Masks and masking practices in old regime France and the French Revolution

This dissertation explores masks and masking practices in France during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a period characterized by a rich and multi-faceted tradition of masking, including court ballets, theatrical performances, masked balls, carnivals, and sun screening. This culture of masking expanded dramatically since the reign of Louis XIV, as it became profoundly intertwined with the spectacular performances and construction of absolutist monarchical power. The vital role of masks in the political culture of absolutism not only gave rise to mask makers— a group of artisans whose significance in ancien régime France has been hitherto overlooked by historians—but also fueled the use of the word “mask” as a rhetorical symbol of artifice, secrecy, and hypocrisy in debates over authenticity, social order and disorder, and, more generally, human nature in the eighteenth century, particularly after the Enlightenment. The socio-racial realities of the Old Regime also contributed to the growth of masking practices during this period, as French women of high social status and wealth began to wear black masks to signal and accentuate their white complexions, thereby distinguishing themselves from people of African origins—both free and enslaved, at home and abroad. The increasing masking practices and mask-related discourses in the Old Regime explains the ubiquity of the metaphors of “masking” and “unmasking” in the consistent and widespread calls for authenticity and total transparency in the French Revolution.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

History

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2024

Author dc:creator

• Huang, Jun

Contributors dc:contributor

• Crowston, Clare H
• Koslofsky, Craig
• Symes, Carol
• Micale, Mark

• Eighteenth-century France
• Old Regime
• Masks
• Seventeenth-century France

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2024 Jun Huang

Language dc:language

eng, en

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/127234

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F127234