Art, Body, and Power: The Construction of the Body Politics of Louis XIV (1648–1715) and Urban VIII (1568–1644)
Matheus Corassa da Silva
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nec_pluribus_impar_ceiling_galerie_des_glaces_versailles.jpg
This research project analyzes how the works of Charles Le Brun (1619–1690) – premier peintre du roi and perhaps the most important figure in the artistic métier during the government of Louis XIV – helped to construct an image of the monarch as body politic or body of power. This image presented the king as the incarnation of the state and therefore of the nation itself, which resided not in a separate body but in the king. Le Brun’s works make it possible to recreate the presence of Louis XIV: even if absent, he is there; although in the past, he returns to the present; and though long dead, he is revived. An important model for French culture and politics was developed by Pope Urban VIII in Rome. My research therefore addresses his body politic too. The aim is to engage theoretically first with gender discourses, especially as they related to the constitution of a specific masculinity within the court society, and second with decolonial studies, since the king’s body was imagined to extend to France’s colonialist project in America, thereby impacting the creation of an African-American identity.