A successful painter of mythological scenes, battles and portraits in early nineteenth-century France, François Gérard was also an important participant in the period’s revitalized salon culture. Daniel Harkett examines how his works decorated the rooms in which salons would meet and acted as catalysts for the various kinds of literary, musical, and social performance salons encompassed. He further considers how Gérard used art in his own salon, dubbed “the rendez-vous of Europe,” to mark out a space of tolerance and conciliation in a fractious world.
Sponsored by the Art Department.