Drama and Desire. Art and Theatre from the French Revolution to the First World War

This book was conceived to accompany an international exhibition that travelled from Marseille to Rovereto and Toronto. The exhibition aimed to connect elements of the modern tradition with the return to interest in Antiquity that emerged in Europe during the period 1750-1800, fuelled by the discovery of Pompeii and the pioneering theories of Adolphe Appia and Edward Gordon Craig regarding the dematerialization of the stage. This triggered a surge of passion for theatrical performances and for theatre in general. The period begins in the time of Voltaire and Jacques-Louis David and ends with the last vestiges of Symbolism, a century and a half during which European painters took a continuous interest in the parallel development of stagecraft. What emerges is a symbiotic exchange between the imagery of the stage and that of painting.
Key Sales Information - The book examines works by some of the most significant French and English artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and focuses on a hitherto unexplored theme: the theatre and its staging on nineteenth-century.
- The paintings examined are shown in color and include important technical details.
- Among the international lenders of works: Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery; Harvard Art Museum, Boston; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra;
Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf; The National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh; Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main; Victoria and Albert Museum, Tate, Stair Sainty Gallery, London; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art and Brooklyn Museum, New York; The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Derby Museum; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Musée du Louvre, Paris;
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C; Kunsthalle Zürich.
Authors Guy Cogeval, author and curator, is the President of the Musée d'Orsay, in Paris.
Beatrice Avanzi is curator at MART - Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Italy.