The Spectator and the Landscape in the Art Criticism of Diderot and His Contemporaries 9780835713238, 0835713237

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The Spectator and the Landscape in the Art Criticism of Diderot and His Contemporaries

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UMI Research Press Studies in the Fine Arts: Criticism

The Spectator and the Landscape in the Art Criticism of Diderot and His Contemporaries

Studies in the Fine Arts: Criticism, No. 14 Donald B. Kuspit, Series Editor Chairman, Department of Art State University of New York at Stony Brook

Other Titles in This Series

No. 5 Cubist Criticism No. 6. Félix Fénéon and the Language o f Art Criticism

Lynn Gamwell Joan Ungersma Halperin

No. 7 The Metaphor o f Painting: Essays on Baudelaire, Ruskin, Proust, and Pater No. 8 Roger Fry and the Beginnings o f Formalist Art Criticism

Lee McKay Johnson Jacqueline V. Falkenheim

No. 9 Albrecht Altdorfer: Four Centuries o f Criticism

Reinhild Janzen

No. 10 The Formation o f a Legend: Van Gogh Criticism, 1890-1920

Carol M. Zemel

No. 11 Guillaume Apollinaire as an Art Critic No. 12 Gavami and the Critics No. 13 George L K. Morris, Artist and Critic

Harry E. Buckley Therese Dolan Stamm t Melinda A. Lorenz

The Spectator and the Landscape in the Art Criticism of Diderot and His Contemporaries

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by

Ian jj.jL ochhead

UMI RESEARCH PRESS Ann Arbor, Michigan

Copyright © 1982,1981 Ian Lochhead All rights reserved Produced and distributed by UMI Research Press an imprint of University Microfilms International Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Lochhead, Ian. The spectator and the landscape in the art criticism of Diderot and his contemporaries. (Studies in fine arts. Criticism ;no. 14) A revision of the author’s thesis (Ph.D.)-Bryn Mawr College, 1981. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Landscape painting-18th century. 2. Aesthetics, M odem -18th century. 3. Art criticism -F rance-H istory18th century. 4. Diderot, Denis, 1713-1784. I. Title. II. Series. ND1356.4.L6 ISBN 0-8357-1323-7

758’.1’0944

82-4770 AACR2

Frontispiece:

Louis-Michel Van Loo, Portrait o f Diderot, 1767 Louvre, Paris (Phot. Musées Nationaux).

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Contents

uch as i*ierrëTnav~Wéirhave stemmed from a sense of professional insecurity engendered by an awareness jh at their jrayjleged positiOiTwas being seriously undermined. While the history painters continûeî to assert their superiority a new' sense of confidence can be de­ tected in the growing literature on landscape theory. Writing in 1818, J.B. Deperthes asked if there was any truth in the traditional view that land­ scape was addressed only to the eyes, unlike history painting which af­ fected the emotions and the imagination. Est-il donc vrai que le paysage borne tout son pouvoir à séduire les yeux de la mul­ titude, et que, se trouvant en possession du second rang dans la hiérarchie des genres de la peinture, ses productions ne comportent aucun intérêt qui puisse attacher l’homme instruit, qui sache captiver l’attention des amateurs de compositions historiques?

There was no doubt in Deperthes’s mind about the answer to this question. Cette question se résoudra d’elle-même, pour peu que l’on cesse de considérer le paysage comme étant uniquement circonscrit dans la simple imitation de la nature, et que, l’envisageant dans toute son étendue, on le voit parfois rivaliser avec le genre de l’histoire dans l’a rt d’émouvoir l’âme du spectateur ou d ’exalter vivement son imagination.99

The role which the artist played in raising landscape painting above the simple imitation of nature is the subject to which we must now turn.

2

The Painter’s Role: Imaginary and Realistic Landscapes By the last decades of the eighteenth century critics and theorists had gone a long way towards redefining the status of landscape painting in the hierarchy of genres, and some, as I pointed out in the previous chapter, had even questioned the validity of the hierarchy of genres itself. Con­ vinced of the ability of landscape to affect the spectator’s emotions, critics and theorists aimed to give landscape a prestige commensurate with this newly discovered expressive power. According to the humanistic theory of painting which had dominated French art in the seventeenth century, history painting was not only the one branch of painting able to achieve significant expression, but also the only genre to transcend the mere imitation of external nature. Landscapes and genre paintings were regardedjsimply as copies of the surface ap­ pearance of nature. History paintings on the other hand represented, the people and events of the past, recreatedj>yj:he artistes imagination and idealized through a 'judicious selection of the most perfect examples tQ be found in nature.1 Whereas the history painter’s role was seen as cre­ ative, demanding the exercise of the mind, the landscapist’s procedure appqaredjtobe simply a task of the eye and hand.2_ To eighteenth-century critics who had sensed in landscape painting an expressive power that was at times scarcely inferior to that of history painting, such a circumscribed view of the landscapist’s creative role seemed as inappropriate as the lowly status accorded to landscape in the hierarchy of genres. Confronted with the landscapes of Joseph Vernet or Hubert Robert, or for that matter the portraits of La Tour or even the still-life pictures of Chardin, many critics realized that a theory of imi­ tation based on the idealized imitation of human figures in action was inadequate to accommodate their reactions to some of the most compel­ ling art of their time. Paintings such as these forced critics to formulate new concepts of imitation which would be equally applicable to history,

24

Imaginary and Realistic Landscapes

landscape or genre painting. However, it was impossible to redefine the concept of imitation without at the same time reconsidering the creative role of the artist himself. They had, in short, to redefine the artist’s role S as mediator between art and reality, and were to realize that there was \nothing in nature which could not be transformed by the artist’s vision. It was a realization which Reynolds, with characteristic acuity, encap­ sulated when he wrote: “ Whether it is the human figure, an animal or even inanimate objects, there is nothing, however unpromising in ap­ pearance, but may be raised into dignity, convey sentiment, and produce emotion, in the hands of a painter of genius.3 Reynolds’s all-embracing view of the subjects which a painter could potentially raise to a level of dignity and importance was anticipated early in the eighteenth century by Roger de Piles. De Piles, it will be recalled, was one of the first writers to give landscape painting an important place within the framework of art theory. However he succeeded in doing more than this, for he argued that landscape painting was not merely limited to copying nature but was capable of attaining the stature of serious art through the artist’s selection of the most beautiful and singular images to be found in nature. His concept of the idealized imaginary landscape clearly owed much to the practice of the seventeenth-century masters of idealized classical landscapes, but it was also an adaptation of the theory of selective imitation applied to history painting in its definitive form by Bellori, and enshrined in late seventeenth-century French art theory as the concept of “ la belle nature.” Along with this elevated and idealized category of landscape, which de Piles described as “ heroic,” there was the less elevated “pastoral” category which was distinguished by “ un grand caractère de vérité.”4 De Piles argued that “ si le peintre se trouve engagé dans un petit sujet, il faut qu’il tâche de le rendre grand par la manière extraordinaire dont il le traitera.” 5 By embellishing a pastoral landscape with some “ effet de la Nature piquant, extraordinaire et vra­ isemblable” 6 painters could engage the spectator’s interest no less than with the more elevated character of heroic landscapes. Rubens himself had demonstrated the value of this technique: “ ayant à représenter des sites naturellement ingrats et insipides, comme sont ceux des Flandres, [Rubens] les a rendus piquants par l’artifice du clair-obscur et par les accidents qu’il y a introduits.” 7 Thus, whether the landscape painter worked in the heroic or the more realistic pastoral style, he needed to exercise a considerable degree of choice. Furthermore, if he possessed the necessary genius and taste and had learnt the lessons of the old mas­ ters, he would be able, as Rubens had done, to transform the raw ma­ terials of nature, no matter how unpromising, into the realm of serious art.

Imaginary and Realistic Landscapes

25

De Piles’s conception of the landscape painter’s role was not sub­ stantially modified until the 1750s when a new generation of critics, Di­ derot foremost among them, set about the task of refining and redefining the concept of the relationship of the artist to his models. By that time the nature of French painting had itself changed, making a new synthesis not only desirable but necessary. During the first half of the eighteenth century French painting was transformed by a trend towards greater realism which Roger de Piles had done much to stimulate, both by his insistence on the close observation of natural phenomena and also by his admiration for the artists of the northern schools. By the 1750s the collections of Parisian connoisseurs contained a generous selection of works by seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish masters.8 These works, which were greatly admired for their naturalism, were often hung in close proximity to the works of sixteenth and seventeenth-century Italian painters, and provided a mute testimony to the viability of a view of nature which did not depend on ideal models. The growing realistic orientation of French taste inevitably exerted a strong influence on contemporary painting. The oil studies of Desportes and the chalk drawings of Oudry, for example, reveal that landscape paint­ ers were studying nature out of doors in the way in which de Piles rec­ ommended.9 The new attitude to nature is clearly expressed in the “ Conférence” Oudry read to the Académie royale in 1749 when he was near the end of his career. Si le natural ou le modèle, dont on peut disposer, n’est pas des plus parfaits, doit-on l’imiter avec tous ses défauts? Voilà où commence l’embarras. L’Ecole de Flandres, dit oui: la nôtre dit non. “ Il faut,” dit l’Ecole Françoise, “ lorsque l’on dessine, d ’après le naturel, corriger à l’aide du goût ses défauts. Il faut,” dit l’Ecole Flamande, “ ac­ coutumer la jeunesse à rendre le naturel tel que l’on voit, et si bien que dans les diverses Académies que dessineront les Elèves, l’on reconnoisse les différens modèles d ’après lesquels ils les auront dessinées. . . .’’,0

Fifty years earlier it would have scarcely been possible for a prominent academician to have expressed such ideas before the Académie. Oudry believed that without a strict adherence to the real nature of things, young artists would learn to paint only “ par les yeux de leur Maître.” He wanted to see nature rendered accurately not just for its own sake but because he also hoped to see each artist develop a personal vision of reality. In Oudry’s opinion the habit of imitating ideal models inevitably led to life­ less imitations of the works of other artists. Important as these new departures were in determining the realistic trend in eighteenth-century French painting, they were essentially the expression of an even more fundamental change in European thought which had occurred at the end of the seventeenth century. The philosophy

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Imaginary and Realistic Landscapes

of John Locke, which stated that all knowledge was derived from the information gathered by the senses, had become common intellectual property by the end of the first decade of the eighteenth century.11 Locke’s empiricism suggested that the whole gamut of visual experience was a valid subject for study and provided a philosophical basis for the explo­ ration of a new range of realistic subject matter. Perhaps even more im­ portant, it suggested that each individual’s and hence each artist’s perception of the world was unique and personal, a view fundamentally opposed to a concept of art based on ideal models and one which surely lies behind Oudry’s opposition to the concept of selective imitation as well as Diderot’s abhorrence of “ manière.” 12 In the face of these new ideas the very notions of “ la belle nature” and the selective imitation of nature were bound to be undermined. This situation became apparent in 1746 when Charles Batteux tried to establish the imitation of “ la belle nature” as the single principle uniting all the arts in Les Beaux Arts Réduits à un même principe. As Herbert Dieckmann has observed, Batteux was unable to decide whether the term “ la belle nature” applied to nature itself, the nature imitated, or the nature which should be imitated.13 Diderot had, in fact, pinpointed the weakness of Batteux’s work when he observed that he had failed to define what he meant by “ la belle nature.” 14 The 1750s saw the emergence of a much bolder and more positive attempt to redefine the artist’s role as imitator of nature. One of the most important preliminary steps towards a new synthesis was taken, not in a treatise on art but in the introduction to a work which aimed to encom­ pass the whole range of human knowledge, the Encyclopédie of Diderot and D’Alembert. The “ Discours préliminaire” clearly demonstrates the Encyclopedist’s debt to Locke and epitomizes the Enlightenment’s belief in the power of empirical observation to reveal the truth. In D’Alembert’s words: “Toutes nos connaissances directes se réduisent à celles que nous recevons par les sens; d ’où il s’ensuit que c’est à nos sensations que nous devons toutes nos idées.” 15 Knowledge was the result of the mind’s com­ parison and combination of these impressions, but there was another branch of human experience which derived from “ les idées que nous nous formons à nous-mêmes, en imaginant et en composant des êtres sembl­ ables à ceux qui sont l’objet de nos idées directes. C’est ce qu’on appelle l’imitation de la nature. ” 16 However, D’Alembert did not stop at this point. C 'est dans cette imitation des objets capables d'exciter en nous des sentimens vifs ou agréables, de quelque nature qu'ils soient, que consiste en général l'imitation de la belle nature, sur laquelle tant d'auteurs ont écrit sans en donner d’idée nette; soit

Imaginary and Realistic Landscapes

27

parce que la belle nature ne se démêle que par un sentiment exquis, soit aussi parce que dans cette matière les limites qui distinguent l'arbitraire du vrai ne sont pas encore bien fixées, et laissent quelque espace libre à l'opinion.17

