'Gods and Heroes: Masterpieces from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris' tells the story of the Ecole des Beaux Arts and its profound influence on late seventeenth-, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European visual culture. Not only did the Ecole train generations of artists, but it also served as a repository for work by the renowned artists in Europe. In three essays, as well as in over 200 catalogue entries and colour plates, the volume tells a fascinating, multi-layered story. From the late 17th through to the mid-19th century, the Ecole was a highly competitive, government school that rigorously trained artists to fulfil the needs of royal, state, and church patrons. In so doing, the Ecole fostered a particular "way of seeing" that created the established aesthetic and ideological norms in French artistic production right through to the First World War, and provided the backdrop against which the modernist "revolution" from the mid-19th century emerged and developed. 'Gods and Heroes' features 208 extraordinary art works from the collection of the Ecole, dating from the 17th to the 19th century, including important works by such masters as Antoine-Louis Barye, François Boucher, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Jacques-Louis David, Leonardo da Vinci, Jean-Honore Fragonard, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Charles Le Brun, Charles Natoire, Nicolas Poussin, Carle Van Loo, and Jean-Antoine Watteau. AUTHOR: Guest Curator Emmanuel Schwartz, is Chief Curator of Heritage at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts,Paris. Emmanuelle Brugerolles is Chief Curator of Drawings at the Ecole nationale superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Patricia Mainardi is Professor Emerita, Doctoral Program in Art History, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York 250 colour
