Enlightened Animals in Eighteenth-Century Art : Sensation, Matter, and Knowledge

How do our senses help us to understand the world? This question, which preoccupied Enlightenment thinkers, also emerged as a key theme in depictions of animals in eighteenth-century art. This book examines the ways in which painters such as Chardin, as well as sculptors, porcelain modelers, and other decorative designers portrayed animals as sensing subjects who physically confirmed the value of material experience.

The sensual style known today as the Rococo encouraged the proliferation of animals as exemplars of empirical inquiry, ranging from the popular subject of the monkey artist to the alchemical wonders of the life-sized porcelain animals created for the Saxon court. Examining writings on sensory knowledge by La Mettrie, Condillac, Diderot and other philosophers side by side with depictions of the animal in art, Cohen argues that artists promoted the animal as a sensory subject while also validating the material basis of their own professional practice.

“In this landmark study of rare distinction, Sarah Cohen effortlessly combines superlative scholarship with engaging prose. She enlightens her readers with stunningly new insights about things we thought we understood, but did not. We will be engaged with this brilliant book for a very long time.” —Christopher M. S. Johns, Norman & Roselea Goldberg Professor of History of Art, Vanderbilt University, USA

“In this intellectually path-breaking book, Cohen shows how animal imagery prompted new ideas about knowledge, sensation, and the permeable boundary between human and nonhuman life. Her passion for the material comes through on every page.” —Meredith Martin, Associate Professor of Art History, New York University, USA

“Shedding welcome light on a hitherto under-examined aspect of eighteenth-century French art, Sarah Cohen convincingly aligns representations of animals with a new valorisation of sensory experience that challenged traditionally anthropocentric values.” —Emma Barker, Senior Lecturer in Art History, The Open University, UK