18th Century French Painting

Compte-rendu de l’exposition présentée au Musée des Augustins de Toulouse.

-- POUR CITER CE COMPTE-RENDU :
G. de Wallens, Visages du Grand Siècle. Le portrait français sous le règne de Louis XIV. 1660-1715, ouvrage collectif sous la dir. de Coquery (Emmanuel), Alain Daguerre de Hureaux, Paris, Nantes, Toulouse, 1997, dans La Revue des Archéologues et Historiens d’Art de Louvain, Louvain-La-Neuve, 1998, p. 212-213.

Charles de La Traverse hizo una carrera atípica; después de unos principios prometedores como pintor de historia se convirtió en «gentilhomme de compag-nie» del marqués de Ossun, embajador de Francia en Nápoles; siguió a su señor a Madrid y desde entonces fue empleado del cuerpo diplomático. De su estancia en España se conoce un abundante corpus de dibujos y que fue maestro de Luis Paret. Varios documentos inéditos publicados en este estudio revelan que a partir de 1777, La Traverse trabajó para el conde de Angiviller, «directeur général des Bâtiments du roi», en el enriquecimiento de la colección de la Corona francesa con vistas a la creación de un museo permanente en el palacio del Louvre. A pesar de las ambiciones del pintor, D'Angiviller prefirió la mediación de un profesional, Jean-Baptiste Lebrun, hecho que atestigua el nuevo papel desem-peñado por los marchantes parisinos.

What can be gained from considering a painting not only as an image but also a material object? How does the painter’s own experience of the process of making matter for our understanding of both the painting and its maker? The Painter’s Touch addresses these questions to offer a radical reinterpretation of three paradigmatic French painters of the eighteenth century. In this beautifully illustrated book, Ewa Lajer-Burcharth provides close readings of the works of François Boucher, Jean-Siméon Chardin, and Jean-Honoré Fragonard, entirely recasting our understanding of these painters’ practice. Using the notion of touch, she examines the implications of their strategic investment in materiality and sheds light on the distinct contribution of painting to the culture of the Enlightenment. Lajer-Burcharth traces how the distinct logic of these painters’ work—the operation of surface in Boucher, the deep materiality of Chardin, and the dynamic morphological structure in Fragonard—contributed to the formation of artistic identity. Through the notion of touch, she repositions these painters in the artistic culture of their time, shifting attention from institutions such as the academy and the Salon to the realms of the market, the medium, and the body.
Lajer-Burcharth analyzes Boucher’s commercial tact, Chardin’s interiorized craft, and Fragonard’s materialization of eros. Foregrounding the question of experience—that of the painters and of the people they represent—she shows how painting as a medium
contributed to the Enlightenment’s discourse on the self in both its individual and social functions. By examining what paintings actually “say” in brushstrokes, texture, and paint, The Painter’s Touch transforms our understanding of the role of painting in the emergence of modernity and provides new readings of some of the most important and beloved works of art of the era.

For PDF of Chap 1, see:
https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11118.html

Ewa Lajer-Burcharth is the William Dorr Boardman Professor of Fine
Arts at Harvard University. Her books include Chardin Material and
Necklines: The Art of Jacques-Louis David after the Terror.



978-0-691-17012-1 Cloth $65.00S
336 pages. 154 color + 104 b/w illus. 8 3/4 x 11 1

Cette étude se propose de réexaminer la peinture religieuse de Charles de La Fosse à la lumière de la notion de grâce, comprise dans sa double signification de secours surnaturel de Dieu et de charme indéfinissable. Les grâces divine et esthétique étaient intimement liées au début de l’époque moderne, mais, à la fin du xviie siècle, leur rapprochement était devenu intenable. S’appuyant sur une constellation de débats théologiques, artistiques et rhétoriques contemporains, notre étude tente d’expliquer en quoi la peinture religieuse de La Fosse est symptomatique des rapports de plus en plus ténus entre les deux conceptions. En s’attachant à intégrer ces dernières, ses peintures s’exposent aux problèmes que la grâce présente et en deviennent un véhicule involontaire de l’émergence d’une autonomie picturale moderne.

