Portraits and Self-Portraits Series: When Social Status Gives Way to Feeling

Event Description

An online art history lecture by Gilles Genty

From the rise of Romanticism through to Impressionism, portraiture shifted from a marker of social status to an expression of a more embodied sensibility, shaped by a closer relationship with nature, heightened emotion, and the spontaneity of gesture. As artists’ relationships with their sitters evolved, self-portraiture increasingly became a space for exploring inner turmoil and the act of creation itself. 

A compelling aesthetic and social journey through the works of Renoir, Degas, Manet, Girodet, Delacroix, and Courbet.

This lecture is part of the series Portraits and Self-Portraits: From Jacques-Louis David to Andy Warhol (1770–1970). This series explores the art of portraiture through the evolution of artistic media and approaches to representation, from painting to photography, while examining the changing relationship between artist and subject across time.

Presented in French

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