Viewing Blindness at the Paris Salon

Barker, Emma (2024). Viewing Blindness at the Paris Salon. In: Kluge, Dorit; Maës, Gaëtane and Pichet, Isabelle eds. L' expérience sensorielle dans les expositions d'art au XVIIIe siècle: The Sensory Experience in 18th Century Art Exhibitions. Passages, 25. Paris, France: Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte/Centre allemand d'histore de l'art, pp. 41–53.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.11588/arthistoricum.1147.c20450

Abstract

Several paintings depicting blind men were exhibited at the Salon between the mid eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries. The aim of this essay is to explore the ways in which such paintings served to encourage Salon visitors to consider the relationship of vision to the other senses and to reflect on their own sensory engagement with both works of art and the world around them. To this end, it considers such paintings in relation to Enlightenment debates about sensory perception as well as to the familiar figure of the blind beggar whom Salon visitors would have encountered in the streets of Paris. The discussion focuses on Jean-Siméon Chardin, Un Aveugle (Salon of 1753) and Jean-Baptiste Greuze, L’Aveugle Trompé (Salon of 1755).

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