D’Alembert’s concept of imitation contained no hint of the ideal. The artist still needed to select from nature but his choice was dictated only by those “ objets capables d’exciter en nous des sentimens vifs ou agré­ ables, de quelque nature qu’ils soient. . . . ” The artist’s criteria for se­ lection therefore reflected not an ideal concept of beauty but the effect which the work would have upon the spectator. Consequently, any objects in nature which made an impression upon the spectator were suitable subjects for the artist. In addition, D’Alembert emphasized the confusion surrounding contemporary aesthetic theories and the need for clarification and a new synthesis of ideas. The problem of redefining what was meant by the imitation of nature was confronted by D’Alembert’s friend and co-editor of the Encyclopédie, Denis Diderot. Even before he began his role as salon critic for Grimm’s Correspondance littéraire Diderot had begun the task of freeing the con­ cept of imitation from the restrictive demands of classical art theory and the associated need to represent ideal forms. “ Il n ’y a ni beau, ni laid dans ses [nature’s] productions considérées relativement à l’emploi qu’on en peut faire dans les arts d’imitation,” 18 wrote Diderot in the article “ Beau” which appeared in the second volume of the Encyclopédie in 1752. He was convinced that every object in nature was a potential subject for the artist, and he aimed to establish a theory of imitation which made no distinction between elevated and lowly subjects. This attitude neces­ sarily led him to discuss the concept of “la belle nature.” Taking a rose as his example, he argued that it was one thing to imitate the most beau­ tiful rose if it were to be represented in isolation, but quite another matter if it were only to form part of a more complex work of art. The artist’s choice depended on his overall conception of the painting, not on the individual merits of its component parts. Diderot viewed a painting as a complex creation in which all the parts were interdependent, a concept which he set out in the article “ Composition” in 1753. “ Un tableau bien composé est un tout renfermé sous un seul point de vue, où les parties concourent à un même but, et forment, par leur correspondance mutuelle, un ensemble aussi réel que celui des membres dans un corps animal.” 19 A painting had to exhibit the same organic unity as could be found in nature where everything had its proper place and function. “ La nature ne fait rien d’incorrect. Toute forme, belle ou laide, a sa cause; et, de tous les êtres qui existent, il n’y en a pas un qui ne soit comme il doit être.” 20 Just as the figure of an individual reflects in countless ways his environ-

28

Imaginary and Realistic Landscapes

ment and way of life, so should all the disparate parts of a painting con­ tribute to the work’s unifying idea. “ L’on dit l’ensemble d’une figure; on dit aussi l’ensemble d’une composition. L’ensemble de la figure consiste dans la loi de nécessité de nature, étendue d’une de ses parties à l’autre. L’ensemble d’une composition, dans la même nécessité, dont on étend la loi à toutes les figures combinées.” 21 Any attempt to improve upon nature by introducing ideal forms would disrupt the causal unity so necessary to the work of art. “ Combien le précepte d ’embellir la nature a gâté de tableaux,” wrote Diderot in the article “ Composition” ; “ ne cherchez donc pas à embellir la nature. Choisissez avec jugement celle qui vous convient, et rendez-la avec scrupule.” 22 Thus pictorial unity, conceived in far more radical terms than it had ever been understood in seventeenth or early eighteenth-century art the­ ory emerged as a fundamental concept of Diderot’s art criticism. This concept is summed up in the Essais sur la peinture: “ La principale idée, bien conçue, doit exercer son despotisme sur toutes les autres. C’est la force motrice de la machine qui, semblable à celle qui retient les corps célestes dans leurs orbes et les entraîne, agit en raison inverse de la distance.” 23 Imitation was now subsumed under the more fundamental concept of pictorial unity, a concept which, as Michael Fried has shown, was at once dramatic and expressive, and which moreover reflected in epitome the causal system of nature. The very concept of beauty itself was dependent on this principle, as Diderot made clear when he summed up his position in one of the Pensées détachées: “ Rien n’est beau sans unité; et il n’y a point d ’unité sans subordination. Cela semble contra­ dictoire mais cela ne l’est pas.” 24 By taking nature in its entirety as his starting point, Diderot was able to transform completely the concept of imitation. In Dieckmann’s words: Selon la tradition, cette nature ne méritait que d'être copiée; elle était au-dessous de la dignité de l’art. En donnant au principe de l'imitation de cette nature le sens de “ l’imitation de la vérité de la nature’’, et en faisant dépendre cette imitation de la connaissance des lois et des fonctions que suit cette nature, Diderot n’a pas seulement changé le concept d’imitation, mais il a aussi élevé le domaine du “ réalisme” et du “ naturalisme” (comme on dira plus tard) au rang des genres nobles et sérieux.25

Both this new concept of imitation, and the concept of pictorial unity on which it depended, were equally applicable to history, genre, landscape or even still-life painting. Even though it would be most powerfully felt in subjects dominated by human action, the same compelling harmony of nature and art could still be found in a still life by Chardin.26 Having outlined Diderot’s radical concept of pictorial unity it is now necessary to examine how this affected his attitude to landscape painting.

Imaginary and Realistic Landscapes

29

Although he praised Vernet’s ability to rival the appearance of nature, and even described his landscapes as if they were real places in the Salon o f 1767, Diderot was always aware that the truth of art and the truth of nature were very different things. Like any other work of art, a landscape painting consisted of a large number of disparate elements, which, through a complex series of creative decisions, were made to harmonize and pro­ duce a unified dramatic whole. This unity could be seen most readily in landscapes in which scenes of human drama provided the dominant in­ terest. For Diderot, the painter whose landscapes best exemplified this was Poussin. The Landscape with a snake, which Diderot knew in its engraved form, demonstrated precisely the unified dramatic interest Di­ derot demanded. “ Tous les incidens du paysage du Poussin sont liés par une idée commune, quoique isolés, distribués sur différens plans et séparés par des grands intervalles.” 27 If Diderot could find no one to rival Poussin among living landscap­ ists, the painter who came closest to achieving this ideal was Joseph Vernet. Describing a port scene exhibited at the Salon of 1767, Diderot demonstrated how every element of the composition formed part of the artist’s unified vision. Ce n'est p o i n t . . . un port de mer qu'il a voulu peindre. On ne voit pas ici plus de bâtiments qu'il n'en faut pour enrichir et animer la scène; c'est l'intelligence et le goût; c ’est l’art qui les a distribués pour l’effet mais l’effet est produit sans que l’art s’apperçoive. Il y a des incidens, mais pas plus que l’espace et le moment de la composition n’en exigent; c ’est, vous le répéterai-je, la richesse et la parcimonie de Nature toujours économe, et jamais avare ni pauvre; tout est vrai, on le sent, on n’accuse, on ne désire rien, on jouit également de tout.21

Diderot could give an artist no higher praise than to say that his work possessed the rightness of nature itself. Nevertheless it is important to emphasize that Vemet’s painting was not an exact imitation of a specific place and time of day. This landscape and others like it were artificial constructions of the painter’s imagination, carefully designed to produce the effect he intended. Diderot remarked on the way in which the painter achieved this effect early in the Salon o f 1767 during a conversation with the abbé who accompanied him on his imaginary promenade: Combien Fart en [nature] supprimerait qui gâtent l'ensemble et nuisent à l'effet, com­ bien il en rapprocherait, qui doubleraient notre enchantement! —Quoi, sérieusement vous croyez que Vernet aurait mieux à faire que d ’être le copiste rigoureux de cette scène? —Je le crois.29

Yet although these landscapes were the creations of Vernet’s imagi­ nation, they were entirely in accord with the laws of nature. Vernet’s

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Imaginary and Realistic Landscapes

landscapes were fully convincing, Diderot believed, not only because the artist had always studied the endless variety of nature’s effects, but be­ cause he had achieved an instinctive understanding of nature’s laws. The important thing was to “ éclairez vos objets selon votre soleil, qui n’est pas celui de la nature; soyez le disciple de l’arc-en-ciel, mais n’en soyez pas l’esclave.” 30 Paradoxically the result was a more faithful image of nature than an exact copy could ever be. The importance of achieving a totally convincing pictorial unity in landscapes was further emphasized by Diderot in his chapter on “ clairobscur,” in the Essais sur la peinture. The disposition of light and shade over the picture surface was one of the most compelling means of achiev­ ing pictorial unity the painter had at his disposal, but it was also one of the most difficult to attain. Le difficile, c'est la dispensation juste de la lumière et des ombres, et sur chacun de ces plans, et sur chaque tranche infiniment petite des objets qui les occupent; ce sont les échos, les reflets de toutes ces lumières les unes sur les autres. Lorsque cet effet est produit (mais où et quand l’est-il?) l’oeil est arrêté, il se repose. Satisfait partout, il se repose partout; il s’avance, il s’enfonce, il est ramené sur sa trace. Tout est lié, tout tient. L’art et l’artiste sont oubliés. Ce n ’est plus une toile, c ’est la nature, c ’est une portion de l’univers qu’on a devant soi.11

Any attempt to define the space of a landscape which revealed itself to the spectator should therefore be avoided. “ Méprisez ces gauches re­ poussoirs, si grossièrement, si bêtement placés, qu’il est impossible d’en méconnaître l’intention.” 32 The spectator’s eye should be led into the depths of the picture space through a modulation of light and shade so subtle that he would be unaware of the means used to achieve the effect. The landscapist’s art needed to be one which disguised all trace of art.33 The kind of imaginary landscape which Diderot envisaged and which he saw realized in the works of a few select artists was therefore quite different from an exact copy of nature. The latter was essentially a me­ chanical reproduction while the former was a work of art imbued with the artist’s sensibility. This is made quite clear in Diderot’s comparison of ruin landscapes by de Machy and Hubert Robert. Machy copie bien ce qu’il a vu; Robert copie avec goût, verve et chaleur. Je vois Machy, la règle à la main, tirant les cannelures de ses colonnes; Robert a jetté tous ces instrumens-là par la fenêtre et n’a gardé que son pinceau.34

The difference in their methods was seen in their finished works; Machy “ est dur, sec, monotone; Robert est moelleux, doux, facile, harmon­ ieux.” Diderot and his contemporaries understood the approach to nature

Imaginary and Realistic Landscapes

31

of artists like Robert and Vemet, as opposed to that of lesser men like Machy, in terms of the difference between “ imitating” and “ copying” nature. Grimm explored this distinction at some length in an important article in the Correspondance littéraire: La copie exacte de la vérité serait-elle sans attrait, et n’y aurait-il que l’adresse de mentir avec le plus de vérité possible, sans pourtant faire oublier qu’on ment, qui fit le charme réel de l’imitation; ou bien est-il de l’essence du copiste et de sa touche lourde et grossière de tout flétrir, et n’y a-t-il que l’imitateur qui, créant à l’exemple de la nature, sache conserver à chaque chose sa grâce et sa fraîcheur?39

Grimm was in no doubt about the answer to his question: ce n’est point la chose elle-méme qu’on désire de voir, mais l’imitation la plus et la plus heureuse de la chose . . . c ’est un mensonge adroit, fin, délicat, que cherchons dans les ouvrages de l’art, qui établisse entre nous et l’imitateur une munication secrète de sentiments et d ’idées, et qui nous prouve que l’artiste a le côté original, le côté précieux de la chose imitée.36

vraie nous com­ senti

As a result of this skilled deception the artist could achieve an ex­ pressive unity which in spite of the limitations of his medium, enabled him to create effects even more dazzling than those of nature itself. Di­ derot recognized this expressive power in Vernet’s landscapes. Ce qu’il y a d’étonnant, c ’est que l’artiste se rappelle ces effets à deux cents lieues de la nature, et qu’il n’a de modèle présent que dans son imagination; c ’est qu’il peint avec une vitesse incroyable; c ’est qu’il dit: Que la lumière se fasse, et la lumière est faite; que la nuit succède au jour et le jour aux ténèbres, et il fait nuit et il fait jour, c ’est que son imagination aussi juste que féconde lui fournit toutes ces vérités; c ’est qu’elles sont telles que celui qu’en fut spectateur tranquille et froid au bord de la mer en est émerveillé sur la toile, c ’est qu’en effet ses compositions prêchent plus forte­ ment la grandeur, la puissance, le majesté de Nature, que la Nature même. . . .37

Nevertheless, although the painter’s imagination could have a liber­ ating effect by allowing him to depict a heightened vision of reality which exceeded the expressive impact of nature itself, he was inevitably limited by the individual character of his genius, since even the greatest artists could only hope to approximate the harmony of nature. “ L’harmonie de plus beau tableau,” wrote Diderot, “ n’est qu’une bien faible imitation de l’harmonie de la nature. Le plus grand effort de l’art consiste souvent à sauver le difficulté.” 38 Later he would observe of the Storm Vemet painted for him: “ Ce Vernet si harmonieux n’a peut-être pas sur toute sa surface un seul point qui, rigoreusement parlant, ne soit faux.” 39 The painter’s continual struggle to reach an approximation of the harmony of nature in

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his landscapes naturally led him to concentrate on the kind of works which best suited his unique talents. Consequently, un tableau dont on prescrira rigoureusement l'ordonnance à l’artiste sera mauvais, parce que c’est lui demander tacitement de se former tout à coup une palette nouvelle. Il en est en ce point de la peinture comme de l’art dramatique. Le poète dispose son sujet relativement aux scènes dont il se sent le talent, dont il croit se tirer avec avantage.40

