Un 'vaste musée [...] de jouissances artistiques': "L'Histoire des peintres de toutes les écoles depuis la Renaissance jusqu'à nos jours" (1846-1876) de Charles Blanc

• Autores: Claire Barbillon
• Localización: Revue de l'art, ISSN 0035-1326, Nº. 182, 2013 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Musées imaginaires), págs. 27-34
• Idioma: francés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • "L'Histoire des peintres de toutes les écoles depuis la Renaissance jusqu'à nos jours", a vast set of 930 monographic works represents the most extensive editorial undertaking in illustrated art history in the 19th century. The various stages took three forms: installments of brochures delivered bi-monthly from 1848 until 1860; a bound edition; completed in 14 volumes appeared between 1861 and 1876, and finally, an abridged edition in 4 standardized volumes also in 1876.

    This wide-ranging undertaking could only succeed by means of a rigorous and unique standardization, the result of the excellence of an unprecedented collaboration between editors, draughtsmen and engravers. Thus, besides the role it played in the spread of art history, to which contributed the group of authors brought together by Charles Blanc, also at work in the new "Gazette des Beaux-Arts", which he directed as well, "L'Histoire des peintres de toutes les écoles depuis la Renaissance jusqu'à nos jours", resulted in the commercial exploitation of its meticulously made wood engravings. The Editions Renouard offered a modular "paper museum" in a catalogue of more than 2000 wood engravings, anticipating the data bases of images, serving iconographic needs as varied as they were distant from their original purpose.