Imperial desire and classical revival: Gustave Boulanger's Rehearsal of "The Flute Player"
| Author(s) | Weidinger, Corina | |
| Date Accessioned | 2020-08-26T13:18:48Z | |
| Date Available | 2020-08-26T13:18:48Z | |
| Publication Date | 2006 | |
| Abstract | In Rehearsal of "The Flute Player" (1861), Gustave Boulanger made two ideologically charged claims. He promoted the Emperor Napoleon III's propagandistic identification with famous ancient emperors and affirmed that nineteenth-century French culture was the true descendent of ancient Roman culture. The painting portrayed the preparations of two plays staged in honor of the Emperor. Boulanger participated in Napoleonic flattery by prominently depicting a statue of Napoleon I as Julius Caesar. This statue visually substantiated Napoleon III's claim to be the modern personification of both Napoleon I and Augustus. A parallel Roman imperial connection was reiterated in The Wife of Diomedes, one of the plays represented in the painting, thereby justifying Napoleon III's autocratic policies and military conquests in Italy and beyond. On the other hand, in his reference to The Flute Player, whose plot centered on ancient prostitution, Boulanger transferred a ubiquitous French practice into antiquity. The painter's exquisite care to hide all signs suggesting that the action of Rehearsal of "The Flute Player" takes place in nineteenth-century France stresses the similarity between the modern French and ancient Roman civilizations. In the context of Western European countries' competing claims of a special relationship with antiquity, this Franco-Roman connection enabled the French to assert that their culture was the nineteenth-century equivalent of classical culture. | en_US |
| Advisor | Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, Nina | |
| Degree | M.A. | |
| Department | University of Delaware, Department of Art History | |
| Unique Identifier | 85775143 | |
| URL | https://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/27448 | |
| Publisher | University of Delaware | en_US |
| URI | https://login.udel.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/305323703?accountid=10457 | |
| dc.subject.lcsh | Boulanger, Gustave Clarence Rodolphe, 1824-1888. Rehearsal of "The flute player" | |
| dc.subject.lcsh | France -- Civilization -- Classical influences | |
| dc.subject.lcsh | France -- History -- 1848-1870 | |
| Title | Imperial desire and classical revival: Gustave Boulanger's Rehearsal of "The Flute Player" | en_US |
| Type | Thesis | en_US |