The Painter's Touch - Boucher, Chardin, Fragonard

A new interpretation of the development of artistic modernity in eighteenth-century France

What can be gained from considering a painting not only as an image but also a material object? How does the painter-s own experience of the process of making matter for our understanding of both the painting and its maker? The Painter-s Touch addresses these questions to offer a radical reinterpretation of three paradigmatic French painters of the eighteenth century. In this beautifully illustrated book, Ewa Lajer-Burcharth provides close readings of the works of Fran-s Boucher, Jean-Sim- Chardin, and Jean-Honor-ragonard, entirely recasting our understanding of these painters- practice. Using the notion of touch, she examines the implications of their strategic investment in materiality and sheds light on the distinct contribution of painting to the culture of the Enlightenment.

Lajer-Burcharth traces how the distinct logic of these painters- work-the operation of