Jean­ Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d´Argens hatte das Privileg zusammen mit seiner Gemahlin, der ehemaligen Schauspielerin Babette Cochois, im Gästeschloss Friedrichs II. eine eigene Wohnung zugewiesen zu bekommen. Diese Wohnung ließ der König ausstatten mit großen Wandgemälden. Bei näherer Betrachtung erweisen sich diese als Bildzitate aus verschiedenen Gemälden von Watteau und Malern seines Kreises. Der Marquis hatte sein negatives Urteil über diese Art von Malerei zuvor ausführlich in verschiedenen Schriften publiziert. Als sein Berater in künstlerischen Fragen hatte er sicherlich auch mit dem König, der gerade für diese Kunst eine Vorliebe hatte, darüber gesprochen. Es ist sehr wahrscheinlich, dass Friedrich II. diese Gemälde ganz bewusst als Dekoration für die Wohnung seines "Freundes" wählte und dort sowohl Anspielungen auf dessen Leben als auch auf seine Kunstauffassungen versteckte.

Through a close study of artists’ portraits, this essay explores intimate relationships that developed at the Académie Royale in eighteenth-century Paris. Written as three stories about six artists, the essay examines three different kinds of intimate relationship: family (with Jean-Marc Nattier and his son-in-law Louis Tocqué), friendship (with Jean-Baptiste Greuze and Johann-Georg Wille), and rivalry (with Maurice-Quentin de La Tour and Jean-Baptiste Perronneau). Traced through and told via the portraits that the artists made of themselves and each other, these stories of academic intimacies reconstruct something of the complex social networks of artists in early modern Paris, and reveal the crucial role played by art objects in the negotiation of their relationships. Combining art-historical and microhistorical approaches in a step towards a more intimate understanding of the Académie as an artistic community, this essay also offers insights into the unique value and agency of portraits as aesthetic, social, ritual, and historical objects.

This paper examines the depiction of the guitar and musette in the fêtes galantes of Watteau by considering the theoretical, musical and literary evidence for the reception of these instruments in Watteau’s culture. Documentary evidence suggests that the presence of the guitar and musette in the fêtes galantes may provide a tool for reading the nuances of these contested images.

Cette thèse est la première thèse consacrée à l'éventail en France.

Elle porte sur l’étude du décor de la feuille d’éventail produite dans les ateliers parisiens depuis la fin du XVIIe siècle jusqu’au début de la Révolution.

La première partie a pour ambition de présenter succinctement le contexte artisanal en s’intéressant d’une part à la corporation et d’autre part aux conditions de fabrication de l’objet. La place des éventaillistes parmi les artisans parisiens du luxe est abordée ainsi que la valeur de ce commerce tant du point de vue du volume que de la reconnaissance de ce savoir-faire parmi les autres productions européennes.
Dans un second temps, la présentation de l’iconographie de la feuille permet de souligner la grande variété des thèmes, leur fréquence et leur variation sur la période. En complément de décors inspirés par l’histoire antique et la mythologie, d’autres sujets, marqués par une forte corrélation avec l’actualité et la vie politique du royaume, sont identifiés. Les thèmes liés au divertissement, la pastorale, les jeux, la musique ou encore le théâtre constituent un dernier pôle très représentatif.

Cette approche conduit à s’interroger sur les influences subies par les peintres ou les graveurs et à comprendre les caractères et les spécificités des décors. Des parallèles sont effectués afin de les replacer dans le contexte artistique par des comparaisons avec la gravure, la peinture, les arts décoratifs et la littérature de colportage notamment. Il apparaît que l’ambition décorative, qui se manifeste par la place de l‘anecdote et le goût du pittoresque, n’amoindrit pas la valeur didactique de l’objet comme le démontre l’importance accordée aux textes et aux chansons notamment.
La dernière partie ouvre l’étude sur une réflexion autour de l’éventail et de son appréciation par les contemporains. L’enthousiasme exprimé par les femmes s’oppose à la virulence des écrits de certains critiques et de peintres. Cette confrontation permet de mettre en exergue la reconnaissance de l’objet comme expression de la société féminine mais aussi comme reflet de l’expansion des arts décoratifs au XVIIIe siècle.

Mots clés : éventail, mode, accessoire de mode, artisanat du luxe.

***
This thesis is the first thesis about antique fans in France.
This thesis concerned with the decoration of fan leaves produced in Parisian workshops between the end of the XVIIth century and the beginning of the French Revolution.
The first part attempts to present succinctly the conditions in which fan leaves were manufactured, namely the place of fan-makers among Parisian artisans of luxury goods and the value of this business compared to that of other European producers.
Following in the second section is the presentation of the iconography of the fan leaf, stressing the wide variety of themes, their frequency and variation in this period. Apart from subjects from ancient history and mythology, a strong correlation between everyday events and the political life of the kingdom emerges. Entertainments, country pursuits, games, music and theatre are also topics widely represented.
This approach leads to a discussion on the conditions imposed on the painters and engravers and an examination of the characteristics and details of the chosen decorations. Parallels are drawn so that the fan leaves can be given an artistic context alongside engraving, painting, the decorative arts and relevant literature. As demonstrated in texts and, particularly, in songs, it seems that anecdotal decoration and the taste for the picturesque does not diminish the didactic value of the object.
Finally, the concluding part of the thesis reflects on the fan leaf as it was considered by contemporary writers. Feminine enthusiasm against the attacks of certain male writers reveals that the value of the object was principally an expression of female society but also that it was an object with a significant place in the expansion of the decorative arts in the XVIIIth century.

Key words : fan, fashion, fashion accessory, luxury goods.

Author: Luigi Gallo
Year: 2017
Publisher: L'ERMA di BRETSCHNEIDER
Series: L'ErmArte, 19
ISBN: 978-88-913-1241-9
ISBN: 978-88-913-1243-7  (e-book)
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 356, 20 ill. B/N, 54 ill. Col., 35 tav. f.t
Size: 17 x 24 cm
Resumé
L'étude aborde la figure de Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes (1750-1819) par rapport à la place du paysage dans la théorie artistique et la peinture française du XVIIIe siècle. L' analyse se fonde à la fois sur une lecture des témoignages laissés par l' artiste, ses uvres et son traité publié en 1800, et sur un examen détaillé du contexte culturel qui a permis et conditionné sa formation puis sa carrière.
Après en avoir retracé les étapes dans un profil biographique, qui souligne notamment ses relations avec Hubert Robert, Vernet, David et Quatremère de Quincy ainsi que son insertion dans les cadres institutionnels de la profession, l' enqute passe au crible la fortune critique du peintre depuis le XIXe siècle, qui a conduit à survaloriser son activité en plein air aux dépens du travail en atelier. Afin de dépasser ces limites, la seconde partie se concentre sur Valenciennes théoricien. Elle éclaire la longue tradition, aussi bien théorique que pratique, dans laquelle il s' est formé et qu' il a voulu prolonger et mettre à jour dans son traité, dont les deux sections respectives, les Éléments de perspective pratique et les Réflexions et conseils à un élève, donnent lieu à un commentaire détaillé qui met en évidence, depuis ses bases techniques jusqu'à ses enjeux esthétiques, sa conception de la peinture à la fois comme science sentimentale et comme poésie philosophique.
C' est grce à cette lecture qu' apparat l' unité cohérente du parcours formatif et créatif que Valenciennes théorise à partir de sa propre expérience, et qui aide à déchiffrer la genèse de son uvre. L' exécution des dessins et les études peintes permettait de recueillir des fragments du réel qui, une fois recomposés dans l'équilibre du tableau fini, aboutissaient à ces grands paysages historiques qui firent sa renommée aux Salons, et où devaient se conjuguer la vérité de la nature et l' idéal classique.

Biographie
Luigi Gallo s' est formé à Rome, à l' université La Sapienza, et à Paris, où il a soutenu une thèse de doctorat à l' université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Będąca owocem benedyktyńskiej pracy i umiejętności pokonywania niebagatelnych trudności organizacyjnych, źródłowa monografia Barbary Hryszko wprowadza do obiegu naukowego sylwetkę znaczącego artysty, dotąd niemal zupełnie zapomnianego, prawidłowo osadza go w kontekście historycznym, kulturowym i artystycznym, w sposób zasadniczy wzbogaca wiedzę na temat związanych z Polską malarzy dojrzałego baroku, a także […] dopełnia panoramę akademickiego malarstwa we Francji około roku 1700 i sztuki akademickiej w tym kraju oraz w środowisku rzymskim.
Prof. dr hab. Marcin Fabiański

Bardzo ważkie rezultaty przyniosła wnikliwa kwerenda archiwalna, która pozwoliła Pani Barbarze Hryszko odtworzyć wiernie i bardzo szczegółowo biografię Ubeleskiego oraz rozszerzyć wiedzę o jego dorobku. […] Autorka wykorzystała różnorodne i bardzo skuteczne metody identyfikacji dzieł Ubeleskiego, poddając m.in. wnikliwej analizie inskrypcje umieszczone na jego rysunkach. Wykazała się także dobrą znajomością metod badań nad malarstwem francuskim, atrybuując Ubeleskiemu kolejne dzieła na podstawie rycin, na których malarz ten występuje jako inwentor. […] Zgadzam się z atrybucjami i „antyatrybucjami” Pani Hryszko, a zarazem doceniam znaczny wysiłek włożony przez nią w przeszukanie wielu kolekcji, wyłowienie z nich dzieł Ubeleskiego, a także w uzasadnienie tych wyborów. […]
Książka wnosi wiele nowych informacji do badań nad malarstwem francuskim XVII wieku. Praca ta prezentuje bowiem we wszechstronny sposób sylwetkę paryskiego artysty „drugiego planu”, który odegrał z pewnością istotną rolę w utrzymaniu francuskiego malarstwa na „akademickich torach”. Na pochwałę zasługuje retoryczna wyrazistość wywodów Autorki, jasne stawianie tez i ich precyzyjne uzasadnianie. Praca jest zaopatrzona w bardzo bogaty aparat naukowy i starannie zilustrowana.
Prof. dr hab. Piotr Krasny

BARBARA HRYSZKO
Alexandre Ubeleski (Ubelesqui): The Œuvre of the Painter and the Definition of his Style (pp. 226-280)
Summary
The purpose of this article is to identify the undisputed works of Alexandre Ubeleski (1649/1651–21 April 1718), a painter of Polish origin, who worked in the service of Louis XIV and was affiliated with the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris. A number of facts concerning the painter’s life were established on the basis of archival documentation. Thanks to the archival sources, history of individual works and the analysis of the painter’s signatures it was possible to identify Ubeleski’s output consisting of forty-four works, including: seven paintings, twenty preparatory drawings for paintings and seventeen académies. Another twenty-eight works are documented in prints and over fifty-three works are known only from written sources. Although the surviving works constitute merely a small percentage of the artist’s total output, they may serve as evidence in defining his style. One may hope that defining the painter’s style and the common element of all of his paintings and drawings shall serve as a basis for the future attribution of works that may appear, for instance, in the antiquarian trade.
The painter was one of many artists at the time whose work was strictly defined by the academic canon. Ubeleski’s style was fundamentally influenced by his studies at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris. This very institution was his basic source of inspiration. It was there that the artist learned about the works of great masters. The classical style and the preponderance of drawing in his works contributed to his early successes which started his academic career, and gained him the chair of a professor. Ubeleski’s artistic output is a representative sample of the French academic art in the reign of Louis XIV. The nature of his œuvre indicates that he was one of the Poussinistes, who valued classical models of great predecessors over creative experiments.

Accompanying the exhibition at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (Legion of Honor, 2021-22), this essay offers a fresh understanding of the history and art of pastel. With the appearance of a painting, the immediacy of a drawing, and the timeless matte finish of an ancient fresco, the pastel is one of the most versatile media used throughout history. Told throygh the selection of works spanning five centuries, this exhibition features and discusses works from the Museum collection by Rosalba Carriera, Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, John Altoon, Wayne Thiebaud and many others. This essay discusses the evolution of pastel through examples by Bassano, Leonardo da Vinci, Picasso, Francesco Clemente.

Watteau's fêtes galantes break with key aspects of academic art theory in early eighteenth-century France, particularly as put forward by Roger de Piles, to elicit an experience of reverie in the spectator. Watteau's formal innovations inaugurated a new relationship between painting and beholder that opened up a new sphere of subjective experience, linking the artist's enterprise with the rise of modern interiority.

This M.A. thesis was written in 1948-49, at which time it was an original study of the iconography of carnival characters--Pierrot, Harlequin, et al., from the early 18th century to the mid-20th.  Beginning with the history and sociology of "comic" characters, it studies their appearance in works by Watteau, Daumier, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, Cézanne, Picasso, Rouault, Klee, Chagall, Beckmann, and others

Celem pracy jest wskazanie wpływów idei wolnomularskiej na skodyfikowanie wytworu prawnego Rewolucji Francuskiej jakim była "Deklaracja Praw Człowieka i Obywatela" poprzez porównanie jej z częścią wolnomularskiej konstytucji Andersona zatytułowaną "Old Charges", czyli statutem organizacyjnym masonów.

The aim of the study is to identify the Masonic ideology influence on the program document of the French Revolution which was the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen" by comparing it with the part of Anderson's masonic constitution entitled: "Old Charges".

François Boucher painted "La Toilette" in 1742 for Comte Carl Gustaf Tessin, the Swedish ambassador to Paris at the court of Louis XV and a great connoisseur of art. The cabinet painting offers the viewer a voyeuristic glimpse into a cabinet de toilette of a Parisian city palace, where a lady with a female companion celebrates her morning toilette. It is an image of gallantry as well as luxury, almost more still life than genre painting. However, this iconic work of art of the French Rococo can only be understood in all its complexity if one situates it in its different aesthetic, cultural-historical, social and economic contexts - between fashion and gallantry, between identity and representation, between materiality and transformation, between manucure and manufacture.

ERRATA: In notes 26 and 27 I follow Janusz Michałowski 's opinion that Norblin received 400 livres as a compensation for the trip to Rome which did not take place. However, it seems that this sum of money was rather compensation for Ecole's regular scholarship. //////////////////////////////////////////

The subject of the article is the youth of the painter, draftsman and illustrator Jean-Pierre Norblin de la Gourdaine (1745–1830), and the circumstances that led him to enter the service of Princess Izabela Czartoryska and her husband Adam Czartoryski. Starting from a thorough examination of Norblin’s earnings in Poland, I analyze the non-economic factors that have caused his move there. The hypothesis presented in the text assumes that one of them was the artist’s difficult professional and social situation. In the first years of his stay in Paris, Norblin used to be associated with a circle of painters of low social renown. For almost a decade he was employed by Francesco Casanova, a painter who has been a controversial figure for both the Royal Academy and critics. He also failed to gain an influential patron or loyal clientele in the Academy circles. It seems that he had no prospects for not only making a career in Paris, but also for becoming independent of Casanova. Perhaps it was this social and professional stalemate that prompted him to undertake the “recruitment journey” via London and Spa, which eventually led him to Puławy and Warsaw.

A) PAPERS

1.

Adrián Ratto
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas/Centro de Investigaciones Filosóficas y Universidad de Buenos Aires

La poética de las ruinas. Diderot y las pinturas de Robert en el Salón de 1767

Resumen
El objetivo de este artículo es demostrar que la admiración que Diderot sintió por las representaciones de ruinas de construcciones de la Antigüedad, que Hubert Robert presentó en la exposición organizada en 1767 por la Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture de París, no estuvo exenta de reservas. Esto arroja luces, por otra parte, sobre el sentido de lo que el filósofo denominó “poética de las ruinas” y, en un plano más general, sobre el vínculo que estableció en sus escritos estéticos entre la naturaleza y el arte. El trabajo, además, pone de relieve una serie de tensiones que el Salon de 1767 desata, con respecto a lo desarrollado por Diderot en otros escritos.

