Rococo to Revolution: French Art and its Geographical Contexts, 1700-1789

Short Courses - Summer School on campus

Monday 23 – Friday 27 June 2025
Harvey Shepherd
£645

Course description

This course will examine the ever-changing roles of French art during the turbulent eighteenth century, from the later years and death of Louis XIV to the Revolution of 1789. Students will consider the role that French art played in forming identities and tastes across the world; from shaping desirable aristocratic luxury to envisaging radical futures.

French art and taste of the eighteenth century will be encountered through a series of ever-widening geographical contexts. The opening classes will examine the political and economic centres of France, looking at the Château de Versailles, as well as the artistic culture of Paris and its society during the Enlightenment and the early years of the French Revolution. Alongside the court and the capital, we will consider France’s periphery and its neighbours, examining interactions with cities like Lyon and Marseille, and both peacetime connections and wartime rivalries with European states such as Great Britain, The Netherlands, and the Holy Roman Empire. Lastly, the course considers the wider global contexts of French art as it was both collected and sent abroad, examining the colonial and imperial interactions of France in an increasingly connected world, from the court of Qing China to Senegal, India, and the Caribbean.

Find out more and book now: https://courtauld.ac.uk/short-courses-2025/summer-school/summer-school-on-campus/6-rococo-to-revolution-french-art-and-its-geographical-contexts-1700-1789/

Image: Jean-Baptiste Raguenet, A View of Paris from the Pont Neuf, 1763, oil on canvas, Getty, Getty Center Los Angeles. Image: getty.edu

You may also like the following events from The Courtauld:

• Next month, 2nd July, 06:30 pm, Drink and Draw – Louise Bourgeois: Drawings from the 1960s in Wolverhampton
• Next month, 7th July, 10:00 am, Beyond Artemisia: Italian Women Artists in the Long Seventeenth Century in London
• Next month, 14th July, 10:00 am, The Ancient Maya: Millennia of Art and Architecture of a Rainforest Civilisation in London

Also check out other Arts events in London, Workshops in London.