Patrons must therefore realize ‘‘combien dans le maître le plus habile l’art est borné.”41 Indeed, as Diderot remarked to Falconet in 1773, the greater a painter’s talent for a particular kind of picture, the more he was re­ stricted by this talent.42 But developing from this idea was the realization that a painter could be a man of genius no matter which genre he professed. If we turn for a moment to some remarks about landscape by Joseph Vernet, an artist who was also a friend of Diderot, the remarkable affinity between the two men’s ideas can be appreciated immediately. In a par­ ticularly revealing letter to Girardot de Marigny, written in 1765, Vernet explained his working methods and expressed his reluctance to be con­ strained in any way that would fetter his freedom of expression. The letter is worth quoting at some length: Je ne suis pas habitué à faire des esquisses pour mes tableaux, et je n’en ai jamais fait. Ma coutume est de composer sur la toile du tableau que je dois faire et de le peindre tout de suite pour profiter de la chaleur de mon imagination: d’ailleurs, l’espace me fait voir tout d ’un coup ce que je dois y faire et me fait composer en conséquence; mais je suis assuré que si je faisois une petite esquisse, non seulement je n’y mettrois pas ce qui pourrait être dans le tableau, mais j ’y jetterois tout mon feu, et à coup sûr le tableau en grand en deviendrait froid; ce serait aussi faire alors une espèce de copie qui me gênerait. Je serais aussi gêné si j ’avois donné une esquisse qu’on eût approu­ vée, puisqu’il n’est pas douteux que, lorsque je voudrais l’exécuter en grand, il me viendrait dans la tête d ’y faire des changements que je n’oserais hasarder, crainte qu’ils ne fussent pas du goût des personnes pour qui je ferais le tableau. Ainsi, mon­ sieur, tout bien pesé et examiné pour le bien de la chose, il faut qu’on me laisse libre: c ’est ce que je demande à tous ceux pour qui j ’ai envie de faire de mon mieux . . . on peut bien me dire la mesure et les sujets en général, comme calme, tempête, lever, coucher du soleil, clair de lune, paysage ou marine, etc. . . . mais pas plus que cela. L’expérience m ’a appris que je fais toujours plus mal qu’à mon ordinaire lorsque je suis gêné par la moindre chose.43

Vernet makes quite clear the procedure he followed in painting a land­ scape. Having first decided what kind of landscape he was going to paint, whether storm or calm, sunrise or sunset, the specific character of the painting did not evolve until he started work on the canvas. Only by working under the direct inspiration of his imagination could he preserve

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the freshness of his inspiration while at the same time bringing all the elements of his composition into perfect accord. The letter reveals that the real landscape was just a starting point, the source of the primary sense impressions which the artist transformed in creating his picture. These initial impressions had to be rearranged and reassembled by his imagination before he could express in the more concentrated and dra­ matic language of art the sensations which he had originally felt before nature. The painter’s views may be set beside Diderot’s mature reflections on the need for the artist to transform his subject through his imaginative response to the images of nature: le sublime, soit en peinture, soit en poésie, soit en éloquence, ne naît pas toujours de l’exacte description des phénomènes, mais de l’émotion que le génie spectateur en aura éprouvée, de l’art avec lequel il me communiquera le frémissement de son âme, des comparaisons dont il se servira, du choix de ses expressions, de l’harmonie dont il frappera mon oreille, des idées et des sentiments qu’il saura réveiller en moi. Il y a peut-être un assez grand nombre d’hommes capables de peindre un objet en natu­ raliste, en historien, mais en poëte, c ’est autre chose.44

In Diderot’s view imitation must be placed at the service of expression.45 Vernet’s letter was, in addition, a statement of artistic independence. He required the freedom to express himself as he chose or he would rather not paint at all. Not only would it be artistically unprofitable to submit sketches to a prospective patron but one suspects for a painter of Vernet’s standing it would be undignified as well. Vernet’s demand that the individual character of his creativity be respected is, in fact, the prod­ uct of a new conception of the landscape painter’s creative powers.46 In summary one can say that by the 1750s and 1760s a new under­ standing of the landscape painter’s role had emerged, an understanding which can be seen not only in art criticism but also in the painter’s image of himself. Although this new conception of the landscape painter as an inspired mediator between art and reality found its fullest expression in Diderot’s art criticism, it was also shared by many of his contemporar­ ies.47 Furthermore, the belief that landscape paintings reflected the art­ ist’s understanding of the laws which governed nature itself brought a new dignity and seriousness to the art of landscape. In concentrating on attitudes towards imaginary landscapes, I have so far avoided discussing one branch of the genre which occupies an important place in the history of eighteenth-century French art, realistic landscape painting. The critical problems raised by landscapes of this kind posed

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particular difficulties for contemporary viewers and I propose to devote the remaining pages of this chapter to a discussion of these issues. Although to eighteenth-century spectators, landscapes which existed only in the artist’s imagination were more highly esteemed than realistic works, the distinction is less apparent to modern viewers, who find the attractions of realistic landscapes comparable to or even greater than those of imaginary scenes.48 Diderot and his contemporaries however, neither expected nor wanted landscapes to reproduce real views simply for their intrinsic merits. The critical reaction to Joseph Vernet’s Ports o f France, exhibited at the Salon during the 1750s and 1760s, provides a unique opportunity to examine in depth attitudes towards realistic landscapes during this crucial period in the history of French art. The writing of the salon critics makes it possible to see just how widespread the assumptions which underlay Diderot’s attitude to landscape were, while Diderot’s own criticism re­ veals how he could see beyond the preconceptions of his contemporaries.49 Before the appearance of the Ports o f France at the Salon in the 1750s, realistic landscapes had scarcely been discussed either in art the­ ory or in the newly established genre of art criticism. At the beginning of the eighteenth century topographical landscape, or view painting as it was also called, bore much the same relationship to the more elevated branches of landscape as the genre of landscape itself bore to history painting. Indeed, topographical landscape was regarded as being virtually a sub-artistic genre.50 This is certainly the impression given by de Piles, who for all his enthusiasm for making landscape sketches out of doors, failed to even mention the humble practice of painting realistic land­ scapes. The very word “ vue,” used to describe a landscape which depicts a recognizable place, does not seem to have appeared in the literature of French art before the middle of the eighteenth century. Although the term appeared in the Salon Livrets during the 1740s to describe realistic land­ scapes exhibited there, in 1752 Lacombe’s Dictionnaire Portatif des Beauxarts applied the term only to architectural perspective drawings. By 1757 “ vue” was applied to landscape in Pernety’s Dictionnaire Portatif de Peinture . . . where it was defined as “ un tableau qui représente quelque lieu connu et remarqable.” It was not until 1787 when Watelet’s article on landscape appeared in the Encyclopédie Méthodique that a detailed discussion of views appeared, belatedly acknowledging the existence of a branch of landscape which had been growing in importance throughout the century. When in 1755 the spectators at the Salon encountered the first paint­ ing of Vernet’s series their surprise must have been considerable. The monumental scale of the canvases proclaimed them as major works which

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needed to be taken seriously. These were not, however, the imaginary landscapes for which Vernet was already celebrated, but realistic views which connoissuers and critics alike were unaccustomed to considering as serious art. The initial reaction to the series, as Grimm reported at some length in the Correspondance littéraire, was unfavorable. Ces tableaux, d ’un détail immense et d ’une exécution prodigieuse, n’ont pas eu un très-grand succès. Les connaisseurs y ont trouvé peu d ’entente de la lumière et de ses effets; ils ont trouvé trop de confusion dans le grand nombre de figures qui sont sur le devant de ses tableaux. L’art de grouper heureusement ne paraît pas trop familier à M. Vernet; il n’est pas aisé de faire des tableaux où il y ait beaucoup de mouvement sans unité d’action. Le grand secret du peintre consiste alors à rendre le chaos et la confusion sans confusion.

This was criticism quite unlike any that had been addressed to Vernet previously, since his imaginary port scenes and shipwrecks had usually been praised for their truth to nature and their unity of effect. Grimm was aware of this anomaly and pointed to the circumstances which made it unfair to judge the artist by these new landscapes. On n ’a pas réfléchi que, dans l’exécution de ses tableaux, il a été obligé de renoncer à son imagination pour ne peindre que ce qui est. Cet inconvénient est beaucoup plus grand qu’on ne pense d ’abord. Le mérite de l’imagination de l’artiste et le travail de la composition pittoresque consistent, non à copier la nature telle qu’elle est en tel endroit, mais à rassembler plusieurs de ses effets et à en composer un tout heureux; voilà ce qui s’appelle imiter la nature.51

The fundamental problem of the Ports was that they apparently failed to achieve the degree of pictorial unity which critics like Grimm and Diderot expected from paintings. This stemmed directly from the nature of the commission which not only obliged Vernet to represent real views but also required him to convey specific information. It was therefore much more difficult for him to present a selective, unified and personal vision. Grimm elaborated on his initial criticisms in his account of the next pic­ tures in the series, exhibited in 1757. J ’avoue que je ne vois sans peine M. Vernet engagé dans ce travail, qui durera encore quelque temps. D’imitateur de la nature qu’il était il est devenu copiste, et après avoir été peintre d’histoire, il s’est fait peintre de portraits; car il y a une grande différence entre suivre son génie, obéir à son imagination, arranger, créer, et s’assujettir à copier exactement ce qu’on voit. Ce dernier travail doit dominer l’imagination, et lui ôter peu à peu la force et le feu dont elle a besoin. . . ,52

To Grimm, the Ports were simply direct transcriptions of nature unmo­ dified by the sensibility of the painter and lacking any order or expressive

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content. Since the artist had been commissioned to paint real scenes, Grimm assumed that there was no scope left for Vernet to exercise his creative imagination. By associating the different categories of landscape with the traditional distinctions made between history and portrait paint­ ing in the hierarchy of genres, Grimm emphasized the magnitude of the imaginative gulf which existed, in his view, between imaginary and real­ istic landscapes. Diderot’s initial reaction to the series, two brief sentences in the essay De la poésie dramatique of 1758, reveals that he too felt Vernet’s creative powers had been inhibited by the commission. “ Commandé par un autre, il n’a que la ressource d’un cas particulier. Voyez quelle différ­ ence pour la chaleur et l’effet entre les marines que Vemet a peintes d’idée, et celles qu’il a copiées.” 53 Diderot and Grimm were far from alone in thinking that the impact of Vernet’s realistic landscapes was considerably less than that of his imaginary scenes. The author of the anonymous Lettre sur le Salon de 1755 considered that the imaginary Shipwreck exhibited in the midst of the Ports : prouve combien il est avantageux à un Artiste d’être maître du choix de son sujet; ce morceau qui n’a coûté certainement pas autant de peines à son auteur que les quatre autres, fait un effet beaucoup plus étonnant, et qui frappe d’avantage.54

A similar reaction can be found in the Journal encyclopédique for 1759. Plusieurs tableaux de M. Vernet, peints d ’imagination font voir combien un artiste a d ’avantage, lorsqu’il se choisit lui-même ses sujets, et qu’il n ’est plus soumis à une imitation rigoureuse. Ces compositions sont vives et animées et supérieures pour l’effet aux autres ouvrages du même Auteur.55

The temptation to compare the views of the Ports o f France with Vernet’s imaginary landscapes inevitably meant that the former were contrasted unfavorably with the latter, while their very real merits went unnoticed. In contrast with the concentrated expressive power of his storm scenes or the pervasive tranquility of his sunsets, the profusion of accurate details and the apparently confused crowds of people which dominated the Ports appeared to contradict the critics’ demands for dramatic unity and the subordination of unnecessary detail. If realistic landscapes were to be understood at all they needed to be viewed on their own terms. A more considered approach to the Ports appeared in the criticism of Fréron and Joseph de la Porte. Although Fréjon, like both of the critics quoted above, found Vernet’s imaginary landscapes more satisfying, this

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did not prevent him from praising the artist for the way he succeeded in animating each of the four views exhibited in 1757. Quel effrayant moment de la nature n’a-t-il pas sçû rendre dans le tableau du Port de Cette par ce Ciel obscur et cette mer agitée . . . Cette vûe, qui, sans ce secours, auroit peut-être paru froide, devient par cet accessoire l’objet du plus vif intérêt . . . Avec quel talent encore nous fiait-il jouir de la grande rade de Toulon, vûe chargée de mille détails arides, peu favorables à la peinture, et qui sont rendus avec la plus parfaite similitude et l’enfoncement le plus prodigieux, mais ranimés par une Bastide char­ mante qui orne tout le devant du tableau, et où tout inspire le plaisir. Antibes, égale­ ment stérile par la petitesse du lieu, est décoré de tout ce que peut présenter d ’agréable et de pittoresque l’arrivée d ’une Garnison dans cette ville. Mais le vieux Port de Toulon est encomble de la perfection par le brillant du coloris dans un moment du jour où le Ciel étale ses plus vives couleurs, et où la mer se montre sous l'aspect le plus riant.56

Fréron realized that in each view, Vernet had employed a different pic­ torial device for attaching the spectator’s interest and enlivening what could have easily become lifeless, boring scenes. Whether it was the stormy conditions introduced in the view of Cette, the charming view of country house life at Toulon, the lively activity associated with the arrival of the garrison at Antibes, or the brilliant sunset effects which illuminated the old port of Toulon, each view offered the spectator much more than a straightforward delineation of the place. The Abbé de la Porte also recognized that the Ports o f France were not simply mechanical transcriptions of the real world. Dans ces différentes vues qui sont ce qu’elles doivent être, c ’est-à-dire des copies fidèles de la nature et de l’art combiné, nous remarquons toujours avec une nouvelle surprise le prodigieux artifice avec lequel ce peintre sait enlever la sécheresse de ces sortes de copies, sans altérer l’exactitude la plus servile et donner un mouvement, une chaleur admirable aux froides symétries, ainsi qu’à la multitude des fabriques qu’il est obligé de représenter.57

