Print Culture in Early Modern France Abraham Bosse and the Purposes of Print

In this book, Carl Goldstein examines the print culture of seventeenth-century France through a study of the career of Abraham Bosse, a well-known printmaker, book illustrator, and author of books and pamphlets on a variety of technical subjects. The consummate print professional, Bosse persistently explored the endless possibilities of print ? single-sheet prints combining text and image, book illustration, broadsides, placards, almanacs, theses, and pamphlets. Bosse had a profound understanding of print technology as a fundamental agent of change. Unlike previous studies, which have largely focused on the printed word, this book demonstrates the extent to which the contributions of an individual printmaker and the visual image are fundamental to understanding the nature and development of early modern print culture.

1. A printmaking revolution; 2. Scenes of everyday life; 3. Drama, theater, and prints; 4. Contingencies and contradictions; 5. A royal portrait; 6. Image and text: reading single-sheet prints; 7. Book illustrations; 8. Books and pamphlets.

Carl Goldstein is a professor of art at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. He has been the recipient of fellowships and grants from the Kress Foundation, the Howard Foundation, and the Philosophical Society of America. He has published widely, including Visual Fact over Verbal Fiction: A Study of the Carracci and the Theory, Criticism, and Practice of Painting in Renaissance and Baroque Italy and Teaching Art: Academies and Schools from Vasari to Albers.