Du Sacré au Profane Problèmes de sécularisation de l’image en France au xviii^e siècle

This article explores the question of the sacred from an art-historical perspective, in relation to the aesthetic theories of the Abbé Du Bos and via the paintings of Santerre, Natoire, Carle Vabloo, Boucher, Soubleyras and Watteau. Painting establishes an equivalence between biblical and mythological subjects. The fantastic is erased in a blurring of boundaries between sacred and profane which announces the coming of the myth of the human.