18th century
A01=Amy Freund
Author_Amy Freund
carcass
Category=AGA
Category=AGN
colonialism
elite society
enlightenment
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
firearms
france
gender studies
hunting
hunting dogs
masculinity
nobility
nouveau riche
portraiture
rococo
sovreignty
tapestry
violence
Product details
- ISBN 9780300282702
- Dimensions: 216 x 279mm
- Publication Date: 24 Feb 2026
- Publisher: Yale University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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How visual fantasies of violence, animality, and political agency offered an alternative image of masculinity during the Enlightenment
Centering on animal bodies and assertive masculinity, the visual strategies of hunting art may appear incongruent with our understanding of Rococo aesthetics and the early Enlightenment. But these themes, embraced with enthusiasm by artists and patrons, inspired artworks in every genre and medium in eighteenth-century France. As the country expanded its colonial empire, the absolute monarchy existed in tension with ambitious elites, and the Enlightenment eroded old certainties about selfhood and society, hunting art provided a visual language of personal and national sovereignty written with bodies of men and animals. Amy Freund revises our received notions of eighteenth-century French art and culture, confronting us with a visual culture of animality, violence, and death: a Rococo of dogs and guns.
Noble Beasts highlights the work of François Desportes, Jean-Baptiste Oudry, and others who, operating from the heart of institutions such as the Royal Academy and the Gobelins manufactory, produced an astonishing volume of highly accomplished work. The book draws on the critical frameworks of human-animal studies and on Enlightenment philosophical debates to explore how and why hunting art’s aesthetic and political claims blurred the lines between human and animal.
Centering on animal bodies and assertive masculinity, the visual strategies of hunting art may appear incongruent with our understanding of Rococo aesthetics and the early Enlightenment. But these themes, embraced with enthusiasm by artists and patrons, inspired artworks in every genre and medium in eighteenth-century France. As the country expanded its colonial empire, the absolute monarchy existed in tension with ambitious elites, and the Enlightenment eroded old certainties about selfhood and society, hunting art provided a visual language of personal and national sovereignty written with bodies of men and animals. Amy Freund revises our received notions of eighteenth-century French art and culture, confronting us with a visual culture of animality, violence, and death: a Rococo of dogs and guns.
Noble Beasts highlights the work of François Desportes, Jean-Baptiste Oudry, and others who, operating from the heart of institutions such as the Royal Academy and the Gobelins manufactory, produced an astonishing volume of highly accomplished work. The book draws on the critical frameworks of human-animal studies and on Enlightenment philosophical debates to explore how and why hunting art’s aesthetic and political claims blurred the lines between human and animal.
Amy Freund is associate professor and Kleinheinz Family Endowment for the Arts and Education Endowed Chair in Art History at Southern Methodist University.
