"After the heroic nudes of the Renaissance and depictions of the tortured bodies of Christian saints, early seventeenth-century French artists turned their attention to their fellow humans, to nobles and beggars seen on the streets of Paris, to courtesans standing at their windows, to vendors advertising their wares, to peasants standing before their landlords. Fascinated by the intricate politics of the encounter between two human beings, artists such as Jacques Callot, Daniel Rabel, Abraham Bosse, Claude Vignon, Georges de la Tour, Jean de Saint-Igny, the Brothers Le Nain, Pierre Brebiette, Jean I Le Blond, and Charles David represented the human figure as a performer who acted out his or her social role. The resulting figures were everyday types whose representations in series of prints, painted galleries, and illustrated books created a repertoire of contemporary social roles. The Real Performer draws upon literature, social history, and affect theory in order to understand the way that figuration performed social positions"--