The frisson of No-Touch: A Fan's Gallant Allegory of the Senses. (June 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Cherbuliez, Juliette
• Is Part Of: Seventeenth-century French studies. Volume 36:Number 1(2014)
• Page Start: 18
• Page End: 27
• Publication Date: 2014-06
• Subjects: Allegory of the Senses, -- galanterie, -- touch, -- taste, -- experience; France -- Civilization -- 17th century -- Periodicals; French literature -- 17th century -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; 944.033
• DOI: 10.1179/0265106814Z.00000000036
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0265-1068

Abstract

Abstract : The double-sided Allegory of the Senses, shows, on one side, a late- seventeenth-century courtly depiction of hearing, sight, and smell. It is possible to read these as three vignettes depicting gallant sociability in elite society: the very sociability in which the fan played a crucial role. Our interpretation must change, however, if we acknowledge both the 'missing' senses of taste and touch not directly depicted on the fan, and the fan's reverse, a rural scene of a couple. The play of absent and present senses, and the tension between the courtly vignettes of the primary image and its humbler other side, suggest also a possible 'fluttering' of signification, not unlike the motion of a fan itself, which may undo some of the gallant visual rhetoric which at first glance appears to dominate an understanding of this fan.