De la Porte’s review, in which admiration is mixed with censure, exem­ plifies the confused reactions which Vernet’s series provoked. Although de la Porte admired the artist’s skill in bringing his realistic landscapes to life, he continued to regard them as inferior to imaginary landscapes. In his opinion the artist was ultimately dependent on the inherent interest of the subject itself. “ Comme dans ces sortes d’ouvrages, ainsi que dans le portrait, le pinceau est asservi aux divers modèles qu’il doit rendre fidèlement; le plus ou le moins d’intérêt qu’on peut y prendre, dépend de la nature des lieux et de ce qu’ils offrent de plus ou de moins attrayant.” 58 A minority of critics, however, welcomed the realistic subjects of the

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Ports o f France. The reaction of one critic in 1755 gives some idea of the interest views of contemporary subjects could arouse. Sur son port de Marseilles et dans son arsenal de Toulon, dont les détails sont exacts, sans confusion et méthodiquement ordonnés, on apprendrait facilement des choses que bien des personnes devroient sçavoir, et dont elles auraient de la peine à se faire instruire. Pourquoi nos Peintres, presque toujours occupés d'idées vagues, singulières et bien souvent inutiles, ne s’asservissent-ils pas quelquefois à représenter des choses connues, de nos jours, mais toujours d’un beau choix? Ils seraient précieux aux étran­ gers, à la postérité; on liroit dans leurs tableaux Thistoire des coutumes, des arts, des nations; ils seraient toujours intéressans, s’ils étoient vrais, parce qu’üs seraient utiles.59

The usefulness and documentary value which this critic found in Vernet’s views reflects the growing fascination of eighteenth-century writers with the world about them. Even more important, however, is the critic’s re­ alization that the artist had imposed order on a potentially confusing subject. His reaction was quite unlike that of Grimm, who had found the subjects of Vemet’s canvases uncongenial and their composition confusing. The critic of the Mercure de France also stressed the usefulness of the subjects Vernet had portrayed. Describing the Interior o f the Port o f Marseille he wrote: “ Vous y voyez ces ouvrages admirables, si utiles au commerce de la nation. Vous y voyez les habitants des quatre parties du mond réunis pour l’intérêt et le bien public agir, commercer ensemble.” 60 The Mercure’s critic was aware that there was a great deal more order in Vernet’s compositions than Grimm was either able to perceive or pre­ pared to admit. He recognized that the central theme of the painting was commerce. All the people depicted in the foreground of the picture are totally absorbed in the commerical life of the port, a fact which any critic could have easily deduced from an examination of the painting itself. If confirmation were needed it could be found in the Salon Livret, where the theme of the painting was clearly stated. Comme c ’est dans ce port que se fait le plus grand commerce du Levant et de l’Italie, l’auteur a enrichi ce tableau de figures de différentes nations des Echelles du Levant, de Barbarie d’Afrique et autres. Il y a réuni ce que peut caractériser un port marchand et qui a un commerce très étendu.61

In making the commercial life of the port the dominant feature of his painting Vernet was following the prescription of the “ Itinerary” which listed not only the views he was to paint but also gave detailed instructions on the subjects to be included in each painting of the series. The Interior o f the Port o f Marseille was to be characterized by “ la quantité consid­ érable de bâtiments de commerce de toutes espèces et de toutes nations qui s’y trouvent continuellement.” 62 Yet Vernet did much more than sim-

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ply represent the merchant ships which filled the port: he set the theme of commerce in motion before the spectator’s eyes through a series of interrelated vignettes; merchants checking tallies, fashionable men and women inspecting merchandise, laborers unloading grain and women sell­ ing fruit. Even the children playing amidst the piled up goods emphasize the theme by their very indifference to the preoccupations of their elders. The Interior o f the Port o f Marseille depicts not the confusing throng of figures imagined by Grimm but a skillfully arranged representation of the hurly-burly of commercial activity in a busy port. The detailed requirements of the commission, as set out in the “ Itin­ erary,” could easily have led Vernet to paint the dull and lifeless scenes which Grimm’s preconceptions led him to expect. Realizing the difficulty of unifying the action in realistic landscapes of the kind he was now required to paint, Vernet subordinated the activities to be found at each location to one dominant event. In doing so he was able to combine the “ Itinerary’s” demand that he represent the “ caractère distinctif” of each port with his own pictorial concerns. The way in which he succeeded in doing this is brilliantly demonstrated by the view of the Gulf o f Bandol, exhibited in 1755 along with the two views of Marseille.63 The “ Itinerary” indicated that this location was suitable for depicting the celebrated “ mandrague,” a spectacular method of catching tunny for which that part of the coast was famous. In Vernet’s canvas everyone’s attention is fo­ cused on the dramatic final stage of securing the catch, giving the picture a unity of action which is hardly less compelling than that of his imaginary shipwrecks. Vernet’s complete success in giving this canvas a convincing pictorial unity makes it even more surprising that critics as perceptive as Grimm were unable to recognize the artist’s achievement. In spite of the initial difficulties experienced by critics in coming to terms with the Ports o f France, by 1759 one can detect a greater critical awareness of what Vernet had achieved within the limited scope offered by the commission. In that year the Journal encyclopédique observed that Vernet “ a caractérisé chacun de ces tableaux par des figures accessoires capables de donner une ideé du genre d’occupation des habitants de cha­ cune des villes qu’il a peintes,” 64 while in 1765 Mathon de la Cour wrote of the View o f the Port o f Dieppe: “ La Pêche étant le caractère distinctif de ce Port, l’auteur a placé sur le devant du Tableau différens poissons que l’on marchande et que l’on transporte.” 65 But the critic who more than any other came to realize the significance of Vernet’s achievement was Diderot. Although, as we have already seen, his first reaction to the Ports was somewhat reserved, the Salon o f 1759 shows that he was now aware that it required just as much artistic intelligence and imagination

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to paint a successful topographical landscape as it did to paint an imagi­ nary one. Nous avons eu une foule de marines de Vernet; les unes locales, les autres idéales; et dans toutes c ’est la même imagination, le même feu, la même sagesse, le même coloris, les mêmes détails, la même variété.66

In 1763 Diderot analyzed Vemet’s achievement in more detail. Above all else it was the figures which the artist employed to give his landscapes dramatic unity and coherence which convinced Diderot of the signifi­ cance of these realistic views: considérez que les grandes compositions de Vernet ne sont point d’une imagination libre, c ’est un travail commandé, c ’est un local qu’il faut rendre tel qu’il est, et re­ marquez que dans ces morceaux mêmes Vernet montre bien une autre tête, un autre talent que le Lorrain par la multitude incroyables d ’actions, d’objets et de scènes particulières. L’un est un paysagiste, l’autre un peintre d ’histoire et de la première force dans toutes les parties de la peinture.67

When Diderot saw how completely the painter had overcome the sup­ posed limitations of the commission, he no longer regretted that Vernet’s subjects had been dictated. Where Grimm and like-minded critics had been unable to see beyond the fact that the artist had to reproduce rec­ ognizable scenes, Diderot realized that such views, because of the limi­ tations they imposed, offered an even greater challenge to the artist’s imagination. Consequently Diderot was able to reverse completely Grimm’s evaluation of the Ports made less than a decade earlier. In spite of his own reluctance to impose restrictions on the artist’s freedom to choose his subjects, Diderot came to realize that there were no limitations imposed by subject matter, only limitations in abilities of artists. Skill at overcoming the limitations of subject matter was, in fact, the mark of a great painter. Describing Vernet’s latest addition to the Ports o f France in 1763, Diderot wrote: “ Son Port de Rochefort est trèsbeau; il fixe l’attention des artistes par l’ingratitude du sujet.” 68 This view was echoed in the Essais sur la peinture: “ Il y a sans doute des sujets ingrats; mais, c’est pour l’artiste ordinaire qu’ils sont communs. Tout est ingrat pour une tête stérile.” 69 A topographical painting by a lesser artist than Vernet could easily fail to hold the spectator’s interest. This was the problem Diderot found with Le Prince’s View o f Saint Petersburg exhib­ ited in 1763, which compositionally owed a great deal to Vernet’s First View o f Bordeaux: “je n’ai pas le courage de louer ce morceau, à l’aspect du Port de Dieppe de Vernet. Il est sombre, triste, sans effet de lumière, sans effet du tout.” 70

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The artist’s own preoccupation with pictorial unity and dramatic in­ terest in realistic landscapes can be seen in the correspondence between Vernet and the Marquis de Marigny. Of all the canvases which made up the series of the Ports o f France, none presented more problems than the Port o f Cette, and for this reason no other view provoked so much dis­ cussion between the artist and the Directeur des Bâtiments.71 The inci­ dent therefore deserves to be examined in some detail. In the first instance the port was what Diderot would have described as a “ sujet ingrat.” Vernet had seen maps of the area before he arrived there and had come to the conclusion that the view proposed by the “ Itinerary” was unsuit­ able. In a letter to Marigny from Avignon he proposed a view from the sea as a suitable alternative. J ’auroy là occation de faire sur le devant du tableau une mer un peu en mouvement et peut-être fairoy-je une tempête, ce qui produiroit un effet assez rare dans le nombre des tableaux que j ’ay a faire pour le Roy, peignent ordinairement l’interieur des ports et par consequent la mer tranquille ou bien du coté de la terre.72

Vernet’s first thought was to find some means of making an unpromising subject interesting, even if the ostensible subject of the painting had to be pushed into the background by the dramatic interest of the storm. This is exactly what Marigny feared, and although he was sympathetic to Ver­ net’s problem, he had no doubts about where the painter’s priorities should lie. Vos tableaux doivent réunir deux mérites, celui de la beauté pittoresque et celuy de la ressemblance. Je trouve bien l’un dans le projet que vous me proposés; mais je crains que ce ne soit aux dépens de l’autre, et je doute que le port de Cette représenté en vue du coté de la mer soit reconnu par le grand nombre de ceux qui ne l’ont vu que du coté de la terre. La tempête que vous avés dessein d ’y g o u tte r rendrait encore votre tableau moins ressemblant, atandu qu’il est rare de voir la mer dans un port agitée de la tempête. D faudrait que le devant de votre tableau fut la pleine mer, et par consequent que le port fut reculé dans le lointain, ce qui vous empecheroit de le détailler d ’une façon caractéristique. Il me semble que le projet de ce tableau, tel qu’il est dans l'itinéraire que je vous ai remis, remplirait mieux l’objet que vous devés vous proposer . . . surtout ne perdés pas de vue l’intention du Roy, qui est de voir les ports du royaume représentés au naturel dans vos tableaux. Je sens bien que votre imagination se trouve par là genée; mais avec votre talent on peut réunir le mérite de l’imitation et celuy de l’invention: vous en avés donnés des preuves.75

Marigny was as aware as any of the critics that the demands of the “ Itinerary” could have a constricting effect on the artist’s imagination but he showed remarkable confidence in Vernet’s ability to transcend these limitations. His letter makes it clear that although he wanted Vernet to paint the Ports accurately from nature, he was also aware that the

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views were works of art, not simply mechanical transcriptions of the real world. For Vernet each painting, and indeed the series as a whole, had to meet pictorial and imaginative criteria which were independent of the specific subjects of each view. By the time the artist received Marigny’s letter he had arrived at Cette and had been able to assess the full magnitude of the problem which confronted him. Again he wrote to Marigny to argue his case for a view taken from the sea: si je le prend du côté de la terre, à quel endroit que je me place, je ne puis voir que des parties du port, ce qui rendrait ce tableau pauvre d ’objets et qui ne rendrait qu’en partie ce qu’on demande, à moins de faire trois tableaux de ce port, mais on n’en demande qu’un seul, et il en faudroit bien six pour représenter tout ce qui est indiqué dans l’intinéraire, ou bien il faudroit faire une carte géographique.74

Vernet found that he was unable to reconcile the requirements of the “ Itinerary” with the demands of a unified pictorial vision. “ M. Pelerin, premier commis de la Marine, qui m’a dit avoir fait ce projet d’itinéraire, peut bien être entendu à bien des choses, mais il ne l’est guère à ce qu’il faut pour faire un bon tableau.” 75 Clearly Vernet’s primary concern was to paint “un bon tableau” rather than to fulfil the exact requirements of the “ Itinerary.” This meant selecting a viewpoint which would allow all that was to be depicted to fall within a single angle of vision.76 He was not prepared to destroy this unity in order to incorporate all the elements listed in the “ Itinerary.” In addition, the storm and the accompanying human drama which Vernet proposed to introduce in the foreground would constitute “ le caractère distinctif de ce port” as well as providing “ une variété parmis les autres.” 77 In the face of these arguments Marigny approved Vernet’s proposals, and when the completed picture arrived in Paris in time for the Salon of 1757 he realized that there was no reason to regret his decision. “A l’égard de vos deux derniers tableaux,” he wrote to Vernet, “je vous dirai sans exagération que j ’en suis dans l’enchantement, et surtout de celui de Cette.” 78 Marigny’s approval was echoed by several of the critics who considered the View o f Cette to be the finest of the Ports exhibited at the Salon. It is perhaps appropriate to mention at this point one aspect of the series which calls for comment; the introduction of portraits of Vernet and his family in the two views of Marseille. In the Exterior o f the Port o f Marseille he is seen with his sketch block on his knees at work in front of the motif. In the Interior o f the Port, he appears again with his family, but this time with his back to the spectator, gazing towards the entrance

