Pierre Francastel
Pierre Francastel (8 June 1900 – 2 January 1970) was a French
Francastel's initial period of study was in literature, at the
Francastel's research interests varied between the French seventeenth century and the nineteenth century, but his sociological methodology, strongly influenced by the work of Émile Durkheim, remained the intellectual basis upon which his scholarly thought and corpus were organised. Francastel is also noted for his promotion of spatial concerns, both physical and conceptual, prefiguring the "spatial turn" of later scholars such as Henri Lefebvre.[2] Two of his key works, that emphasise Francastel's view of art as a system both embedded within and productive of social relations, are his Art et Sociologie (1948) and Peinture et Société (1951).
Key works
- Girardon. Biographie et catalogue critiques, l’œuvre complète de l’artiste (Paris, 1928)
- La sculpture de Versailles. Essai sur les origines et l’évolution du gout français classique (Paris, 1930)
- Art et Technique aux 19e et 20e siècles' (Paris, 1956). English translation by Randall Cherry: Art & Technology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (New York, 2000)
- La réalité figurative : éléments structurels de sociologie de l'art (Paris, 1965)
Further reading
Yve Alain Bois, "Foreword", to Francastel's Art & Technology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (trans. Randall Cherry; New York: Zone Books, 2000), pp. 7–15.
References
- ^ "Dictionary of Art Historians". Dictionary of Art Historians. Retrieved 2022-09-16.
- ^ C. Doyon, "Francastel, Pierre (1900-1970)", Global Encyclopedia of Historical Writing, ed. D.R. Woolf (New York, 1998), vol. 1, p. 326.