Laugh Lines

Julia Langbein is Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. An art historian specialising in 19th-century popular visual culture, she previously held a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Oxford, UK.

• List of PlatesList of FiguresIntroduction1. Comic Reproduction in July Monarchy Paris2. Dueling and Doubling: The Antagonism of Salon Caricature3. Salon Caricature and The Physiognomy of Paint 4. Salon Caricature in the age of Reproduction. 5. Gravity and Graphic Medium in Cham and Daumier6. Caricature and Comic Spectacle at the Paris Salon 7. Salon Caricature and the Making of ManetConclusionBibliographyIndex

Widely researched, and lavishly illustrated, Laugh Lines, makes both a challenging and inspirational reading. Supported by ample studies of the abundant primary sources, from Baudelaire and Champfleury to Grand-Carteret and Duret, as well as archival material in the Bibliothèque Nationale, the book straddles several areas: reproductive technologies, the practices of physiognomy, photography, Salon history, as well as into cultures of art viewing and the perception of laughter in nineteenth-century France.The book’s unquestionable strength are visual analyses. Langbein takes the readers on captivating journeys, which move with confidence between the original works by Delacroix, Ribot and many lesser-known artists, and the ‘hyperactive lines’ of the rapidly drawn caricatures by Cham and Bertall, sometimes including also polite reproductive engravings of the same paintings for comparison.