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of the harbor. One the one hand these self-portraits emphasize the real­ istic dimension of the series, pointing to the fact that the paintings were made from studies made on the spot. But bearing in mind Vernet’s in­ sistence on making “ un bon tableau,” these self-portraits can also be seen as reminders that we are looking at paintings, not reality. By placing his own image in the pictorial space of the View o f Marseille, in a position which in purely realistic terms his role as artist excludes him from, Vernet reminds the viewer that this is the world as seen through the eyes and sensibility of a painter, and consequently a scene which must be judged by the criteria of art, not those of reality.79 An important issue which is revealed in Vernet’s correspondence with Marigny is the artist’s concern with the choice of an appropriate “ point of view” from which to observe his subject. Although this issue was of crucial importance to the artist, it had not yet been raised in critical discussions of the Ports o f France. Nevertheless, one critic who had been aware of the importance of the artist’s viewpoint for some time was Diderot. In the Encyclopédie article “ Composition” he had written: “ Un tableau bien composé est un tout renfermé sous un seul point de vue.” 80 Not only had the painter to choose the most dramatic moment of the action he wished to represent, he also needed to select the best viewpoint from which to record it. In the Essais sur la peinture Diderot elaborated on his earlier statement: “ Toute scène a un aspect, un point de vue plus intéressant qu’aucun autre; c’est de là qu’il faut la voir. Sacrifiez à cet aspect, à ce point de vue, tous les aspects, ou points de vue subordonnés; c’est le mieux.” 81 In essence, the particular nature of each subject dictated the point of view, and this was especially true of landscape painting. For the painter of realistic landscapes, the selection of the appropriate “ point of view” enabled him to show his understanding of his subjects and demonstrate the originality of his vision. Indeed it was one of the most important areas where the topographical landscape painter could exercise an imaginative choice. Diderot clearly realized this fact when he exclaimed on seeing Ver­ net’s Port o f La Rochelle at the Salon of 1763: “ Oh! le beau point de vue!” 82 However Diderot was not entirely alone in realizing the signifi­ cance of the selection of viewpoint in realistic landscapes. In a remark­ ably perceptive passage written in 1763, a young and quite inexperienced critic, Mathon de la Cour, saw that this was an area in which a land­ scapist, limited by a request to paint a specific view, could show his mastery. M. Vernet est asservi dans ces sortes d'ouvrages comme on l’est dans les Portraits, pour rendre fidèlement ses modèles. Cependant l’effet de cet esclavage ne se fait point

44

Imaginary and Realistic Landscapes sentir. Il choisit si adroitement ses points de vue, qu'on prendrait ses tableaux pour des chefs-d’oeuvre de l’imagination la plus heureuse.*3

Through their awareness of the central importance of the artist’s choice of viewpoint, Diderot and Mathon de la Cour recognized more clearly than any of their contemporaries the vital role which the artist’s imagi­ nation played in painting realistic landscapes. In the ten years between 1755, when the first pictures of the Ports o f France appeared at the Salon, and 1765 when Vernet’s last contribution to the series was exhibited, a significant shift in critical attitudes towards realistic landscapes had occurred. The outright hostility of Grimm and the qualified approval of critics like Fréron and Joseph de la Porte had changed by the 1760s to widespread admiration for the way in which Vernet had transformed the prosaic requirements of the “ Itinerary” into a masterly series of landscapes. Fréron’s comments in the Année littéraire in 1765 sum up the feeling of satisfaction with which Vernet’s last canvas was greeted. A cette occasion je me fais un plaisir de vous faire part de l’espérance où nous sommes que cette magnifique collection va être exposée aux yeux des amateurs et des con­ noisseurs ainsi que des étrangers dans le nouvel hôtel des ambassadeurs extraordi­ naires. On peut s’en rapporter au zèle de M. le marquis de Marigny pour les ails sur la prompte exécution d ’un projet qu’il a conçu, que Sa majesté a approuvé et qui porte dans toutes ses circonstances le caractère de l’amour du bien public.84

This admiration was accompanied by an increasingly widespread reali­ zation that even topographical landscapes could make great demands on the artist’s creative intelligence and imagination. Although the artist’s role in selecting and shaping the images which he represented on the canvas may have been less apparent in realistic landscapes, Vernet’s series demonstrated that it was no less real. By forc­ ing critics to come to terms with the issues involved in painting realistic landscapes, the Ports o f France played an important role in establishing a basis for a new understanding of the significance and seriousness of this branch of landscape painting. But perhaps even more important, the new understanding of the creative role played by the artist’s imagination in realistic landscapes led to a new perception of the nature of artistic creativity. Nevertheless, in spite of these developments, attitudes towards re­ alistic landscapes remained equivocal. Throughout the critical discussion of the Ports o f France, Vernet’s use of figures in action was singled out as the primary means used by the artist to attach and hold the interest of the spectator. An awareness of the importance of figures in action was

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central to Diderot’s response to the Ports, and as late as 1807 it was still essential to Taillasson’s understanding of Vernet’s achievement: quoique son ardente imagination fut bien plus à son aise au milieu des écueils et des flots en courroux, que dans un chantier ou un arsenal, et devant une longue suite de maisons, il a rendu les ports avec une extrême vérité, et chaque habitant y reconnoît sa demeure; mais il a mis dans ces vastes portraits tout l’intérêt que met toujours le génie, même lorsqu’il copie. Il en a enrichi les devants par des figures dont les groupes font des siyets, et qui sont pleines d ’esprit dans la pensée et dans l'exécution.*5

Perhaps it was inevitable that Taillasson, a history painter and a pupil of Vien, should see the invention of the artist principally in his use of figures. He makes a clear distinction between those parts of the Ports which are merely copies, the landscape backgrounds, and the parts which reveal the genius of the painter, the groups of figures in the foreground. The ambivalence of Taillasson’s attitude is also reflected in theoretical discus­ sions of landscape. For Valenciennes as much as for Deperthes, human action was essential to any realistic landscape which aspired to be more than a copy.86 In conclusion, if we turn to Watelet’s description of “ vues” published in 1787, it is clear that realistic landscapes remained the least esteemed branch of landscape at the end of the eighteenth century. After describing “ vues” as “ les plus vrais de tous les paysages” he went on to describe their relationship to other types of landscape. “ Elles sont relativement au genre du paysage, ce que sont les portraits relativement à l’histoire.” 87 In spite of the changes in attitudes in eighteenth-century art criticism to both imitation and creativity, art theory retained the distinctions made between landscapes in which the artist’s imagination played a dominant role and views in which the imagination was exercised in a less obvious way.88 Yet there was another aspect to Watelet’s analysis of “ vues” which points towards the future. Realistic landscapes exerted an attraction which he could only ascribe to their very truth to natural appearances. Cette sorte d'impression vient des droits de la vérité, dont l'ascendant est si absolu que, par instinct même, nous lui rendons hommage. . . . Quant aux impressions que causent, ou la singularité, ou les accidens de la nature, elles ont lieu, parce que l'homme trouve du plaisir à être remué, et que les objets peu ordinaires produisent en lui cet effet.89

It was left for the landscape painters of the nineteenth century to explore the far reaching implications of Watelet’s intuition and, reversing the prior­ ities of the previous century, to establish the representation of the painter’s own world as the ultimate goal of landscape painting.

The Spectator in the Landscape One of the most brilliant passages in all of Diderot’s art criticism is un­ doubtedly the famous “ Vernet promenade” which occupies the central part of the Salon o f 1767.1 Leaving the crowded rooms of the Salon far behind, Diderot takes the reader on an excursion to the country in the company of an abbé and his two pupils. There, amidst the delights of scenes which rival the painted landscapes of Joseph Vernet, the abbé and the reader are entertained by philosophical discussions which range over subjects as diverse as the nature of the universe, the mechanism of lan­ guage, and the meaning of abstract concepts such as virtue and beauty. Only towards the end of the “ sixième site” does Diderot reveal that he is actually describing landscape paintings which Vernet exhibited at the Salon. Then, having apparently completed his discussion of the paintings, he recounts a nightmare in which he saw a storm at sea and a shipwreck. Only subsequently does the reader become aware that Diderot’s “ night­ mare” is also a description of paintings by Vernet. The imaginary “ promenade” was invented, Diderot explained, “ pour rompre l’ennui et la monotonie des descriptions . . . ,” 2 and twentiethcentury readers, dazzled by the fertility of Diderot’s imagination and his penchant for seemingly irrelevant digressions, have tended to accept this explanation at face value. Furthermore, it is generally assumed that the “ Vernet promenade” is only tenuously related to the landscape paintings which provided Diderot with his starting point. The possibility that it might represent a genuine and carefully considered reaction to the paint­ ings, a response which would have been perfectly comprehensible to the readers of the Correspondance littéraire, has hardly been considered. Yet if one looks closely at Diderot’s writings on the fine arts and the theatre, as well as at the art theory and criticism of his contemporaries, such a conclusion becomes inescapable. Diderot was, without doubt, the great­ est art critic of his age and the “ Vernet promenade” is, I believe, his most important critical discussion of landscape painting. As such it has

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The Spectator in the Landscape

much to tell us about the way in which eighteenth-century spectators looked at and reacted to landscape paintings. If I am correct in assuming that the wider implications of the “ Vernet promenade” were perfectly comprehensible to informed eighteenth-cen­ tury readers, then it is reasonable to expect that other critics would have responded to landscape paintings in a similar way to Diderot. This is, indeed, the case, although no single critic matched the range and com­ plexity of ideas to be found in Diderot’s Salon. The affinity between the way in which Diderot discussed landscapes in the Salon o f 1767 and the attitudes of other salon critics can be seen immediately if we survey the reviews which appeared in the Mercure de France between 1755 and 1763. In 1755 the Mercure’s critic suggested that Vernet’s Ports went beyond the limits of painting. “ Ce n’est point une peinture, ce n’est plus une représentation d’objets, c’est l’existence, c’est la réalité même.” 3 T\vo years later the Port o f Cette presented an even more compelling image. “ L’illusion se trouve portée si loin, qu’on ne peut s’empêcher de craindre pour les bâtimens qu’on voit en mer. On éprouve des mouvements de commisération et de pitié à la vue de ce spectacle effraient dont on partage l’horreur; et en effet le tableau, l’image disparoît. . . .”4 In this instance the critic’s response to the landscape was so vivid that he was able to forget he was looking at a painting and experienced the scene as if it were taking place before his eyes. By 1763 not only had the picture itself disappeared but the critic had imaginatively entered the picture space. “ Le spectateur . . . marche dans les chemins qui y sont tracés; il est prêt d’aller à bord avec les Matelots; il parcourt les Atteliers, voit les différentes manoeuvres, il converse avec les per­ sonnages. . . .” s The similarity to Diderot’s landscape promenade of 1767 is here unmistakable. The reactions of the Mercure’s critic were by no means exceptional. M. de la Porte, writing of the pictures exhibited in 1755 believed he saw movement and heard sounds as he looked at them. “J ’ai cru voir 1’agitation des eaux; j ’ai cru entendre frémir l’air autour de ses arbres.” 6 For Fréron in 1757 the Port scenes seemed equally real. “ Ce n’est point de la pein­ ture, c’est la nature même.” 7 In a similar vein the critic of the Journal encyclopédique remarked: “ le Spectateur à peine peut se deffendre de l’illusion.” 8 On the other hand, an anonymous critic of 1765 found the urge to surrender himself to the illusion of the landscape irresistible. The Port o f Dieppe was, in his opinion: “ du plus grand effet et la dernière vérité,” and he summed up his praise of the work in the matter of fact statement: “ II fait illusion.”9 In 1767, Mathon de la Cour revealed a sim­ ilar propensity to surrender to the illusion of landscape paintings when

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he discussed the same group of pictures which had stimulated Diderot’s “ Vernet promenade.” On oublie le lieu où Ton est et les tableaux qu’on vient de voir on se croit transporté sur le rivage; l’âme jouie de la vaste étendue des mers, de l’immensité des cieux, du silence majestueux de la nuit, et elle s’imbibe de cette melancolie si douce et si dangeureuse qui fait le charme des coeurs sensibles.10

