Paris Concealed - by James H Johnson (Hardcover)

About the Book

"A comprehensive history of masks in France from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. Masks can conceal, disguise, or protect. They can announce status, inspire delight, or spread fear. They can also betray trust through insincerity, deceit, and hypocrisy. In Paris Concealed, historian James H. Johnson offers a sweeping history of masks both visible and unseen from the time of Louis XIV to the late nineteenth century, exploring the complex roles that masking and unmasking have played in the fashioning of our social selves. Drawing from memoirs, novels, plays, and paintings, Paris Concealed explores the many domains in which masks have been decisive. Beginning in the court of Versailles, Johnson charts the genesis of courtly politesse and its wide condemnation by Enlightenment philosophers and political thinkers. He narrates strategies in the French Revolution for unmasking traitors and later efforts to penetrate criminal disguises through telltale marks on the body. He portrays the disruptive power of masks in public balls and carnivals and, with the coming of modernity, evokes their unsettling presence within the unconscious. Compellingly written and beautifully illustrated, Paris Concealed lays bare the mask's transformations, from marking one's position in a static society to embracing imagined identities in meritocracies to impeding the elusive search for one's true self. To tell the history of masks, Johnson shows, is to tell the history of modern selfhood."-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

A comprehensive history of masks in France from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century.

Masks can conceal, disguise, or protect. They can guard status, inspire delight, or spread fear. They can also betray trust through insincerity, deceit, and hypocrisy. In Paris Concealed, historian James H. Johnson offers a sweeping history of masks both visible and unseen from the time of Louis XIV to the late nineteenth century, exploring the complex roles that masking and unmasking have played in the fashioning of our social selves.

Drawing from memoirs, novels, plays, and paintings, Paris Concealed explores the many domains in which masks have been decisive. Beginning in the court of Versailles, Johnson charts the genesis of courtly politesse and its widespread condemnation by Enlightenment philosophers and political thinkers. He describes strategies deployed in the era of the French Revolution for unmasking traitors and later efforts to penetrate criminal disguises through telltale marks on the body. He portrays the disruptive power of masks in public balls and carnivals and, with the coming of modernity, evokes their unsettling presence within the unconscious.

Compellingly written and beautifully illustrated, Paris Concealed lays bare the mask's transformations, from marking one's position in a static society to inspiring imagined identities in meritocracies to impeding the elusive search for one's true self. To tell the history of masks, Johnson shows, is to tell the history of modern selfhood.

Review Quotes

"There is nothing quite like Paris Concealed. Its sources are exceptionally rich and rewarding, the writing is elegant and sustained, and the overall work is highly interdisciplinary. A first-rate cultural historian, Johnson is very much at home in the intellectual, literary, auditory, and visual culture of Western Europe, and he is also highly versed in popular culture. This will be an essential read for scholars of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Paris, as well as anyone interested in French culture."-- "Colin Jones, Queen Mary University of London"