The Mobile Image from Watteau to Boucher

"""With original and compelling insight, David Pullins examines the interplay between the practice of painters and the demands of consumers, introducing readers to a complex world where artistic invention permeates craftsmanship. The Mobile Image is an essential read for anyone seeking to understand the dynamics of the French art system during the reign of Louis XV."" --Christian Michel, author of The Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture: The Birth of the French School, 1648-1793 ""In The Mobile Image, author David Pullins constructs a new approach to art production in eighteenth-century Paris, through close analysis of the oeuvre and workshops of some of the major painters of the Académie Royale--notably Watteau, Oudry, and Boucher. Impressive and ambitious, this book offers a challenging and exciting approach to the French fine and decorative arts in the Rococo period."" --Colin B. Bailey, Director of the Morgan Library & Museum ""This eloquent study offers a fresh take on the output of Watteau, Oudry, and Boucher to suggest a far greater embeddedness of their work and methods in eighteenth-century material culture than previously assumed. Tracing the routes by which motifs generated in these artists' studios traveled ceaselessly across the visual field, The Mobile Image challenges the long-standing distinction between fine and decorative arts. David Pullin's persuasive rereading of early modern art making as a combinatory practice will impact how we view some of the key inventions of the twentieth-century avant-gardes, notably collage and montage."" --Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, William Dorr Boardman Professor of Fine Arts, Harvard University, and author of The Painter's Touch: Boucher, Chardin, Fragonard"