French eighteenth-century painting is characterized by its immense variety, ranging from the grand manner -- history painting -- to so-called minor genres such as still-life and portraiture. Artists such as Boucher and Fragonard drew inspiration from many different sources: famous biblical or mythological episodes, to flutes galantes, and bourgeois domestic scenes. Jarasse explains the key artists and movements within this turbulent century and charts with high-quality, full-color illustrations the progressive emancipation of painters that paralleled the spread of Enlightened thinking. Artists surveyed include Watteau, Fragonard, Boucher, Greuze, Chardin and David as well as lesser-known but equally notable painters including Coypel, Le Moyne, Vernet, Oudry, Nattier and others.