The Politicization of Nature

This dissertation examines the critical reception of French landscape painting during the July Monarchy. The annual Salon and the review written on this occassion provide the framework of my study. As landcape paintings became more visible on the Salon walls, critics constructed a new discourse around this phenomenon. I aim to document how the significance of that genre changed over the years. I have organized this study around the political affiliation of the journals which published Salon reviews, this has enabled me to demonstrate that the new discourse on landscape painting was often, especially for the critics opposed to Louis- Philippe's government, highly charged with political implication, bringing up issues of national identity and patriotism. In the 1830s, some painters in proposed a new and specifically French vision of the countryside, in doing so they opposed tradition of Historical Landscape Painting upheld by the Academy. This dissertation was by nature archeological. I see my work as the first step in establishing a new history of texts in order to further our understanding of this period beyond a history of style.