As late as 1785 Vernet’s landscapes, and in particular his shipwrecks, seem to have lost none of their power to transfix the spectator before the canvas. The following passage reveals a response to a Shipwreck which is as intense, if not so eloquent, as Diderot’s nightmare vision. Oeil fixe, bouche béante je restois immobile sans oser respirer; j ’entendais le sifflement des vents et le fracas des vagues qui se brisaient contre les rochers; revenu un peu de mon effroi une tendre pitié parlait à mon âme en faveur des malheureuses victimes que la mer avait englouties: après avoir eu mille peines à échapper moi-même à la fureur des flots, je m’empressois, autant que mon épuisement pouvait le permettre, à donner des secours à mes compagnons d’infortune; mon extase enfin était si grande, que tout ce qui se passoit autour de moi m’etait absolument étranger. . . . 0 était déjà tard, je ne m’appercevois pas qu’on faisoit sortir tout le monde, je serais encore devant cet admirable tableau si un suisse, sans respect pour mon délire, ne fût venu m’en arracher. . . .n

All the critics I have quoted above, and none more so than the last, share a common experience of landscape painting as a medium which presents images of such power and persuasiveness that the spectator has difficulty in separating his experience of the painting from his experience of reality itself. Indeed, in several instances, the spectator is so powerfully under the spell of the work of art that he has no sense of anything else happening around him. He is transfixed in a state of dream-like reverie in which the work of art acts directly on his heightened consciousness. Or to use the language of the critics themselves, the picture has disap­ peared and the spectator is completely absorbed into the illusion of the landscape.12 The experience of landscape painting which these critics were at­ tempting to convey to their readers clearly has much in common with Diderot’s imaginative entry into the picture space of Vernet’s works. Al­ though his response is more complex than that of any other critic, this should not be allowed to overshadow the fundamental similarity of their reactions. Nevertheless an essential difference is immediately apparent. Whereas other critics describe their state of reverie and their sensation that the painting is as compelling as a scene they have actually witnessed, Diderot recreates the experience itself. What makes the “ Vernet prome­

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The Spectator in the Landscape

nade” exceptional is that we share Diderot’s experience of the works of art rather than simply having that experience described to us.13 Since Diderot’s response to landscape is so closely related to the reactions of contemporary salon critics we can be sure that we are dealing with a much more widespread phenomenon than might at first be antici­ pated. However, this does not explain the phenomenon itself, and in order to do so it is necessary to leave the discussion of landscape painting for a time and explore a series of assumptions which underlay the perception of both art and literature during the second half of the eighteenth century. In 1753 the Abbé Laugier opened his account of the Salon with a brief discussion of the criteria he followed in judging a work of art: j'interroge mon ame, ses mouvemens sont les seuls Experts qui me décident. Un Tableau qui me saisit et qui m 'attache, dont l’illusion opère sur moi tous les effets de la réalité, ne perdra point mon estime pour une légère incorrection de dessein, une touche un peu brusquée, des jets de draperie un peu roides, des plis un peu gonflés, une couleur locale qui manque de certain degré de vérité dans les toumans et les reflets, et autres petits défauts imperceptibles, dont j'abandonne la critique à ceux qui préferent à la douceur d'être séduits le sot plaisir de faire les capables.14

For Laugier a work of art made its primary impact on the senses. If it failed to stimulate the emotions of the spectator then nothing could re­ deem it. Furthermore, reason and judgment played virtually no part in assessing the value of the work. As a consequence of this sensationalist approach, paintings needed to make themselves felt immediately and with the force and vividness of reality itself. Four years later, Antoine-Joseph Pernety, author of the popular Dic­ tionnaire Portatif de Peinture, Sculpture et Gravure, expressed essentially the same view. Under the heading “ Effet” one reads: Quand on dit qu’un tableau fait bien son effet, c ’est comme si l’on disoit qu’on sent naître à son aspect les mouvemens de l’âme que l’action même y exciteroit, si elle se passoit réellement à nos yeux. C ’est là Veffet du tout ensemble. 15

Such views were not confined to French writers alone. The German critic, Hagedorn, who might well have consulted Pernety’s Dictionnaire, also insisted that paintings must persuade the spectator that the event or scene depicted was real. La persuasion de l’observateur est le fruit d ’une expression parfaite. L’empire de cette persuasion est tel qu'il produit l'illusion des yeux. Dès lors le spectateur oublie l’Artiste et tous les strategêmes qu'il a employés: il ne s ’entretient plus qu’avec l’objet repré­ senté. L’émotion qu’il éprouve en contemplant un ouvrage qui porte ce caractère, est la dernière fin de cet art agréable. C ’est alors que le talent parle à l'âm e.16

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The demands made by Laugier, Pemety, and Hagedom, that works of art should enthral and transfix the spectator with images as forceful as those of reality, were a direct result of the sensationalist approach to art which entered French art theory in the writing of Du Bos, and which can ulti­ mately be traced to the new epistemology of Locke. A work of art was able to stir the emotions of the spectator with something like the force­ fulness of real life only if it could induce the spectator to forget that his experience was one of art and not of life. This willingness, indeed need, on the part of the spectator to expe­ rience the fiction of art with all the intensity usually reserved for real life became a basic principle in the theory of art set out in 1762 by the Scottish jurist and philosopher Lord Kames. In the Elements o f Criticism, Kames explained his concept of “ ideal presence.” He argued that the images produced by works of literature or painting could assume in the mind of the spectator the vividness of reality itself.17 The reader’s passions are never simply moved till he be thrown into a kind of reverie; in which state, forgetting that he is reading, he conceives every incident as passing in his presence, precisely as if he were an eye witness.1*

Along with the writers I have just discussed, Kames insisted on the pri­ macy of stimulating the emotions. “A general or reflective remembrance cannot warm us into any emotion: it may be agreeable in some slight degree; but its ideas are too faint and obscure to raise anything Uke emotion.” 19 Also in common with contemporary theorists, he described the state of “ ideal presence” as one of “ reverie” in which the conscious­ ness of the reader or beholder is intensified.20 It should by now be clear that Diderot’s “ Vernet promenade” was not an eccentric whim of a brilliant art critic, but a significant manifes­ tation of a Europe-wide phenomenon. If we turn to Diderot’s other writ­ ings on the arts, the concept which Lord Kames called “ ideal presence” can be recognized in some of his earliest works. In chapter thirty-eight of Les Bijoux indiscrets, where Diderot first outlined his program for the reform of the French theatre, Mirmoza, the advocate of realism, states that “ la perfection d’un spectacle consiste dans l’imitation si exacte d’une action, que le spectateur, trompé sans interruption, s’imagine assister à l’action même.” 21 Diderot’s reform of the theatre must be seen not simply as a demand for greater realism and a heightened sense of illusion, but as a call to affect the audience’s emotions as powerfully as possible. As Beleval has pointed out, Diderot wanted to be moved by the thing itself. Ce ne sont pas des mots que je veux remporter du théâtre, mais des impressions. Celui

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The Spectator in the Landscape qui prononcera d’un drame, dont on citera beaucoup de pensées détachées, que c ’est un ouvrage médiocre, se trompera rarement. Le poète excellent est celui dont l’effet demeure longtemps en moi.22

The aim of the theatre, as far as Diderot was concerned, was to stir the members of the audience to the very depths of their being. O poètes dramatiques! l’applaudissement vrai que vous devez vous proposer d’obtenir, ce n’est pas ce battement de mains qui se fait entendre subitement après un vers éclatant, mais ce soupir profond qui part de l’âme après la contrainte d ’un long silence, et qui la soulage. Il est une impression plus violente encore, et que vous concevrez, si vous êtes nés pour votre art, et si vous en pressentez toute la magie: c ’est de mettre un peuple comme à la gêne.23

The experience of a play should be so intense that the audience would forget that it was in the theatre. The theatrical illusion, in fact, should be complete. One can therefore understand Diderot’s delight when, during a performance of Sedaine’s play, Le Philosophe sans le savoir, he heard a young woman cry out involuntarily at the sight of the action on the stage.24 It may seem even more surprising that the reading of a novel could provide Diderot with sensations of a similar intensity. However, he in­ sisted that in spite of the formal differences between the novel and drama, “ l’illusion est leur but commun.” The effect of this illusion on the reader is demonstrated in the Eloge du Richardson: celui qui agit, on le voit, on se met à sa place ou à ses côtés, on se passionne pour ou contre lui; on s’unit à son rôle, s ’il est vertueux; on s ’en écarte avec indignation, s’il est iivjuste et vicieux. . . . J ’avais entendu les vrais discours des passions; j ’avais vu les ressorts de l’intérêt et de l’amour-propre jouer en cent façons diverses; j ’étais devenu spectateur d ’une mul­ titude d’incidents, je sentais que j ’avais acquis de l’expérience.25

In this state of passionate involvement with the work of art, Diderot imagined that the conversations and actions, sights and sounds of Rich­ ardson’s fictional world were occurring before him. In Dieckmann’s words: “ he participated so fully in the events and identified himself so totally with some of the characters that he could no longer distinguish them from reality. The illusion was complete.” 26 Lord Kames, whose Elements o f Criticism appeared in the same year as the Eloge de Richardson, would have recognized Diderot’s state of mind immediately. Diderot’s attitudes towards the theatre and the novel therefore pre­ pare the way for his approach to landscape painting in the Salon o f 1767. Just as a member of an audience might forget that he is watching a play,

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or as the reader of a novel might become absorbed in the world of fiction, so too could a spectator at the Salon, unmindful of the crowd of people about him, imaginatively enter the picture space of a landscape and re­ main for a time oblivious to all else but his experience of the picture and the ideas which it suggested. Nor was this experience limited to Vemet’s landscapes. At the Salon of 1763 de Loutherbourg’s Landscape with shep­ herds induced Diderot to join the repose of the peasants and their animals as they took shelter from the midday sun.27 Hubert Robert’s genre scenes and ruin landscapes exhibited in 1767, although not as persuasive as Vernet’s landscapes, evoked a similar response. On s’oublie devant ce morceau, c ’est la plus forte magie de l’art. Ce n'est plus au Sallon ou dans un attelier qu’on est; c ’est dans une église, sous une voûte; il règne là un calme, un silence qui touche, une fraîcheur délicieuse.21

In this more straightforward description of the effect the painting has on him we see more clearly the similarity of Diderot’s criticism to contem­ porary discussions of Vernet’s landscapes. Le Prince’s Russian Pastoral, exhibited at the Salon of 1765, also provided a subject of irresistible charm, and Diderot again entered the picture space to seat himself beside the elderly peasant and his daughter who are listening to a young man playing a flute. Diderot’s discussion of this picture is of particular interest as it demonstrates the link between the painting’s ability to draw the spectator into its world of illusion and its power to affect his emotions. Un tableau avec lequel on raisonne ainsi, qui vous met en scène, et dont l'ame reçoit une sensation délicieuse, n'est jamais un mauvais tableau. Vous me direz: Mais il est foible de couleur— D’accord—Mais il est sourd et monotone—Cela se peut; mais il touche, mais il arrête; et que m’importe tes passages de tons savans, ton dessin pur et correct, la vigeur de ton coloris, la magie de ton clair-obscur, si ton sujet me laisse froid? La peinture est l’art d'aller à l’ame par l’entremise des yeux. Si l’effet s’arrête aux yeux, le peintre n’a fait que la moindre partie du chemin.29

The similarity of Diderot’s views to those of Laugier is unmistakable. Both agreed that the primary role of a painting was to stir the emotions, and both were prepared to disregard slight faults of execution if this end were achieved. Their comparative indifference to minor imperfections confirms that the spectator’s entry into the picture space should not be confused with illusionism as such, which depended solely on deceiving the eye. Only when a painting reached the spectator’s heart would the static, silent, and planar world of the canvas assume movement, sound, and space.

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On the basis of the evidence I have cited, we must, I think, accept that for Diderot and many of his contemporaries both in France and in Europe as a whole, a painting, or indeed any work of art, only achieved its proper end if it allowed the spectator to become totally absorbed by the aesthetic experience. However it is necessary to ask how paintings, and especially landscapes, were able to achieve responses of such ex­ traordinary intensity. In answering this question, as in so much else, Diderot emerges as our most reliable guide. The artist’s first duty, Diderot argued, was to allow nothing to intrude between the spectator and the painting.30 It was, therefore, essential that the painting be dominated by a single unifying idea, and that nothing should be introduced which would distract the viewer’s attention from this central concept. The achievement of an all-embracing dramatic unity constituted, in Diderot’s view, the “ ideal” of art, a concept which, it must be emphasized, had little in common with earlier notions of the “ ideal.” Only when this “ ideal” was achieved would the painting be directly and powerfully experienced by the spectator. With this in mind Diderot warned Hubert Robert of the dangers of exhibiting works which seemed unfinished. La beauté de l'idéal frappe tous les hommes, la beauté du faire n'arrête que le con­ naisseur, si elle le fait rêver, c’est sur l’art et l’artiste, et non sur la chose, il reste toiyours hors de la scène; il n’y entre jamais. . . . Il y a entre le mérite du faire et le mérite de l’idéal la difference de ce qui attache les yeux et de ce qui attache l’âme.31

In his more finished works Robert achieved the ideal which Diderot de­ manded, and the critic acknowledged this by immediately plunging into the picture space of the artist’s Italian Kitchen. However, it was not just self-consciously eloquent brushwork which could distract the spectator and leave him “ hors de la scène.” Allegorical paintings could have exactly the same effect, and were, according to Diderot, “ presque toujours froide et obscure.” Confronted by an alle­ gorical picture, the spectator had to decipher its meaning before it could have any effect. Such paintings might engage the spectator’s mind, but they could have no effect on his emotions. “ Je tourne le dos à un peintre qui me propose un emblème, un logogriphe à déchiffrer,” wrote Diderot. “ Si la scène est une, claire, simple et liée, j ’en saisirai l’ensemble d’un coup d’oeil. . . .” 32 Diderot introduced here another essential concept; paintings needed to make their impression on the spectator almost in­ stantaneously. In an important article in the Correspondance littéraire, which probably reflects Diderot’s views, Grimm emphasized the need for paintings to be immediately comprehensible.

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Les grandes machines en peinture et en poésie m 'ont toujours déplu. S'il est vrai que les arts en imitant la nature n'ont pour but que de toucher et de plaire, il faut convenir que l'artiste s'en écarte aussi souvent qu'il entreprend des poèmes épiques, des pla­ fonds, des galeries immenses, en un mot, ces ouvrages compliqués auxquels on a prodigué dans tous les temps des éloges si peu sensés. La simplicité du siyet, l'unité de l'action, sont non-seulement ce qu'il y a de plus difficile en fait de génie et d'invention, mais encore ce qu'il y a de plus indispensable pour l'effet. Notre esprit ne peut embrasser beaucoup d'objets, ni beaucoup de situations à la fois. 11 se perd dans cette infinité de détails dont vous croyez enricher votre ouvrage. Il veut être saisi au premier coup d'oeil par un certain ensemble, sans embarras et une manière forte. Si vous manquez ce premier instant, vous n'en obtiendrez que de ces éloges raisonnés et tranquilles qui sont la satire et le désespoir du génie.33

Unity, immediacy, and simplicity were thus essential to a work of art since without these attributes it was impossible for a painting to achieve “ l’effet.” It should be recalled at this point that in Pernety’s view, a painting which “ fait bien son effet” was one which made the spectator feel the same emotions as he would experience if he saw the scene in reality. The illusion of a painting could be further endangered if the artist made any attempt to acknowledge the presence of his audience. Just as an actor who stepped out of his role and spoke directly to the audience broke the illusion of a play, the illusion of a painting was also destroyed if the figures betrayed an awareness of being observed. Describing La Grenée’s Roman Charity, Diderot wrote: “Je ne veux pas absolument que ce malheureux vieillard, ni cette femme charitable, soupçonnent qu’on les observe; ce soupçon arrête l’action et détruit le sujet.” 34 The only way to ensure the spectator’s complete absorption in the action depicted, and thus guarantee his complete emotional involvement, was seemingly to ignore his presence altogether. Seen from this point of view, the best contemporary landscapes were well adapted to enthral their spectators and draw them into the picture space. Since I have already discussed the importance of pictorial unity for an understanding of Vernet’s landscapes in the previous chapter, I will only summarize those issues here.35 Briefly, Diderot as well as many other critics found in the most compelling landscapes the same immedi­ acy, unity, and concentrated dramatic effect as they demanded from paint­ ings in every genre, history painting above all. Vernet’s storm landscapes, for example, were not only instantly recognizable as such, but the spec­ tator was also aware that every figure in the painting participated in the central dramatic event of the shipwreck. Similarly, in his more idyllic works, every effect of the landscape, and the actions of each figure, con­ tributed to the overall impression of peace and harmony. Furthermore, the people who inhabited these landscapes were completely engrossed in

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their actions, precluding any possibility that they would disrupt the illu­ sion of the picture by distracting the spectator’s attention from the central event. There was, in fact, a total concentration within each landscape on the expression of a single, immediately recognizable pictorial idea. How­ ever, these pictorial concerns only assume their true significance when one realizes that they were not simply an end in themselves but were intended to create an illusion which was as convincing and as affecting as reality itself.36 Nevertheless, the artist’s pictorial means were limited and could not, on their own, ensure the spectator’s enthralment. It was essential that the subject of a painting engage the attention of the spectator, and one of the most effective ways of doing this was to engage his sympathies and make him identify with the characters portrayed. Diderot affirmed the impor­ tance of sympathy as an essential means of capturing the viewer’s atten­ tion, and freely quoted a maxim of La Rochefaucauld to support his claim. “ Dans les plus grands malheurs des personnes qui nous sont le plus chères, il y a toujours quelque chose qui ne nous déplaît pas.” 37 Diderot had come across La Rochefaucauld’s maxim in Burke’s Philo­ sophical Enquiry . . . on the Sublime and the Beautiful and his reading of the Enquiry seems to have confirmed his own views on the importance of feelings of empathy in aesthetic experiences, just as Burke’s notion of the sublime helped him to focus his own thoughts on that subject.38 With­ out the engagement of these feelings a work of art, in whatever medium, could not be truly beautiful.39 The fundamental source of these feelings was man’s concern for and interest in the fate of his fellow human beings. Burke had emphasized the importance of sympathy in Part One of the Enquiry, and Diderot echoed his sentiments in the Salon o f 1767. Il est beau, ¿1 est doux de compatir aux malheureux, il est beau, il est doux de se sacrifier pour eux. C 'est à leur infortune que nous devons la connaissance flatteuse de l’énergie de notre âme.40

For this reason Diderot argued that the most important talent any creative artist could possess, after the essential prerequisite of genius, was the ability to choose appropriate subjects.41 Diderot gave a long list of subjects which he considered were of universal significance and which would have an immediacy and relevance to people of all kinds. These included man in conflict with society or against tyranny, the dramas of domestic life and the inevitability of death. As Diderot went on to say: “ Il est difficile d’être fortement ému d’un péril qu’on n’éprouvera peut-être jamais. Moins la distance du personnage à moi est grande, plus l’attraction est prompte, plus l’adhésion est forte.”42 The effect of this type of subject, if well

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executed, was to draw the spectator into the fictional world of the paint­ ing. To illustrate his point Diderot related an anecdote concerning an elderly peasant woman who helped the judges of a painting competition decide which of two pictures of the Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew was the better. “ Celui-ci,” dit la bonne femme, “ me fait grand plaisir, mais cet autre me fait grand peine.” Le premier la laissait hors de la toile; le second l’y fesait entrer. Nous aimons le plaisir en personne, et la douleur en peinture.43

The most powerful painting, in Diderot’s view, was the one which acted so strongly on the viewer’s feelings that the distinctions between art and reality were for a time suspended.44 Of all the subjects explored by eighteenth-century painters, none achieved this end more effectively than the shipwrecks of Vernet and de Loutherbourg. Indeed, the only other painter to rival the dramatic im­ mediacy of their subjects was Greuze. Not only did their shipwrecks depict ordinary men and women suffering under extreme adversity, they also showed the heroism of which these same people were capable. The immediacy of such events was even more compelling because of the rel­ ative commonness of disasters at sea and because shipwrecks could affect the lives of people from every station in life.45 It is hardly surprising, therefore, to find that scenes of shipwrecks caused viewers to experience particularly strong emotions. Baillet de Saint Julien’s reaction to a Shipwreck Vernet exhibited at the Salon of 1753 may be regarded as typical: [the heart] se trouble comme l’élément en fureur qu’ils représentent: il espère, 0 craint avec ceux qui luttent contre les flots amers, prêts à les submerger, il se brise de douleur à l’aspect de ceux que leur triste sort en a rendu la victime.46

From this close identification with the painting’s subject it was only a small step to imagine that the shipwreck was really taking place. The wreck which seems about to occur in the foreground of Vernet’s Port o f Cette had exactly this effect on the critic of the Mercure de France in 1757. However, this tendency was developed in its most extreme form by Diderot in the Salon o f 1767, where he described a Shipwreck and a Fire at Sea as visions seen in a nightmare.47 The dream experience, in which the reason played no part and from which all the distractions which im­ pinged upon the waking mind were excluded, had a particular significance for Diderot. The sense of heightened reality and intense emotional in­ volvement experienced in dreams formed an ideal analogy for the state of rapt contemplation which he believed paintings should produce.48

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Although Diderot never regained the dream-like intensity of his re­ sponse to the marine disasters which Vernet exhibited in 1767, other critics continued to praise similar landscapes in these terms. A represen­ tative example comes from Minos au Sallon ou La Gazette infernale. Cette Tempête n’est pas une simple illusion; en la voyant on croit à quelque chose de plus. C ’est la Mer même qui roule ses flots tumultueux; on voit la profondeur des vagues et la transparence de l’eau qui se brise et qui jaillit; tout annonce le désastre, tout inspire l'épouvante et l’horreur . . . tout communique à l’âme un saisissement si prompt, qu’on peut à peine soutenir cet aspect terrible.4*

Written in 1785, this account indicates that Vernet’s storm scenes could still exercise a powerful influence on spectators at the Salon nearly forty years after the artist first began to exhibit there.50 The power of subjects which aroused feelings of empathy relied ul­ timately on the spectator’s ability to project himself imaginatively into the scene he was witnessing. Indeed, it was impossible for an artist to draw the spectator into the fiction of his creation without the complicity of the viewer himself. It was, therefore, crucial to ensure the spectator’s imag­ inative participation. Diderot described the imagination as “ la qualité sans laquelle on n’est ni un poète, ni un philosophe, ni un homme d’esprit, ni un être raisonnable, ni un homme,”51 and it soon becomes clear in reading his writings on art that he regarded the exercise of the spectator’s imag­ ination as being just as important as the artist’s own imaginative involve­ ment with his subject. Jolted into action by the vividness of the artist’s imitation, the spectator’s imagination provided everything that the painter, as a result of the limitations of his medium, was unable to supply: “ son âme mobile passera subitement de la douce et voluptueuse émotion du plaisir au sentiment de la terreur, si son imagination vient à soulever les flots de l’océan.” 52 The viewer’s participation made all the difference between a detached enjoyment of a painting and being transported with delight. The more receptive the spectator’s senses, the more fertile his imag­ ination, the greater the pleasure he would derive from a painting. As Diderot observed: “ le plaisir s’accroîtra à proportion de l’imagination, de la sensibilité et des connaissances. La nature, ni l’art qui la copie, ne disent rien a l’homme stupide ou froid, peu de chose a l’homme igno­ rant.” 53 According to Grimm: “ tout ce qui occupe notre imagination a pour nous un charme invincible. Plus un homme a reçu de la nature des organes délicats et sensibles, moins il sait résister aux attraits de l’imitation.” 54 It thus required special qualities not only to create a paint­ ing, but also to respond to it as a spectator.

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These imaginative qualities are exemplified in Diderot’s own art crit­ icism, which continually demonstrates how paintings can be brought to life through the imaginative response of the spectator. Indeed, one can argue that the painting itself comprised only one part of the work of art, the other being the spectator’s imaginative contribution. After all, wrote Diderot, “ l’artiste n’a-t-il aucun droit à compter sur mon imagination?” 55 If painters were now able to count on the spectator’s imaginative participation it was natural that they should produce works which took advantage of this new dimension. As early as 1751 Diderot had suggested the direction this development should take when he discussed the ex­ pressive power of music in the Lettre sur les sourds et muets. La peinture montre l'objet même, la poésie le décrit, la musique en excite à peine une idée. Elle n'a de ressource que dans les intervalles et la durée des sons; et quelle analogie y a-t-il entre cette espèce de crayons et le printemps, les ténèbres, la solitude, etc., et la plupart des objets? Comment se fait-il donc que des trois arts imitateurs de la nature, celui dont l'expression est la plus arbitraire et la moins précise parie le plus fortement à l’âme? Seroit-ce que montrant moins les objets, il laisse plus de carrière à notre imagination . . . ?56

Although Diderot was, at this stage, unwilling to venture beyond a hy­ pothesis that the expressive power of music was a direct result of the indeterminacy of its mode of expression, Grimm had no such doubts when he discussed the issue ten years later. In an article in the Correspondance littéraire which reveals the influence of Diderot, Grimm argued that there was a direct relationship between a work of art’s powers of suggestion and its ability to stimulate the spectator’s imagination. 11 est aisé au statuaire de nous toucher et de nous étonner, au peintre de nous émouvoir, au poète de nous embraser et de mettre notre âme en désordre, au musicien de porter ce désordre jusqu’à la frénésie et jusqu’au délire. Cette gradation . . . vient précisé­ ment des moyens que chacun des artistes emploie. Plus ils sont vagues, plus ils agissent fortement sur l’imagination; ils la rendent pour ainsi dire, complice de tous les effets. C ’est un chatouillement continuel et universel qui répand la volupté la plus exquise sur tous les points d ’un corps sensible; un contact fort et décidé ne fait pas la même impression.57

For this very reason, Grimm goes on to say, music is able to make such a strong effect on our emotions. Both Grimm and Diderot seem to suggest that if other art forms are to make a comparable impact on the spectator then they must also aspire to the suggestive and allusive mode of expres­ sion of music. It is generally thought that the belief that the visual arts must aspire to the condition of music was a creation of the Romantic movement, and

