Art and Architecture in the French Atlantic World, 1608-1828 Utopianism and Intransigence in a Paper Empire

Art and Architecture in the French Atlantic World, 1608-1828 - Utopianism and Intransigence in a Paper Empire is the first comprehensive study of the art and architecture of the French Atlantic Empire, from Senegal to French Guyana, the Antilles to Louisiana, and the Great Lakes to Nouvelle-France (Quebec and the Maritimes). Although the arts and architecture of Spanish and Portuguese America today comprise one of the most flourishing subjects in the art-historical discipline the same cannot be said for those of its French equivalent, which astonishingly-except for regional scholarship on Quebec and a handful of studies of buildings in Louisiana-does not exist as a field. This book aims to do two things for the first time: (1) to amalgamate all regions of the French Atlantic Empire into a single study, treating them as the integrated whole which they in fact were; and (2) to contextualize French America within the history of Latin American art and architecture, examining how differing ideologies and utopianisms among the French and Iberian empires led to strikingly contrasting architectural and visual cultures despite shared histories of conquest, settlement, conversion, and forced labor. The book also will be the first project on the arts and architecture of early Modern Catholic America to incorporate the architecture and visual culture of colonial West Africa, an essential link of the chain of mercantile, military, and missionary activities which tied the empire together.