Petra ten-Doesschate Chu > Quotes

“Books devoted to France and its various regions became increasingly popular toward the later part of the July Monarchy. This growing preoccupation with France itself—perhaps best exemplified in the novels of George Sand—was a complex phenomenon, related at once to romantic nationalism, to improving communications within France, and to the retreat, after the 1830 revolution, of the legitimist nobility to their country estates, which contributed to making the countryside fashionable.

Though by no means a new genre—they had been widely published since the middle of the eighteenth century—the travelogues had a wider audience than ever before during the July Monarchy because, like novels, they often appeared initially as installments in newspapers, to be published only later in book form. Thus, they were read by a broad segment of the public. Indeed, from upper to lower middle class, the French during the July Monarchy were a nation of enthusiastic armchair travelers.”
― Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, The Art of the July Monarchy: France, 1830 to 1848

“In his comprehensive survey of romantic landscape lithographs, Jean Adhemar has demonstrated that these albums were made up of topographic prints in a picturesque mode, depicting both foreign and French scenes. While albums depicting foreign scenes were generally devoted to a single country, those showing French scenes usually took the form of regional albums that featured a department, a historic region (Normandy, Brittany), or a mountain range (the Pyrenees or the Jura). The importance they played may be gauged not only from the considerable number of albums that were published but also from the substantial editions that were printed, particularly of the albums that were published in Paris.”
― Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, The Art of the July Monarchy: France, 1830 to 1848

“The fascination of the July Monarchy public with lithographic albums was intimately related to the popularity of the travelogue, which constituted an important literary form at the time. Professional travelers and scientists as well as many of the major writers of the period dedicated themselves to this genre. Stendhal’s Promenades dans Rome (1829) and his Memoires d'un touriste (1838); Alphonse de Lamartine’s Voyage en Orient (1832-1833); Victor Hugo’s Rhin (1842); George Sand’s Lettres d'un voyageur (1834-1836); Theophile Gautier’s Tour en Belgique (1836) and his Tra los Montes (1843); and Alexandre Dumas’s Quinze jours au Sinai are some of the outstanding examples of the travelogues published in the 1830s and 1840s.”
― Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, The Art of the July Monarchy: France, 1830 to 1848

“From an art-historical point of view, the period of the July Monarchy was especially important for the emergence of the so-called Ecole de 1830, or School of 1830, the young generation of artists—including Louis Cabat (1812-1893), Camille Corot (1796-1873), Adrien Dauzats (1804-1868), Narcisse Diaz (1807-1876), Jules Dupre (1811-1889), Camille Flers (1802-1869), Paul Huet (1803-1869), Eugene Isabey (1803-1886), and Theodore Rousseau (1812-1867)—who reached maturity by the beginning of the July Monarchy. These artists altered the course of landscape painting in France by abandoning both the rule-bound classical landscape that had dominated French landscape art since its introduction by Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain in the seventeenth century and the colorful romantic-picturesque topographic landscape imported by British watercolorists in the Restoration period, to turn instead to the depiction of the natural landscape.”
― Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, The Art of the July Monarchy: France, 1830 to 1848

“It is perhaps not superfluous to point out here that throughout the 1830s and 1840s travel was still for the most part an activity for the rich or the adventurous. Most transportation on the European continent was by ship or mail coach, and it was time-consuming, expensive, and uncomfortable. Not until the emergence of the train did travel become an activity for the middle and lower middle class. Yet the railroads were still in their infancy under the July Monarchy. The first passenger railway was not built until 1837, and by 1840 only 433 kilometers of rail had been laid down. Then railroad building picked up speed; by 1848, 1,592 kilometers of rail lines were in use while 2,144 more were under construction. The railroads were to encourage yet a new kind of travel publication, the railroad guide or itinerary, which described and illustrated (in wood engravings or lithographs) the major sights along a particular line. However, this new type of publication, though it originated during the July Monarchy, did not become widespread until the Second Empire.”
― Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, The Art of the July Monarchy: France, 1830 to 1848