Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot

With Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot, a widely acclaimed work, Michael Fried revised the way in which eighteenth-century French painting and criticism were viewed and understood.

"A reinterpretation supported by immense learning and by a series of brilliantly perceptive readings of paintings and criticism alike. . . . An exhilarating book."—John Barrell, London Review of Books