Taste and Power
Author | : Leora Auslander |
Publisher | : Univ of California Press |
Total Pages | : 512 |
Release | : 2023-04-28 |
ISBN-10 | : 9780520920941 |
ISBN-13 | : 0520920945 |
Rating | : 4/5 (41 Downloads) |
Book excerpt: Louis XIV, regency, rococo, neoclassical, empire, art nouveau, and historicist pastiche: furniture styles march across French history as regimes rise and fall. In this extraordinary social history, Leora Auslander explores the changing meaning of furniture from the mid-seventeenth to the early twentieth century, revealing how the aesthetics of everyday life were as integral to political events as to economic and social transformations. Enriched by Auslander's experience as a cabinetmaker, this work demonstrates how furniture served to represent and even generate its makers' and consumers' identities.