1668: The Year of the Animal in France
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.23 (819 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1935408992 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 480 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2017-04-09 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Depicted by artists, sculptors, and poets, animals -- whether peaceful or violent -- were put to the service of royal absolutism and resistance to Descartessocial hierarchy. In the shadow of Descartes' new understanding of animal nature, the servants of absolutism used animals and transfused them, portrayed them as the inhabitants of a peaceable kingdom dominated by birds and then, as the character of Louis' rule changed, as wild and frightening. Sahlins shows us that they -- like their king -- found animals good to think with and even better to portray. Both philosophical and erudite history, Sahlins's book is as entertaining as it is original. The reader has a field day following this most perspicacious of guides as he explores menageries, reads texts, and interprets tapestries. (Anthony T. Peter Sahlins has given us a spel
Sahlins observes these animals in their native habitats, in the animal palace designed by Louis Le Vau, the paintings and tapestries of Charles Le Brun, the garden installations of André Le Nôtre, the writings of Charles Perrault and his brother Claude, the poetry of Madeleine de Scudéry, the philosophy of René Descartes, the engravings of Sébastien Leclerc, and the transfusion experiments of Jean Denis and others. In the aftermath of 1668, Louis XIV adopted a new model of sovereignty in which absolute authority is justified by animal collections and the bestial nature of his human subjects.1668: The Year of the Animal in France is a unique interdisciplinary study with rich visual documentation and interpretation of the symbolic lives and afterlives of the animal kingdom at Versailles and Paris. The poet Jean de La Fontai
. Peter Sahlins is Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley