18th Century French Aesthetics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) Cite this entry Search the SEP • Advanced Search • Tools • RSS FeedTable of Contents• What's New• Archives• Projected ContentsEditorial Information• About the SEP• Editorial Board• How to Cite the SEP• Special CharactersSupport the SEPContact the SEP ©Metaphysics Research Lab,CSLI,Stanford University  Open access to the SEP is made possible by a world-wide funding initiative. Please Read How You Can Help Keep the Encyclopedia Free18th Century French AestheticsFirst published Sun Feb 29, 2004; substantive revision Sun Dec 31, 2006The birth of aesthetics as a field lies at the junction betweenEnlightenment ideals and the teachings of taste: reason is no longerseen as a truth system but increasingly as a faculty of testing andevaluating, and accordingly it cannot put aside as irrelevant thelessons of sentiment and individuality. Art becomes a powerfulstimulant of human social activities and an inexhaustible subject forphilosophical inquiry. Because of the vitality of its philosophicalbackground and the spreading of French as an international code ofcommunication, France has been a privileged laboratory of thisevolution, both a place suited for multiple attempts and critiques anda favorable one for synthesis.1. An Age of Quarrels2. Sentiment and Taste3. Rationalist Resistances4. From Connoisseurs to Art Critics5. Art as Philosophy6. Neo-Classicism and Pre-RomanticismBibliographyOther Internet ResourcesRelated Entries1. An age of quarrelsNo period in history is monolithic. Even if the very subordinationof artistic management to the power of the Sun King fosters animpression of uniformity and self-assurance, a closer examination of itreveals evidence of tensions and even conflicts. And as usual, theseare the seeds of major changes to come.Some of these quarrels are only petty disputes begotten by events oflimited scope. The most characteristic of them arose throughcontroversial plays, when there are grounds for contention between twosides or two ways to pass judgment. It can be an occasion of troubleconcerning matter and manner: if Corneille's first hit, TheCid (1636), sets up one of the strongest schemas of classicaltheater, i.e. the contest of love and duty, it does it in a formreminiscent of baroque poetry that admits of verse and genrediscrepancies. Later on, he will justify in his Discourses(1660) such standing back from Aristotle's principles, though of coursehe does not ask for them to be abandoned. Another kind of situationdeals with censorship and sensitive subjects in an absolutist society.A significant case is Molière's Tartuffe (1664 and1669) because, being an attack against some false devout attitudes, itwas at risk of being received as a satire of religion itself. It isworth noticing that, though the Company of the Blessed Sacramentsucceeded in imposing a ban on public performances, the personalsupport of the King allowed Molière to prevail in the end.Others may seem outwardly to be mere skirmishes among rivals, but asa rule they conceal more substantial stakes. For example, on January1674, Alceste by Lully and Quinault was derided by musicianskept out of things and by Boileau who despised the libretto's author.However, the situation got more complicated when in August Racine gavehis Iphigénie. The two plays have in appearance nothingin common, except that Euripides inspired both. Hence the polemicalepisode is not so much about the two works as about the true sense ofimitating the Ancients. One then becomes convinced that all these moreor less professional rivalries come within a single large controversythat structures an important part of the intellectual life of theperiod, known as the Querelle of Ancients and Moderns, and that is areliable indicator of attitudes toward art and society whose effectslast until late in the century.The Querelle is usually divided into three distinct phases. Thefirst had its roots in Italy when writers like Boccalini, Tassoni, andLancelotti were motivated to upgrade the present's achievements incomparison with Antiquity's heritage. But the Querelle reached itsclimax in France, for political as well as cultural reasons. The firstthing to take into account — an essential point oftenunderestimated in this context — is the impulse of thescientific revolution: Galileo's physics superseding Aristotle's.Descartes plays an important part in shaking scholastic thought andthis fact, more than the actual content of his doctrine, hasrepercussions far beyond the field of science. As Pascal puts it, hiscontemporaries deserve to be called truly Ancients, because knowledgeis a cumulative process making it easier to move forward when time goeson and foundations are made secure. Another important cause of tensionwas the persistent use of mythological themes in art and literature, ina society still devoted to Christianity. Desmarets de St-Sorlin did hisbest to prove the "Christian marvelous" was of equal worth; but hissubjects, taken from history (like Clovis) or from the Bible(like Mary-Magdalene) were at the same time an act ofallegiance to an absolutist concept of political power.It is precisely that aspect which becomes prominent in the secondphase, when Perrault reads his poem The Century of Louis theGreat at the Academy, on January 27th, 1687. The poemcombines an eloquent plea in favor of Moderns (later developed in thefour volumes of the Parallel of the Ancients and Moderns, from1688 to 1697) and a labored praise to the King. At this point,aesthetics and politics become entangled because disagreement concernsnot mainly the value of works but the choice of an effective policy inthe arts. Boileau, champion of the Ancient party, is unexpectedly alsothe most lucid on the disadvantages of the courtier attitude, andtherefore he defends the "great style" as a simple style. Fontenelle,the new spokesman for the Moderns, is not far from his rival's view,but he sets this requirement differently: the need for freeing poeticsfrom arbitrariness and conformism's shackles prevails over theobviousness of masterpieces. What is at stake is improvement inintellect and morality, which implies not considering works inisolation or sticking to a priori principles.The last act, simultaneously in France and England, is known as the"Homer quarrel", for it originates in several translations of Homer'sIliad, especially those by Anne Dacier (1699 and 1711) andAlexander Pope (1715 - 1724). The peak of the dispute is reached inFrance when Houdar de la Motte publishes a short version of Homer'spoem, cleared of supposedly dated digressions (1714); Daciercounter-attacks straight off with her Of Causes of Corruption ofTaste. Combativeness is fueled between defendants and opponents byreplies and the quick transfer of libels across the Channel. On theEnglish side, Wotton, Dryden, and Swift (in The Battle of theBooks, 1704) are the most committed; in France, Saint-Hyacinthe,Boivin, Fathers Buffier and Terrasson are no less convinced — ifindeed convincing — until Fénelon makes use of hisdiplomatic resources to get a reconciliation.It might seem, at least when seen from the present day, that theseare the last echoes of a rear-guard combat, then opposed to what wasgoing on in pictorial arts at the same time. Here too, there is aconflicting situation, namely between the so-called Poussinists andRubenists, but the repercussions were to be quite different. Thehistorical background of this "Coloring quarrel" lies in the growingglory of Titian and Rubens, at first darkened by Raphael's andMichelangelo's fortune. The debate hinges of course on the status ofcolor. For a long time, color had been disregarded, for at least threereasons: it is, in Le Brun's words, "but an accident produced by thereflection of light and that varies according to circumstances"; itappeals to sensuality whereas "we must not judge by our senses alonebut by reason" as Poussin puts it; and it proves unable to serve as afoundation for painting, unlike drawing, which is related to the mindas recalled in the original sense of disegno and as requiredby the analogy between painting and rhetoric. It is Leonardo's reversalfrom the old dictum that painting is "dumb poesy" to the new one that"poetry is blind painting" which opens the way to a betterconsideration.The painter Blanchard cautiously starts hostilities in the Academyin 1671. He does not want "to diminish the importance of design" but"to establish three things in defense of color: first, that color isjust as necessary to the art of painting as design; secondly, that ifwe diminish the worth of color, we thereby also diminish the worth ofpainters; and thirdly, that color merited the praise of the ancients,and that it merits it again in our own age." Design is a necessaryfoundation, certainly, but if the aim of the painter is "both todeceive the eyes and to imitate nature", it is reasonable to concludethat color serves that goal best, because "herein lies the differencethat distinguishes painting from all the other arts and which givespainting its own specific end". It was an attempt to turn to hisadvantage Poussin's phrase that the aim of painting is delectation— but insufficient indeed to convince Le Brun and Champaigne, tosay nothing of Testelin, the tyrannical and finicky Secretary andauthor of the rigid Tables of Precepts.Two men were going to play a special role in the progress of thecolor crusade. To mention Félibien as the first one may appearto be a paradox, because he is generally and rightly considered as arepresentative of the orthodox view. But he was also liberally mindedand concerned about the respect of differing opinions (it was to costhim his position!) and a fair balance between the gifts of the mind andthe talents of the hand. For him, "beauty is a result of the proportionand symmetry between corporeal and material parts", so that colorcannot be discarded since "everything should appear so artfullyconnected that the whole painting seems to have been painted at one andthe same time, and, as it were, from the same palette". When hetranslates Du Fresnoy's De Arte Graphica (1668) and publisheshis Dialogue upon Coloring (1673), Roger de Piles may appearto hold stronger views; however, by transferring emphasis from color tocoloring, he too stresses the importance of harmony and the way itpresupposes mastery of local color and chiaroscuro. When, along time after, de Piles entered the Academy, he would give a largesynthesis under the title Principles of Painting (1708), inwhich he insists that "true painting is such as not only surprises,but, as it were, calls to us; and has so powerful an effect, that wecannot help coming near it, as if it had something to tell us", so that"the spectator is not obliged to seek for truth in a painting;but truth, by its effect, must call to the spectator,and force his attention". That points to what he called "the wholetogether", that is "a general subordination of objects one to another,as makes them all concur to constitute but one", for the utmostsatisfaction of the eye. The same lesson can be drawn from AntoineCoypel's writings, where "the excellence of painting" is no longerseparate from "the aesthetic of the painter". His nomination asAcademy's Director in 1714 is the symptom that one page has been turnedforever.2. Sentiment and TasteAlthough it is not wrong to say as a convenient summary that the17th century is the culmination of classical culture, inthat it promotes universal reason and artistic rules, by contrast withthe next, which favors the powers of imagination and criticism, itwould be difficult to find anywhere an abrupt line of demarcation.There are instead many limited developments, shifts of meaning ratherthan brand-new institutions, and lots of signs of which none isdeterminant by itself but whose addition adds up to a deeply revisedoverview.Dominique Bouhours is a major reference point of this period oftransition. Professor of humanities and very famous in the Parissalons, he published The Conversations of Aristo and Eugene in1671, with a sequel in 1687. The two books were widely read, oftenreissued and the second translated into English as The Art ofCriticism (1705). One significant feature (though not exceptionaloutside philosophy, as proven by Félibien and de Piles) is theadoption of the form of the dialogue, which affords two main benefits.First, it gives the opportunity to put in a face-to-face debate arepresentative of classicism, who is therefore very fond of Antiquity,and a lover of delicacy and charm. These characters personifyrespectively Boileau and what we could call an 18th centuryaesthete before the coining of the word. Secondly, it encourages theworking out of thought in the guise of inquiry. Indeed, the dialogicalpresentation proves the best way to address objections, variations, ordigressions that make up the real substance of investigation, prior tothe intellectual content of the theses. So philosophical profit goeshand in hand with the pleasure of conversing. Bouhours himself leaves atotal freedom of judgment to his reader; he wants his book to be only"a concise and easy rhetoric that is instructing more by means ofinstances than precepts and does not require any other rules than alively and witty common sense" but, by claiming this, he anticipatesthe victory of the new spirit over orthodoxy.Among the most typical notions stressed by Bouhours is the famous"je ne sais quoi", "that indefinable something whose effects you feel".The expression itself seems to foil any analysis; all you can say, asGracián puts it, is to admit that "this certain something,without wanting any thing itself, enters into every thing to give itworth and value". Bouhours writes that "the je ne sais quoi islike those beauties covered with a veil, which are the more highlyprized for being less exposed to view, and to which the imaginationalways adds something". Half a century later, Marivaux concludes thatit is the attribute par excellence of Grace: "in thesepaintings that you like so, in these objects of every kind which sodelight you, in the entire expanse of the grounds, in all that youperceive, here simple, here untended, irregular even, sometimes ornate,sometimes not, I am there and I show myself. I bestow my charm oneverything, I surround you". The important fact about all thesewordings is not so much that they elude any attempt to grasp the senseof the phrase, at least in a single shape, it lies in the recognitionthat equivocity is no more to be discarded altogether. Behind theseemingly ineffable, what is to be found is the remainder of anemotional component that belongs to human nature as truly as doesreason, and accordingly it justifies an original approach. The one whowas to carry it out in France is du Bos, in his CriticalReflections on Poetry and Painting (1719).At first sight, du Bos did not seem to be destined to play this partbut he skillfully took advantage of favorable conditions. He hadstudied theology, was a diplomat and an historian, a theater and operaenthusiast, and above all, he had a thorough knowledge of erudition,particularly in classical archeology and numismatics. He was rather arationalist, though hostile to Descartes, but he had traveled in theNetherlands and England, where he met Locke, and could read English(which was not so common in France at that time) as well as otherlanguages. It is certain that he read Addison, maybe Shaftesbury, whichfostered a sensualist trend of his own, without any trace ofsentimentalism (contrary to Fénelon). His interests were quiteeclectic since he was acquainted with Bayle and Leibniz, and also opento experimental philosophy. In 1719, he became a member of theAcadémie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and, as earlyas 1722, was elevated to the capacity of Perpetual Secretary. But hismain claim to fame for posterity remains by far his CriticalReflections, of which Voltaire wrote in 1738 that it was "the mostuseful book ever written on these topics in every country of Europe",published by a happy coincidence the same year as J. Richardson'sThe Science of a Connoisseur, which deals with connectedmatters.The novelty assumed by du Bos shows itself immediately in the choiceto begin with the subjective impression caused on contact with works ofart. Anticipating Burke, he argues that aesthetic pleasure is anemotion, the physical result of the stirring of our organs, but indeedof a paradoxical nature since its effects "are never more applauded,than when they are most successful in moving us to pity". While Nicoleand Bossuet were scorning art, as guilty of diverting people from thereal duties of life and salvation, du Bos insists that there is anecessity to fight against worries and tedium. However, such strugglemakes passions attractive in spite of their menaces. Art is a method ofrescue for it makes use of the pathetic while neutralizing itsunpleasant effects: "Since the most pleasing sensations that our realpassions can afford us, are balanced by so many unhappy hours thatsucceed our enjoyments, would it not be a noble attempt of art toendeavor to separate the dismal consequences of our passions from thebewitching pleasure we receive in indulging them? Is it not in thepower of art to create, as it were, beings of a new nature? Might notart contrive to produce objects that would excite artificial passions,sufficient to occupy us while we are actually affected by them, andincapable of giving us afterwards any real pain or affliction?" Forinstance, the massacre of the innocents would be an unbearablespectacle to see but nevertheless Le Brun's painting excites both ourcompassion and admiration.Another feature that announces Diderot and Lessing is his awarenessof the distinction between arts. Though open-minded and sensualist, duBos does not call the framework of imitation into question, and hefeels attached to the traditional hierarchy of subjects. In the sixthchapter, he agrees with Quintilian's precept that "the imitationoperates always with less force than the object imitated", whichimplies that genre paintings and satire poetry for instance cannotengage our attention for a long time. Even the most magnificentlandscapes are powerless without figures, not forgetting Poussin'sArcadia, were it devoid of the shepherds and the sepulchralinscription. But what du Bos sees clearly is the failure of the famous"ut pictura poesis". Although he is himself a man of letters, heunderstands that sensuousness decides in favor of painting, because ofits sensible medium. As a matter of fact, "the art of painting is soextremely delicate and attacks us by means of a sense, which has sogreat an empire over our soul, that a picture may be rendered agreeableby the very charms of the execution, independent of the object which itrepresents: but I have already observed, that our attention and esteemare fixt then upon the art of the imitator, who knows how to please,even without moving us. We admire the pencil that has been so capableof counterfeiting nature." Similar arguments have constantly been takenup again, e.g. by Diderot, Adam Smith and Goncourt. As for du Bos, itfollows that poets and painters have to select subjects appropriate tothe means of their arts; a sublime rejoinder in a tragedy would allow atrite rendering on a canvas, and conversely a vast scene full ofanimation that proves the mastery of the painter would only engender anannoying poem.There is a second stage of analysis, that is the account ofconditions that sustain the existence and value of art as a humanphenomenon. This second part is a bit dated because it rests on thevenerable theory of climates. He compares genius, "that abilityreceived from nature to do well and easily certain things that theothers could only achieve badly, even when they get a lot of trouble todo so", with a plant which "so to speak, is growing by itself". Theemanations from the earth and the variations in quality of the air arefor du Bos truly responsible for the productivity of countries andcenturies. He does not subscribe however to a strong determinism; itwould be more accurate to see him as a forerunner of historicalconsciousness of art, moderated by a touch of skepticism since headmits of a cyclical progress. The methodological lesson implied isthat criticism is above all a research of causes, not a practice ofjudging. For all that, a cosmopolitan criticism is not bound tosacrifice any personal conviction, as du Bos exemplifies in his defenseof Ancients fulfillment.The Critical Reflections have been read and quotedextensively and still more often used without mention. An extreme caseis the entry ‘Painting’ (by Jaucourt) in theEncyclopédie that amounts to a collage of almost thirtyfragments taken from du Bos! Likewise Montesquieu in his Essay onTaste owes him more than is avowed. It is probably in Switzerlandthat his influence was the most fertile: Bodmer borrows from him tofight against Gottsched's academism, and Sulzer takes him as a basisfor his theory of sensibility. Beyond that, his legitimate heirs areundoubtedly Lessing and Mendelssohn, the last freelance thinkers beforethe systematic program implemented by Baumgarten and Kant.3. Rationalist ResistancesIt may seem there is nothing more to be said on that matter, sincethe general trend of aesthetics was then settled. The breakthroughtoward subjectivism is indeed compelling but rationalism was notfinished yet for all that. The main reason is the strong import ofCartesian thought in the French-speaking world. Descartes himself hasscarcely written on artistic topics and he was even doubtful about thepossibility of a true analysis of aesthetic responses. But thesystematic leanings of his thinking involve implications in this fieldalso. It is clearly noticeable through the impact of the mechanics ofpassions in faces' physiognomy (witness Le Brun) or moods' expressions(Rameau). Art should have been an ideal place for studying the "unionof soul and body"; however it was not this feature that came first in arationally rooted theory of art.Another consideration is the relevance of classification overestimation. As any other domain, art is thought to be structured bystable categories that prevail over the diversity of works and thevariability of human attitudes. These categories have in fact anormative rather than a descriptive scope. An immediate outcome is thereturn of the objective question of the beautiful, apart from thesubjective function of taste. But it does not come to put aside anystress on pleasure, because a successful illusion is not necessarily atodds with truthfulness. As a matter of fact, abstraction is not a badstart to get a hold on invention's and fiction's detours.A significant landmark on this road is Crousaz's Treatise onBeauty (1714) whose title is indicative, as well as the choice toinclude a translation of Plato's Hippias major as an appendix.At first sight, it seems paradoxical that the first book worthy toqualify as philosophical aesthetics was written by a stern logician notconcerned by works of art, but he was on the other hand very criticalof scholastic logic and keen on pedagogy. Crousaz is convinced that menare happy in so far as they are reasonable; accordingly, his favoritesubjects are the sciences, eloquence, virtue, and when Bernouilliattacked his single artistic chapter devoted to music, he preferred toreplace it in 1724 by a long development upon religion. For him, thereis a natural continuity from mathematics to the whole conduct of humanlife.Crousaz does not provide original ideas as to the nature of thebeautiful; he takes up the old dictum coined by Leibniz, that it is amix of unity and diversity, so as to preserve order and proportion fromboth caprice and monotony. But he approaches it with a new awareness ofthe constraints and prejudices that obstruct the way: "Everyonepossesses [an idea of the beautiful], but since it hardly ever appearsalone we do not reflect upon it and fail to distinguish it from thetangle of other ideas which appear alongside it." The root of thisdifficulty lies in the duality of human faculties: "Sometimes ideas andfeelings are in agreement with each other and an object merits thequalification ‘beautiful’ on both counts. Sometimes, however, ideas andfeelings are at war with each other and then an object pleases and atthe same time does not: from one perspective it is beautiful, whilefrom another it lacks beauty." Crousaz does not put up with thisdivorce; on the contrary, we have a responsibility to discover "whichprinciples regulate our approbation when we judge something from ideasonly [or, as he likes to say, "coolly"] and find it beautifulindependently of feeling". Taste is not discarded but rather viewed asa forerunner of what reason would have approved, had it time enough toweigh the ins and outs. So it is an essential shortcut of understandingthat reconciles sensations with knowledge and gives evidence of theutmost wisdom of God. Similar ideas are also to be found in Frain duTremblay, Brumoy or Trublet.Father André's Essay on Beauty (1741) comes withinthe same territory, but with a strong influence from Malebranche, hencean upgrading of imagination and heart. According to the Cartesiandistinction between ideas (innate, adventitious, and factitious), hesuggests a classification of several degrees within the notion of thebeautiful: the essential beautiful is "independent of any institution,even divine" and so is identified with the universal and immutableOrder or divine Reason. The natural beautiful concerns the whole rangeof created things; it is "independent of any human opinion" but followsfrom God's will; it is present in the harmony and finality of nature.The lowest degree of beauty is a product of human activity and ispartly arbitrary, because it combines intellectual as well as sensualingredients. This sensible beautiful that speaks to the eye and ear isitself organized in three levels, in accordance with the respectiveimportance of genius, taste, and caprice, of course in a downwardorder. Only genius is able to rise to the rational framework of things,when adequately supported by our faculties. André summarizes: "Icall beautiful not what pleases to imagination's first sight Ébut what has a right to please reason and reflection by its ownexcellence." For him (or his disciple, Séran de la Tour) thereis no basic distinction between the beautiful and the true; that is thevery definition of an aesthetics of perfection. Here too feeling is noresidue resistant to any process of elimination; it is the normalaffective accompaniment of any act of creation or reception, and aconclusive mark of humankind's originality as a species.The case of Batteux is somewhat different; when he published TheFine Arts Reduced to a Single Principle in 1746, he took up achallenge: to establish the Aristotelian orthodoxy firmly as thegeneral basis for a unified system of the arts. The principle inquestion is of course the old notion of mimesis butgeneralized to any kind of art, which Aristotle or Horace did not worryabout. To achieve it, he distinguishes the liberal arts whose object ispleasure (that is: music, poetry, painting, sculpture, and dance) fromthe mechanical ones, and he proposes an interpretation of what amountsto the "imitation of the beautiful nature". He insists that imitationis not a matter of slavishly copying the given, but a sensible andenlightened process that gropes its way forward to the best result.Recalling the famous anecdote of Zeuxis composing his Helenout of parts taken from Crotone's most perfect women, he concludes thatthe artist has to imitate what reason decides to be nature's essence.That is why Batteux praises artifice so much: "art is made forfooling", not because it is in duplicity's service but because truth isa complex construction that hides its fabric and development. Diderottakes up again the same point when he considers the peculiar"hieroglyphics" of all modes of expression.In the end, there are two opposite heritages from Batteux. Sometimeshe is criticized for his stubborn defense of systematic standards (asin his Principles of Literature, 1753), the uncompromisingadvocate of ut pictura poesis; sometimes he is recognized forhis sense of enthusiasm, which makes him guess that the ideal is not tobe found anywhere outside fiction and that the reality of pleasureparallels artistic skill. The same perspective holds also for Rameau.He sticks to Cartesianism with a passion and derides any attempt toderive music from experience. In his Demonstration of the Principleof Harmony (1750), he is anxious to make music and science but onething instead of two. Accordingly, harmony becomes the fundamentaltexture of music, and melody a more superficial constituent. But afterthe so-called "Quarrel of Buffoons" where Rousseau took him to task (inhis Letter about French Music of 1753, in favor of Italianopera), Rameau shut himself up in the certainty that music is theuniversal key for every subject, including even geometry. At thispoint, the dogmatic theorist has killed the musician of enchantment;reason has turned its own power against itself.4. From connoisseurs to art criticsAt the exact opposite is the figure of the connoisseur. If he is nota totally new personage on the scene of art history, his role is goingto become more and more prominent for art's valuation. The greatpaintings and frescoes were ordered by patrons who had in mind theconcern of their rank or that of the state. This does not mean that anyconsideration of intrinsic value was irrelevant, for instance inreligious or decorative respects, but as a rule such considerations didnot reflect personal leaning. The importance of the connoisseurpresupposes a personal relation to the subject or technique andtherefore a democratized access to the works. So after the great royaland nobiliary collections that gave rise to the first museums, thereappeared less ambitious collections gathered by wealthy enthusiasts whoshared a mutual taste for quality, and not only a lure toward curiosityas was common in Renaissance cabinets. Most often, these collectionswere composed of drawings, prints, coins, antiques, plaster orterracotta casts, less expensive and handier than paintings andsculptures.Among the most famous of these connoisseurs are the financier Crozatand the Comte de Caylus. They did not content themselves withcollecting thousands of works, they had a concern for reproducing themthrough printmaking and for indexing the whole; Julienne and Mariettewere to be the inventors of the genre of the catalogue, imitated allthrough the century. Caylus or Dezallier d'Argenville also wrote onartists, sketching biographies and establishing rules of discernmentfor delicacy of style or lightness of execution. All this took place inthe larger frame of cosmopolitan relations between amateurs ofdifferent countries and progress in traveling, with the nascent ritualof the Grand Tour.Another fundamental factor that fostered the progressivetransformation of a person fond of art into an authentic connoisseurable to state correct judgments or attributions was the institution ofthe Salon. The Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture had been foundedin 1648 but few exhibitions had been organized inside of it; on theother hand, series of lectures — first public, then private— were proposed, from 1667 onwards. But it is only from 1737 thatregular shows of new works took place every two years, covering thevarious fields of visual arts. The existence of the Salon was apowerful stimulant for artistic activities, even if the limits ofcreation were narrowly controlled.The Salon is of course a society event — which opens in theLouvre's Salon Carré on August 25th, that is St.Louis' day, to pay homage to the king — and as a convenient studyguide of about two hundred supposedly representative works. But itsmost significant upshot is the birth of a new literary genre, whichflourished until the 20th century, which has been anincomparable laboratory of aesthetic thought. At the beginning, suchreviews were a blend of descriptive reports and theoretical asides,frequently not devoid of controversy. The point is nevertheless for thebenefit of a larger public not involved in the institution; as La Fontde Saint-Yenne put it in 1747: "an exhibited picture is the same as abook on the day of publication, and as a play performed in the theater:everyone has the right to make his own judgment. We have gatheredtogether the judgments of the public which showed the greatest amountof agreement and fairness, and we now present them, and not atall our own judgment, to the artists, in the belief that this samepublic which judgments are so often bizarre and unjustly damning orhasty rarely errs when all its voices unite on the merit or weakness ofany particular work." With Caylus, Baillet de Saint-Julien, and thenabove all Diderot, aesthetic import is increasingly emphasized, openingthe way to a long tradition of writers keen on painting.The growth of Salon reviews has both a bearing on the new demands ofjournalism and the rise of a public opinion on artistic matters. As forDiderot, it was his German friend Grimm who invited him to contributeto the Correspondance littéraire, a very unusualnewspaper that was not printed but hand-written and distributed in ahandful of copies for liberal crown-headed readers. Diderot's firstattempt in 1759 is a rather disappointing paper of less than twelvepages composed of the notes taken during his visit. It is all the moreremarkable that he succeeded to raise this exercise to perfection inhis reviews of 1763 and 1767. Since Diderot is a decisive landmark inthe emergence of criticism, it is worth paying some attention to hispractice. His attraction for art was indeed not recent but his firstencounters were at an intellectual level, through the survey ofCrousaz, Shaftesbury, and Hutcheson. He attached the utmost importanceto the theme of blindness as a conceptual paradigm and also as a weaponagainst idealism. But Diderot is not only a passionate philosopher whothinks about the relations between knowledge and vision, he is more andmore an enlightened amateur who enjoys painting, shows strong cravingsand dislikes, and wishes to understand why.Diderot's experience as a critic lies in the distance between twocomplementary attitudes: the evidence that art's trade secrets areunattainable and the challenge to recreate the result in literarymaterial. That the painter's alchemy eludes the viewer's stance issomething often repeated by Diderot, notably with respect to Chardin:"It's magic, one can't understand how it's done: thick layers ofcolour, applied one on top of the other, each one filtering throughfrom underneath to create the effect. At times, it looks as though thecanvas has misted over from someone breathing on it; at others, asthough a thin film of water has landed on it … Close up,everything blurs, goes flat and disappears. From a distance, everythingcomes back to life and reappears." (1763) Diderot belongs to thecolorist party but his questioning is no less acute toward what makesthe strength of drawing and what separates manner from mannerism.Though he confesses that "I praise, I blame after my personal feelingthat does not amount to law" (1767), as early as 1765 he considers thathis acquaintance with paintings gives him a right to write "a littleTreatise on Painting" to expose his reasons for confidence inhis judgments.At the same time, Diderot is aware that the painter's power defiesthe writer to give the reader a substitute for the missing work. Infront of a masterpiece, the first move might probably be to steal it;since it is repressed, it belongs to writing to appropriate itssubstance and recreate the old genre of ekphrasis. In an ageignorant of photography, it is necessary to provide the reader with ashort description of the work in question, but in fact Diderot realizesfar more than this: he is coining new methods to make his wordsequivalent to the sentiment delivered by the work. Amongst the mostsignificant is the use of dialogue, sometimes real, sometimes with avirtual speaker who is usually Grimm himself. The whole of the briefSalon of 1775 is nothing but a conversation between the author andsomeone called Saint-Quentin. Another favorite device is the making ofnarratives that unfold the spatial organization of pictures. At thejunction of the two lies an extraordinary purple passage devoted toVernet (1767) in which Diderot imagines that each landscape painting isa real site discovered through walking and conversing; so to speak, thepartners have entered the work. It is only in the seventh and last sitethat the deceit is revealed, in fact not as a mere attempt to fool butas a constructive roundabout means that pays homage to the painter'svirtuosity.5. Art as PhilosophyA long-range lesson in the rise of criticism and aesthetics istherefore that art is no longer merely a field among others open tophilosophical questioning; instead it becomes a model of developmentfor philosophy. During Antiquity and the classical age, mathematicsplayed that part, as a paradigm of intellectual certainty and immovablefoundation. But the reverse side was a narrowness of scope andlimitation to definite types of objects and investigations. The18th century initiates a strong displacement that does notput scientific thought aside but on the contrary gives it its fullcultural import. In this respect only science and art can becomeassociates for society's benefit.This tendency is increased by changes in the philosophicalbackground, through the impact of British empiricism and the growth ofmaterialism. If, contrary to Cartesian principles, every idea comesfrom the senses — as Condillac and d'Alembert repeat after Locke— sentiment is the overall result of corporal movements.Therefore there is no other way to establish the standard of taste thanby deriving it from our structure as living creatures. In this wayrationality is able to escape dogmatism without falling into the trapof skepticism. But a consistent materialist view of humankind demandsalso a thorough investigation of society's bases and of life's ultimateends. On this level, the frequent analogy between the work of art andan organism proves to be efficient.All these alterations would nonetheless remain a dead letter ifthere were no rise in the standard of living. Voltaire, among others,celebrates wealth, luxury and the softness of life it permits; "What agood time that this iron century!", even if one cannot be satisfiedwith the fact of inequality. Between the Encyclopedists and Rousseau,art's meaning is a constant subject of dispute: when Voltaire pleadsthat "where several of the finer arts are wanting, the rest mustnecessarily languish and decay, since they are inseparably connectedtogether, and mutually support each other", Rousseau objects that it isonly the triumph of artificial man over the natural one, so that theease of the individual is a cause of perdition for humankind. These twointerpretations of art have of course corresponding features inaesthetics, which sometimes appears as the expression of man's utmostcapacities and sometimes as a sum of trifles for persons ofleisure.Be that as it may, Voltaire's and Rousseau's supporters couldnevertheless agree on the kinds of advantages art provides for humantalents and that it is a task for aesthetics to make them explicit.Three points at least deserve to be mentioned: sensitivity, sociabilityand inventing.In so far as the arts mobilize the whole range of our faculties,they improve our ability to discern minute distinctions that otherwisewould go unnoticed. Delicacy of taste may be cultivated for itself andalso indeed for the consequences it can afford. In the first case,pleasure is evidently the true measure of success but it does not meanthere is nothing beyond since pleasure is a progressive process, anactivity that modifies the qualitative content of experience. So aculture of refinement matters in fact for the whole of life becausewhat has been gained across the artistic field amounts to a sort oftraining available in any other context. An instrumental conception oftaste proves to be best suited for revealing hidden similarities andcontrasts, not only between different arts or senses but also betweenart and the stuff of reality.At that time, art was still primarily a dialogue with nature butmimesis must not be confined to resemblance. It takes intoaccount the various dimensions of creation and the correspondences itactivates for different publics. A work of art is both a reflection ofsociety's ideals and prejudices and an effective means that fosters thedynamics of socialization. Diderot makes the point by reference totheater, which is less a place for amusement than a microcosm ofsociety and therefore a laboratory for civil passions. So it is nosurprise if Voltaire can write in return that "nothing renders the mindso narrow, and so little, if I may use that expression, as the want ofsocial intercourse; this confines its faculties, blunts the edge ofgenius, damps every noble passion, and leaves in a state of languor andinactivity every principle, that could contribute to the formation oftrue taste." In brief, art is the communicational binder parexcellence and the best symptom of a social state of affairs infull blossom, even if the limits of its so-called universality lie in aEurocentric point of view.Another decisive feature of art is its ability in inventing. Thereis indeed a rather depreciating interpretation of this as the unendingquest for novelty that is part of social existence and human nature.Art's real purpose is to provide a model of invention that fulfills thehighest resources of mankind or rather that traces a route stemmingfrom the most primitive drives to sophisticated accomplishments. Thatis the task of productive imagination and genius — so to speak toelaborate the process of inventing anew. To say that the fine arts arethe arts of genius is not to say only that there is a sparkling touchin great works, it means that the Beautiful is irreducible to a prettysight; therefore the increasing weight of the Sublime fosters theevidence that every instance of genial creativity is going first tomake up the conditions of its own reception.What follows from all these remarks is the simple idea thataesthetic education is the basis most suited for mankind's development.This idea, sometimes concealed, sometimes claimed, is one of the moststable traits all through the century; it runs from Shaftesbury toMontesquieu, then to Kant and above all Schiller. One reason for it iscertainly an unexpected combination between attraction for analysis andmistrust for speculation. Depending on authors, it symbolizesconfidence in natural signs, released from the limitations oflanguages, customs or systems, or a faith in the power of metamorphosisthat lies at the heart of culture. Undoubtedly it prefiguredrevolution, but the French Revolution as an historic event had on it alesser and more dubious effect than its first defenders hoped for.6. Neo-Classicism and Pre-RomanticismThe last third of the 18th century was torn between twodivergent orientations, both being attempts to escape dissatisfactionwith the present. The first is a return to the teachings of Antiquityand the "Grand manner" after the excesses of rococo; the other is anaspiration toward a widened and supposedly more sinceresensibility.The initial impulse is probably to be found in the excavations ofHerculanum and Pompeii, reported by Cochin (1753), Winckelmann, orCaylus, and at about the same time the rediscovery of the ruins ofAthens, and then Egypt. The spectacle of towns unearthed from cindersor magnificent monuments thrown on the ground has a great deal to dowith the new awareness towards Antiquity. Lots of books, often enrichedwith engravings, combine a sentimental look on the archeologicalremains with a process of revision that assessed Greece as the trueorigin of ancient artistic output. Theoretical repercussions wereimmense, since they include nothing less than the modern notion of arthistory, interpreted by Winckelmann in his History of AncientArt (1764), as an epic of plastic form related to civilization andnot only a collection of anecdotal sketches in Vasari's fashion.Of course, for artists close to antiquarians (such as Mengs orDavid), to acknowledge Greek statuary as the canon of all visibleexpression was an incentive to shun the gallant mood in favor of simplegrandeur and the cult of the severe in subjects and attitudes, at leastuntil the grandiloquent Empire style sounded the death knell for thehopes of the absolute beautiful. But from an aesthetic point of view,the most significant side effect is to be seen in the growing debatesaround museology. The Louvre was opened to the public in 1793 as theCentral Museum of the Arts — a suggestion that went back to 1765— but it was still uncertain if it should be an academy ofmasterpieces or a vast overview of art's historical development. Due tothe Revolutionary and Napoleonic campaigns, famous statues weretransferred from Italy to Paris (the Belvedere Apollo, theMedicis Venus, the Laocoon, to mention only the bestknown), a policy criticized as early as 1796 by Quatremère deQuincy in his Letters to Miranda. It is nevertheless thenationalist trend that prevailed with Vivant Denon, at least from 1803to Waterloo.This tendency was happily counter-balanced by a strong concern fornature in its multiple meanings, a concern that owes much to Rousseau.Universality was now sought in emotion along with conformity to thevoice of the spontaneous impulsions of beings. In his fiction as wellas in his philosophical writings, Rousseau spoke for transparency ofheart and clearness of communication. Hence, music was seen by him asan ideal medium, at least when stripped of artificial harmony andbrought back to the singing melody. So music must not be thought ofthrough a sophisticated orchestra concert or an operatic performance.For Rousseau, its true model lies in popular festivals, for instance atharvest time, when the participants of an unformed event merge into asingle community. The musical form best suited for such a result is themelodrama where the voice recitative is combined with instrumentalaccompaniment (cf. the awkward try of Pygmalion, ca 1764). Infact, this intense though ephemeral situation is the best approximatecounterpart of the universal will that is at the basis of his theory ofthe social contract. Anyway, artistic concerns cannot be severed frompolitical and moral commitments, either from a constructive or from acritical point of view. To enjoy the quality of life became moreessential than creating works of art; as a corollary, the mostconvincing work would be the right adjustment of life to our naturalenvironment. This explains the relevance of Nature's observation foreducational purposes (Emile, 1762) and a real fondness forbotany that leads to a new way to look at gardens. British writers(since Addison and Pope) had paved the way, inventing landscapegardening as a materialization of painting inside nature. The Marquisde Girardin, the Baron de Monville, the Prince de Ligne, among others,competed with their renowned models across the Channel and trimmedtheir properties with all the symbols of the picturesque, from thefeeling for primitivism to the building of false ruins.This reaction may seem nonetheless somewhat superficial. The GermanSturm und Drang and the English Romantic Movement were about to sweepaway the fragile lessons of the Enlightenment and reveal the darkrecesses of the human soul. This was a period of decline for France'sart and aesthetics, made even worse by its isolation resulting fromcontemporary upheavals. One had to wait until late in the19th century to see a true renewal, when Baudelaireestablished the stature of Delacroix and laid the foundations of atheory of modernity.BibliographyA. Some Original Works (in chronological order):(1667), Seven Conferences Held in the King of France's Cabinetof Paintings, 1740, London: T. Cooper, (texts by Félibien,Le Brun, Champaigne).Bellicard, Jérôme-Charles and Cochin, Charles-Nicolas,(1753), Observations upon the Antiquities of the Town ofHerculanum, London: D. Wilson and T. Durham.Bouhours, Dominique, (1705), The Art of Criticism,Smallwood Ph. (ed), 1981, Delmar, NY: Scholar's Facsimiles andReprints.De Piles, Roger, (1708), The Principles of Painting, 1943,London: J. Osborn.Du Bos, Jean-Baptiste, (1719), Critical Reflections on Poetry,Painting and Music, trans. T. Nugent, 1748, London: JohnNourse.Diderot, (1765), Diderot on Art I and II, 1995, trans. P.Goodman, New Haven: Yale University Press.Gerard, Alexander, (1759), Essay on Taste, Edinburgh andLondon: A. Millar (contains a translation of Voltaire's andMontesquieu's respective "Essay on Taste").Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, (1999), Essay on the Origin ofLanguages, and Writings on Music, vol. 7, trans. John T. Scott,Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.B. Main sourcebooks:Elledge, Sc. and Schier, D.(eds), (1970), The ContinentalModel: Selected French Essays of the 17th Century,Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.Fumaroli, Marc (ed), (2001), La Querelle des Anciens et desModernes, Paris: Gallimard Folio.Harrison, Charles, Wood, Paul and Gaiger, Jason (eds), (2000),Art in Theory, 1648 — 1815, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers(almost all the translations quoted in the entry are takenfrom this text).Holt, Elizabeth G., (1958), A Documentary History of Art,Princeton: Princeton U. P.Saint-Girons, Baldine, (1990), Esthétiques du XVIIIesiècle: le modèle français, Paris: Sers.C. Studies and Commentaries:Becq, Annie, (1994), Genèse de l'esthétiquefrançaise moderne, 1680 — 1814, Paris: AlbinMichel.Belaval, Yvon, (1950), L'esthétique sans paradoxe deDiderot, Paris: Gallimard.Cassirer, Ernst, (1932), The Philosophy of theEnlightenment, trans. F.C.A. Koelln and J. P. Pettegrove,Princeton: Princeton University Press.Chambers, F. P., (1932), The History of Taste: An Account ofthe Revolution of Art Criticism and Theory in Europe, New York:Columbia University Press.Chouillet, Jacques, (1974), L'esthétique desLumières, Paris: PUF.Décultot E. and Ledbury M., (2001), Théories etdébats esthétiques au XVIIIe siècle,Paris: Honoré Champion.Dieckmann, Herbert, (1965), "Aesthetic Theory and Criticism in theEnlightenment" in Introduction to Modernity, Symposium on18th Century Thought, Austin: University of Texas.Ehrard, Jean, (1970), L'idée de nature en Franceá l'aube des Lumières, Paris: Flammarion.Folkierski, W., (1925), Entre le Classicisme et le Romantisme,étude sur l'esthétique et les esthéticiens duXVIIIe siècle, 1969, Paris; Honoré Champion.Fontaine, André, (1909), Les doctrines d'art en France.Peintres, amateurs, critiques, de Poussin á Diderot, Paris:Laurens.Fried, Michael, (1980), Absorption and Theatricality: Paintingand Beholder in the Age of Diderot, Berkeley and London: University ofCalifornia Press.Harpe, Jacqueline de la, (1955), Jean-Pierre de Crousaz et leconflit des idées au siècle des Lumières,Berkeley: University of California Press.Hazard, Paul, (1935), La crise de la conscienceeuropéenne, 1680 — 1715, reed. 1994, Paris: Livre dePoche Référence.Hazard, Paul, (1946), La Pensée européenne duXVIIIe siècle, Paris: Hachette Pluriel.Kintzler, Catherine, (1991), Poétique de l'opérafrançais de Corneille á Rousseau, Paris:Minerve.Labio, Catherine, 2004, Origins and the Enlightenment:Aesthetic Epistemology from Descartes to Kant, Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press.Lombart, Alain, (1913), L'Abbé du Bos, un initiateur dela pensée moderne, 1670 — 1742, Paris: Hachette.Mattick, Paul, (ed.), 2004, Eighteenth-Century Aesthetics andthe Reconstruction of Art, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.O'Dea, Michael, 1995, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Music, Illusionand Desire, London: Palgrave Macmillan.Pomeau, René, (1966), L'Europe des Lumières,cosmopolitisme et unité européenne au XVIIIesiècle, Paris: Hachette Pluriel.Puttfarken, Thomas, (1985), Roger de Piles' Theory of Art,New Haven and London: Yale University Press.Saisselin, R. G., (1965), Taste in XVIIIth Century France,Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.Starobinski, Jean, (1988), Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparencyand Obstruction, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Teyssèdre, Bernard, (1957), Roger de Piles et lesdébats sur le coloris au siècle de Louis XIV, Paris:Bibliothèque des Arts.Other Internet Resources[Please contact the author with suggestions.]Related Entries aesthetics: British, in the 18th century | aesthetics: German, in the 18th century | Diderot, Denis | Enlightenment | Hume, David: aesthetics | Voltaire Copyright © 2006 byJacques Morizot<jbx.morizot@wanadoo.fr> |
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