Palabras clave
Iluminismo – artes figurativas– naturaleza – imitación – modelo ideal

The poetic of ruins. Diderot and Robert’s paintings in the Salon de 1767

Abstract
The aim of this paper is to show that Diderot’s admiration of the depictions of ruins of ancient structures, presented by Hubert Robert in the exhibition hosted by the Parisian Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1767, was not without reservations. This, in turn, sheds light on the significance of what the philosopher named “the poetry of ruins” and, on a more general level, on the connection he established between nature and art in his works on aesthetics. Additionally, this paper underlines a series of tensions engendered by the Salon de 1767, considering what Diderot explored in other writings.

Keywords
Enlightenment –figurative arts– nature – imitation –ideal model

2.

Gisela Fabbian
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas/Centro de Investigaciones Filosóficas y Universidad Nacional de San Martín

La expresión popular anónima. Bernardo Canal Feijóo y su concepción del folclore

Resumen
Una de las principales preocupaciones de Bernardo Canal Feijóo (1897- 1982) fue la de configurar una concepción de cultura basada en la relación del hombre con su lugar como modo de definir una identidad. Para ello recurre al análisis de prácticas y producciones populares presentes porque considera que en ellas continúan latentes significaciones sociales y simbólicas de un pasado primigenio. Su análisis en este caso se centra, entonces, en la “expresión folclórica”, dado que considera que en ella se encuentra presente con mayor intensidad el arte de las culturas pretéritas. El presente trabajo tiene como objeto reconstruir el análisis de Canal Feijóo y poner de manifiesto aspectos del planteo a partir del cual configura modos de identidad cultural.

Palabras clave
Arte popular – Identidad cultural– Expresión folclórica – Prácticas populares – Culturas indígenas en Argentina

The anonymous popular expression. Bernardo Canal Feijóo and his conception of folklore

Abstract
One of the main issues of Bernardo Canal Feijoo (1897-1982) was configure a conception of culture based on the relationship of man with his place like a mode defining an identity. For this, he turns to the analysis of practices and popular productions of present because he considers latent in them a social and symbolic significance of a primeval past. In this case, his analysis focuses in the “folk expression”, since he considers that in them is present more intensely the art of past cultures. This paper aims to reconstruct the analysis of Canal Feijóo and reveal the proposition from them he configures a modes of the cultural identity.

Keywords
Popular art – Cultural Identity – Folk expression – Popular practices – Indigenous cultures in Argentina

B) BOOK REVIEWS

Facundo Bey (UNSAM-CONICET):  James Warren, The Pleasures of Reason in Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic Hedonists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014, 234 pp.

Melina Varnavoglou (UNSAM), José Sazbón (comp.), Homenaje a Kant. Buenos Aires: EUFyL, 2016, 176 pp.

Il corso intende esplorare il costante rapporto e le reciproche influenze tra testo letterario e immagine artistica, che sta tra i fondamenti della civiltà figurativa europea, attraverso l’analisi di alcune opere e alcuni temi capitali dell’epoca rinascimentale e barocca: dalla Primavera di Botticelli all’Arcadia diversamente intesa del Guercino e di Poussin, dalle mitologie tizianesche alle narrazioni ariostesche e tassiane del Tiepolo, un percorso sul continuo gioco di specchi tra letteratura e arti figurative, partendo dagli studi dei fondatori delle discipline iconologiche e affrontando il tema della pluralità e dei limiti dell’interpretazione.

Despite the extensive literature on the beautiful signboard that Antoine Watteau painted for his friend Edme Gersaint, there still is much to learn. Watteau was more responsive than we had realized to the tradition of signboards showing shop interiors. Not least, the original format of the signboard needs to be reconsidered.