Empire of the senses

More than in any other era, the theme of Love occupied a dominant place in the arts in the 18th century.

Philosophers, playwrights, novelists and artists all took delight in the theme of amorous passions and carnal desires. Under the brushes of the best painters, we can no longer count the bucolic scenes where shepherds and shepherdesses banter, the boudoirs where languorous sighs and carnal desires change.change the languorous sighs and concupiscent glances, the alcoves where "the heart and the mind" go astray (Crébillon fils, 1736).

Yet in this sea of images devoted to Love, little attention has been paid to the boldness and originality, sometimes even the extreme license, of certain inventions. Only Jean-Honoré Fragonard, "le peintre amoureux, galant et libertin" (the painter of love, gallantry and libertinism) highlighted by Guillaume Faroult's exhibition (2015), stands out today as an alter ego of the artist.Today, Fragonard stands out as an alter ego of Sade, Casanova and Choderlos de Laclos, sulphurous exponents of 18th-century eros. Far from being an isolated figure, the author of Le Verrou du Musée du Louvre is part of an iconographic tradition that developed over the course of the century, but has remained too little studied to date. Think of Antoine Watteau's Femme nue ôtant sa chemise au plus près de notre regard, or Jean-Baptiste Greuze's Volupté , a striking depiction of female orgasm.vocation of female orgasm, or François Boucher's disturbing Odalisques, depicted nude, languishing on a sofa, their buttocks as if offered to the viewer.

To mark the anniversary of the death of François Boucher (1703-1770), the exhibition at the Musée Cognacq-Jay explores the theme of Love in its most licentious form, through the prism of works by Boucher and his contemporaries. The aim is to show how François Boucher, King Louis XV's first painter, established himself as one of the central figures in the development of erotic art in the 18th century. Without Boucher's inventions, we wouldn't be able to understand Fragonard's bold libertines...

Admission and headphones included.