Degotti, Marie Malibran, Paul Delaroche, Casimir Delavigne, Marie Dorval, the 'Bleeding Nun' from Lewis's The Monk, the Comedie francaise, Gericault's Radeau de la Meduse and Etienne-Jean Delecluze.