 The place of the emotions in early modern aesthetic theories deserves a separate treatment. The representation of the emotions was considered a proper object, sometimes the object, of aesthetic criticism. It was also the subject of many practical manuals in the arts; there is, for instance, an extensive seventeenth-century literature stemming from discussions in the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture about how to depict facial expressions and bodily gestures in ways that would allow the deciphering of emotional states. Here the representation of the emotions serves both narrative and didactic purposes.