Moved by Love

Description

"In eighteenth-century France, the ability to lose oneself in a character or scene marked both great artists and ideal spectators. Yet is was thought this same passionate enthusiasm, if taken to unreasonable extremes, could also lead to sexual deviance, mental illness - even death. Women and artists were seen as especially susceptible to these negative consequences of creative enthusiasm, and women artists, doubly so.". "Mary D. Sheriff uses these very different visions of enthusiasm to explore the complex interrelationships among creativity, sexuality, the body, and the mind in eighteenth-century France. Drawing on evidence from the visual arts, literature, philosophy, and medicine, she portrays the deviance ascribed to both inspired men and women. But while various mythologies worked to normalize deviance in male artists, women had no justification. For instance, the mythical sculptor Pygmalion was cured of an abnormal love for his statues through the making of art. He became a model for creative artists, living happily with his statues come to life. No happy endings, though, were imagined for such inspired women writers as Sappho and Heloise, who burned with an erotomania their art could not quench. Even so, Sheriff demonstrates that the perceived connections among sexuality, creativity, and disease also opened artistic opportunities for women - and creative women took full advantage of them."--BOOK JACKET.

First Sentence

What moves the artist to create, the spectator to respond?

Excerpt

What moves the artist to create, the spectator to respond?

Subjects

Other Editions

• Moved by Love: Inspired Artists and Deviant Women in Eighteenth-Century FranceHardcoverUniversity Of Chicago Press2004-01-15
• Moved by LovePaperbackUniversity Of Chicago Press2007-11-01
• Moved By LovePaperbackUniversity Of Chicago Press2006-05-01
• Moved by LoveUniversity of Chicago Press2008-01-01
• Moved by LoveUniversity of Chicago Press2013-01-01