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1789: The Emblems of Reason
In this classic text on the 18th century and neoclassicism, Jean Starobinski pursues a subtle and brilliant meditation on the connections between art and revolution, comparing the style of the French Revolution as a political event to style in the contemporary visual arts.
Rather than seeking a set of causal links between history and art, Starobinski finds ways to read the messages of both. Moving with graceful erudition over painting, architecture, music, philosophy, and political history, he enables us to see the art of David, Fuseli, Goya, Mozart, Boullee, Ledoux, and a host of others in a new perspective, as integral part of the events that changed the course of modern history.
Jean Starobinski is a Professor Honoraire at the University of Geneva.
Rather than seeking a set of causal links between history and art, Starobinski finds ways to read the messages of both. Moving with graceful erudition over painting, architecture, music, philosophy, and political history, he enables us to see the art of David, Fuseli, Goya, Mozart, Boullee, Ledoux, and a host of others in a new perspective, as integral part of the events that changed the course of modern history.
Jean Starobinski is a Professor Honoraire at the University of Geneva.
298 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
About the author
Jean Starobinski
138 books43 followersJean Starobinski studied classical literature, and then medicine at the University of Geneva, and graduated from that school with a doctorate in letters (docteur ès lettres) and in medicine. He taught French literature at the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Basel and at the University of Geneva, where he also taught courses in the history of ideas and the history of medicine.
His existential and phenomenological literary criticism is sometimes grouped with the so-called "Geneva School". He has written landmark works on French literature of the 18th century – including works on the writers Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Denis Diderot, Voltaire – and also on authors of other periods (such as Michel de Montaigne). He has also written on contemporary poetry, art, and the problems of interpretation. His books have been translated in dozens of languages.
His knowledge of medicine and psychiatry brought him to study the history of melancholia (notably in the Trois Fureurs, 1974). He was the first scholar to publish work (in 1964) on Ferdinand de Saussure's study of anagrams.
Jean Starobinski is a member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques (a component of the Institut de France) and other French, European and American learned academies. He has honorary degrees (honoris causa) from numerous universities in Europe and America.
His existential and phenomenological literary criticism is sometimes grouped with the so-called "Geneva School". He has written landmark works on French literature of the 18th century – including works on the writers Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Denis Diderot, Voltaire – and also on authors of other periods (such as Michel de Montaigne). He has also written on contemporary poetry, art, and the problems of interpretation. His books have been translated in dozens of languages.
His knowledge of medicine and psychiatry brought him to study the history of melancholia (notably in the Trois Fureurs, 1974). He was the first scholar to publish work (in 1964) on Ferdinand de Saussure's study of anagrams.
Jean Starobinski is a member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques (a component of the Institut de France) and other French, European and American learned academies. He has honorary degrees (honoris causa) from numerous universities in Europe and America.
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December 19, 2013
Not really appealing to me: written in a very highbrow style, with endless meandering sentences, without substance.
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