Building the Louvre:
Architectures of Politics and Art
An issue of Esprit Créateur, June 2014
Edited by Patrick Bray and Phillip John Usher
Description
This volume provides a new and vibrant history of the cultural and political significance of the Louvre, from its construction as a medieval castle to its present incarnation as the world’s largest art museum. Key historical moments—the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, the destruction of the Doyenné district under Napoleon III, and the construction of the famous pyramid—serve as starting points for illustrating how, since the beginning, the Louvre has been a site for expressing official power while, conversely, it figures in literature and art as a topos for defining and negotiating opposition.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Patrick Bray and Phillip John Usher
A. Medieval
1. “Pre-Histories of the Louvre: City Dreams of a Fortress on the Seine”
Sarah-Grace Heller (Ohio State University)
2. “Building in the Vernacular: The Louvre, Letters, and Nationhood under Charles V (1364-80)”
Mark Cruse (Arizona State University)
B. Early Modern
3. “From Marriage to Massacre: The Louvre in August 1572”
Phillip John Usher (Barnard College, Columbia University)
4. “Towards Political, Social, and Urban Transformations in the Grand Siècle”
Hélène Visentin (Smith College)
C. The Revolution
5. “The Louvre in Ruins: a Revolutionary Sublime.”
Billiana Kassabova (Stanford University)
6. “Châteaux en Espagne: Louis-Philippe's Politics of Collecting and the Galerie Espagnole”
Bettina Lerner (City College of New York, CUNY)
7. “Public on Display: Making Civic Engagement Visible in the Musée Central”
William Mitchell (University of Washington)
D. The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
8. “Prose Constructions: Nerval, Baudelaire, and the Louvre”
Patrick Bray (University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana)
9. “Towards a Renaissance of the Louvre (1914-21): Polemics and Press Echoes around a Museum at War”
Claire Maingon (Université de Rouen)
10. “'Local clos, en plein air': Malet's Louvre and the Spatial Dispersal of the City”
Andrea Goulet (University of Pennsylvania)
11. “Open City: Philbert’s La Ville Louvre”
Margaret Flinn (University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana)
E. Contemporary Questions
12. “Les habitants du Louvre: The Museum and the List.”
Kathleen Morris (Oxford University)
13. “The Louvre Abu Dhabi”
Seth Graebner (Washington University in St. Louis)
Author Guidelines – please follow very closely (PDF)
Images – all images must be essential for following your argument. Please provide low quality copies of your images with your article. Once we have been able to assess how many images will fit in the volume and which are most essential, we will get in touch and ask that you then secure high-resolution versions, as well as use rights.
This volume provides a new and vibrant history of the cultural and political significance of the Louvre, from its construction as a medieval castle to its present incarnation as the world’s largest art museum. Key historical moments—the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, the destruction of the Doyenné district under Napoleon III, and the construction of the famous pyramid—serve as starting points for illustrating how, since the beginning, the Louvre has been a site for expressing official power while, conversely, it figures in literature and art as a topos for defining and negotiating opposition.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Patrick Bray and Phillip John Usher
A. Medieval
1. “Pre-Histories of the Louvre: City Dreams of a Fortress on the Seine”
Sarah-Grace Heller (Ohio State University)
2. “Building in the Vernacular: The Louvre, Letters, and Nationhood under Charles V (1364-80)”
Mark Cruse (Arizona State University)
B. Early Modern
3. “From Marriage to Massacre: The Louvre in August 1572”
Phillip John Usher (Barnard College, Columbia University)
4. “Towards Political, Social, and Urban Transformations in the Grand Siècle”
Hélène Visentin (Smith College)
C. The Revolution
5. “The Louvre in Ruins: a Revolutionary Sublime.”
Billiana Kassabova (Stanford University)
6. “Châteaux en Espagne: Louis-Philippe's Politics of Collecting and the Galerie Espagnole”
Bettina Lerner (City College of New York, CUNY)
7. “Public on Display: Making Civic Engagement Visible in the Musée Central”
William Mitchell (University of Washington)
D. The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
8. “Prose Constructions: Nerval, Baudelaire, and the Louvre”
Patrick Bray (University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana)
9. “Towards a Renaissance of the Louvre (1914-21): Polemics and Press Echoes around a Museum at War”
Claire Maingon (Université de Rouen)
10. “'Local clos, en plein air': Malet's Louvre and the Spatial Dispersal of the City”
Andrea Goulet (University of Pennsylvania)
11. “Open City: Philbert’s La Ville Louvre”
Margaret Flinn (University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana)
E. Contemporary Questions
12. “Les habitants du Louvre: The Museum and the List.”
Kathleen Morris (Oxford University)
13. “The Louvre Abu Dhabi”
Seth Graebner (Washington University in St. Louis)
Author Guidelines – please follow very closely (PDF)
Images – all images must be essential for following your argument. Please provide low quality copies of your images with your article. Once we have been able to assess how many images will fit in the volume and which are most essential, we will get in touch and ask that you then secure high-resolution versions, as well as use rights.