Elegancja w służbie władzy. Polityka i propaganda na europejskich wachlarzach epoki nowożytnej
Fashion in the Service of Power. Politics and Propaganda on European Fans of the Modern Era

Summary/Abstract: The use of fans for political propaganda in the modern era was connected with social transformations and the spread of printing technology, as well as the development of reproductions. It is fans manufactured in England and France in the 17th and 18th centuries that are discussed in the paper. In the France of Louis XIV propaganda messages placed on hand-painted fan mounts were addressed to the elites, since they formed a social group of impact. At the threshold of the Enlightenment production was started of cheap paper-mounted objects of wide reach, with printed decoration repeatable in many copies. The clients commissioning fans wanted to reach a wide circle of recipients, who in the face of the egalitarianism being born at the time were having an increasingly growing impact on politics and social life. The overview of political iconographic motifs allows to trace the artistic route which fan producers covered. It also illustrates the evolution of human mentality and awareness: from the apotheosis of absolute royal power to promoting democratic ideas. Moreover, it shows how the circle of the addressees of political propaganda changed.

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