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resulted from “ the general shift from a mimetic to an expressive aes­ thetic.” 58 However, the development of this expressive aesthetic had taken place to a large extent during the course of the eighteenth century,59 and it seems that we must also modify our notions of the relationships between painting and music during the second half of the eighteenth century. The traditional framework of the visual arts already contained in­ determinate and allusive modes of expression in which the beholder was invited to participate. Sketches in particular, because they only suggested the image the painter would later elaborate, induced the viewer to com­ plete the composition himself.60 Diderot’s reflections on the suggestive powers of sketches in the Salon o f 1767 represent both a logical devel­ opment of ideas first explored in the Lettre sur les sourds et muets, and a continuation of the analogy with music. L’esquisse ne nous attache peut-être si fort que parce qu’étant indéterminée, elle laisse plus de liberté à notre imagination, qui y voit tout ce qu'il lui plaît. C ’est l’histoire des enfans qui regardent les nuées, et nous le sommes tous plus ou moins. C ’est le cas de la musique vocale et de la musique instrumentale: nous entendons ce que dit celle-là, nous fesons dire à celle-ci que nous voulons.61

However, there was also a potential for developing this allusive mode of expression in paintings which were, in formal terms at least, fully achieved works of art. By leaving the subject matter of their paintings relatively undefined and by depicting incidents which were independent of any anecdote already known from literature or history, artists forced the spectator to imagine a context for the action. One of the first masters of such subjects was Greuze. Virtually all the major canvases which he exhibited at the Salon in the 1750s and 1760s and which made such a powerful impression on the critics, were of this kind. A viewer, con­ fronted with Greuze’s A Marriage Contract (Louvre) at the Salon of 1761 had no means of knowing the events which came before or after the moment the artist had chosen to depict, nor any text to explain the precise meaning of the reactions exhibited by the figures in the painting. The content and meaning of the action was provided, not by literature or history, but by the spectator’s own imagination and experience. This new approach to painting is exemplified by the Girl weeping over her dead bird of 1765. Face to face with the canvas in the Salon, Diderot entered into an imaginary conversation with the girl, attempting to console her not only for the loss of her bird but for the loss of her virginity, this being, he imagined, the true cause of her distress.62 The fact that Diderot’s interpretation differed from those offered by other critics illustrates the extent to which the subject of the painting depended on the imaginative

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reaction of the viewer.63 It is, of course, virtually axiomatic that paintings which left so much to the imagination of the spectator would have a slightly different meaning for each person.64 By leaving the precise meaning of his pictures unstated and thus drawing the spectator into partnership in the creative act, the painter ensured the enthralment of his public. Almost without exception, the paintings which stimulated the most vivid and deeply felt reactions in the art criticism of Diderot and his contemporaries were those which most successfully activated the spectator’s own imagination by these means.65 The significance of this development becomes even clearer when one turns from Greuze’s genre pictures to the landscapes of Joseph Vernet. It has long been recognized that Greuze and Vemet showed a common interest in moral subjects, but the similarities of their subject matter goes further than this. Like Greuze’s genre scenes, Vemet’s shipwrecks and harbor scenes leave a great deal to the spectator’s imagination. Vemet almost never depicts historical or mythological events. The spectator is left to imagine the events which have led up to the moment depicted, and to wonder who these people are, and what their relationships are to one another. When Diderot described Vemet’s Fire at Sea in the Salon o f 1767 he transformed the picture into a “tableau vivant,” inventing a wealth of circumstantial detail that is only suggested by the instant represented by the artist. J'étais éperdu sur le rivage à l'aspect d'un navire enflammé. J'ai vu la chalouppe s'approcher du navire, se remplir d'hommes et s'éloigner. J'ai vu les malheureux, que la chalouppe n 'a pu recevoir, s'agiter, courir sur le tillac du navire, pousser des cris; j'a i entendu leur cris, je les ai vus se précipiter dans les eaux, nager vers la chalouppe s'y attacher. J'ai vu la chalouppe prête à être submergée; et elle l'aurait été, si ceux qui l'occupaient, ô loi terrible de la nécessité! n'eussent coupé les mains, fendu la tête, enfoncé le glaive dans la gorge et dans la poitrine, tué, massacré impitoyablement leurs semblables, les compagnons de leur voyage. . . ,66

Similarly, when he noticed two figures leaning against a wall in a Sunset also exhibited in 1767, Diderot could not resist speculating about their relationship. “ C’est un époux, peut-être et sa jeune épouse, ce sont deux amans, un frère et sa soeur.” 67 There was, of course, no way of knowing whether this was indeed the case, and this only enhanced the work’s attraction for Diderot. However, human action provided only one possibility for imaginative expansion in Vernet’s works. Equally important was the landscape itself, for the world of nature provided both artists and spectators with an un­ paralleled source of imaginative inspiration. Indeed, landscapes were ca­ pable of stimulating trains of thought which were only tenuously related to the image which formed their starting point.

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¡Describing two seascapes exhibited by Vernet in 1767, the critic of the Avant-coureur wrote: La vue se promène et se perd dans ces deux belles et grandes marines. . . . On y semble ressentir toute la chaleur brûlante des feux de soleil ou la fraîcheur de la nuit. La magie de la perspective et de la dégradation linéaire et aérienne ouvre un nouveau champ, un champ immense à l'imagination séduite.6*

The landscape was essentially only the starting point for the spectator’s own interior reverie. Mathon de la Cour, discussing this same pair of seascapes at the Salon of 1767, responded in a similar way. L’âme jouie de la vaste étendue des mers, de l'immensité des cieux, du silence ma­ jestueux de la nuit, et elle s’imbibe de cette melancolie si douce et si dangereuse qui fait le charme des coeurs sensibles.69

Although landscapes, unlike music, presented the viewer with a specific image, the effect which this image had on the beholder was very similar to that of music. The landscape did not express a specific message but evoked a mood which could be felt but hardly translated into verbal form. It is therefore particularly interesting to find a critic in 1785 attempting to describe the effects of Vernet’s landscapes by comparing them with the music of Rameau.70 The writings of J. J. Rousseau further illustrate the possibilities in­ herent in landscapes for producing states of reverie in which the viewer is conscious of nothing but his own thoughts and sensations. A passage from the Confessions provides a striking parallel with the states of rapt contemplation experienced before Vernet’s seascapes. “J’ai toujours aimé l’eau passionnément, et sa vue me jette dans une rêverie délicieuse, qu­ oique souvent sans objet déterminé.” 71 The posthumously published Rêv­ eries contain even more enthusiastic descriptions of the delights of this emotional state induced by the contemplation of nature: “ plongé dans mille rêveries confuses, mais délicieuses, et qui sans avoir aucun objet bien déterminé ni constant, ne laissaient pas d’être à mon gré cent fois préférables à tout ce que j ’avais trouvé de plus doux dans ce qu’on appelle les plaisirs de la vie.” 72 One might be tempted to dismiss Rousseau’s musings as the products of an over-sensitive intelligence if it were not for the abundance of similar reactions to nature. In 1775, for example, Guibert, a soldier and author of several military texts, described how the sight of the ocean made him fall “ dans le vague, dans le sombre, dans l’infini, c’est comme la vue du ciel et la pensée de l’éternité.” 73 Diderot had described similar states of imaginative entrancement before nature considerably earlier in the Entretiens sur le fils naturel, a work which

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looks forward to the formal structure of the “ Vernet promenade.” The “ Second Entretien” begins with a description of Dorval enraptured before a mountain landscape. Il s'était abandonné au spectacle de la nature. Il avait la poitrine élevée. Il respirait avec force. Ses yeux attentifs se portaient sur tous les objets. Je suivais sur son visage les impressions diverses qu'il en éprouvait; et je commençais à partager son transport, lorsque je m’écriai, presque sans le vouloir “ Il est sous le charm e.” 74

The “ Vernet promenade” provides yet another example of the spectator before a landscape (in this instance Diderot himself in front of a painted landscape) lost in the delicious wanderings of his thoughts: le spectacle des eaux m'entraînait malgré moi. Je regardais, je sentais, j ’admirais, je ne raisonnais plus, je m ’écriais: ô profondeur des mer s ! . . . Et je demeurais absorbé dans diverses speculations entre lesquelles mon esprit était balancé, sans trouver d'ancre qui me fixât.75

Indeed the whole “ Vernet promenade” may be understood as a long “ reverie” before nature, during which the “philosophe” discusses, in a discursive way, the ideas which spring to his mind in an almost involun­ tary fashion as he contemplates each of Vernet’s landscapes. The degree of indeterminacy imposed upon landscapes could differ from one type of landscape to the next, and from one artist to another. Views of sunsets by Vernet, for instance, seem to have allowed the be­ holder’s imagination to roam with great freedom. Hubert Robert’s ruin landscapes, on the other hand, directed the spectator’s thoughts along a more clearly defined path, although even here the way in which ideas could be developed was quite individual, as Diderot demonstrated. L’effet de ces compositions, bonnes ou mauvaises, c ’est de vous laisser dans une douce mélancolie. Nous attachons nos regards sur les débris d ’un arc de triomphe, d ’un portique, d’une pyramide, d’un temple, d ’un palais, et nous revenons sur nousmêmes; Nous anticipons sur les ravages du temps, et notre imagination disperse sur la terre les édifices même que nous habitons; à l’instant la solitude et le silence régnent autour de nous, nous restons seuls de toute une nation qui n’est plus; et voilà la première ligne de la poétique des ruines.76

Diderot did not stop at this point, as the last sentence above suggests, for once his imagination had received an initial stimulus he soon found it running beyond the limits of Robert’s powers of invention. Les idées que les ruines réveillent en moi sont grandes. Tout s ’anéantit, tout périt, tout passe, il n’y a que le monde qui reste, il n’y a que le temps qui dure. Qu’il est vieux, ce monde! Je marche entre deux éternités.77

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This famous passage, usually taken out of context to indicate the effect Robert’s paintings had on Diderot, in fact describes the sensations which he failed to discover in the young artist’s work. The way in which the content of a landscape could be expanded through the operation of the spectator’s imagination may be better under­ stood if we consider for a moment the views of the Scottish philosopher, Archibald Alison, a writer who was equally familiar with the aesthetic theories of the French Encyclopedists as with those of his British con­ temporaries. Alison’s Essays on the Nature and Principles o f Taste ap­ peared in Edinburgh in 1790 and are a summation of much of the aesthetic thinking of the previous half century. . . . I believe every man of sensibility will be conscious of a variety of great or pleasing images passing with rapidity in his imagination, beyond what the scene or description immediately before him can of themselves excite. They seem often indeed, to have but a very distant relation to the object that first excited them; and the object itself, appears only to serve as a hint, to awaken the imagination, and to lead it through every analogous idea that has place in the memory. It is then, indeed, in this powerless state of reverie, when we are carried on by our conceptions, not guiding them, that the deepest emotions of beauty or sublimity are felt, that our hearts swell with feelings which language is too weak to express, and that in the depth of silence and astonish­ ment we pay to the charm that enthrals us, the most flattering mark of our applause.7*

Alison made associationism the very basis of his aesthetics, and the af­ finity of his ideas with those of Diderot need hardly be emphasized.79 To reinforce his argument, Alison cited a long passage from Thomas Whately’s Observations on Modern Gardening, a work which appeared in French translation within a year of its publication in 1770. Whately’s remarks are worth quoting as well, both for their amplification of Alison’s ideas as well as for the light they throw on Diderot’s Salon. The mind is elevated, depressed, or composed, as gaiety, gloom, or tranquility prevail in the scene, and we soon lose sight of the means by which the character is formed. . . . It suffices that the scenes of nature have power to affect our imagination and sensibility . . . when the passions are roused, their course is unrestrained, when the fancy is on the wing, its flight is unbounded, and quitting the inanimate objects which first gave them their spring, we may be led by thought above thought, widely differing in degree, but still corresponding in character, till we rise from familiar subjects up to the sublimest conceptions, and are rapt in contemplation of whatever is great or beautiful, which we see in nature, feel in man, or attribute to the divinity.80

It is clear from Whately’s Observations that nature was able to stimulate trains of associated thoughts not only in its untamed state, or in paintings, but also when composed by the gardener’s art. Whately’s importance in

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the history of gardening lies in his advocacy of gardens which were unen­ cumbered with emblematical statues or pavilions which, he believed, di­ rected the beholder’s thoughts along too rigorously determined paths. Whether in a garden, or before a painted landscape, the spectator’s thoughts needed to have free reign if he was to experience the pleasures of nature to their full. The idea of the garden is particularly appropriate to the discussion of Diderot’s “ Vernet promenade,” for his description of the series of sites suggests a long walk in a landscape garden of an extent and magnificence which could only exist in the imagination. Diderot may well have had in mind the long walks he took with Baron Holbach while staying at the latter’s country house at Grandval. One of these walks was described in a letter to Sophie Volland. Entre trois et quatre, nous prenons nos bâtons et nous allons promener, les femmes de leur côté, le Baron et moi du nôtre; nous faisons des tournées très-étendues. Rien ne nous arrête, ni les coteaux, ni les bois, ni les fondrières, ni les terres labourées. Le spectacle de la nature nous plaît à tous deux. Chemin faisant, nous parlons ou d ’histoire, ou de politique, ou de chimie, ou de littérature, ou de physique, ou de morale. Le coucher du soleil et la fraischeur de la soirée nous rapprochent de la maison où nous n’arrivons guères avant sept heures.*1

The similarity of this description with Diderot’s imaginary walk in the company of the abbé and his pupils is very close indeed. Diderot, it should be emphasized, was familiar with the latest devel­ opments in garden design. In 1762 he described a visit to La Briche, the estate of Mme. d’Epinay, and it has been suggested that this may well be the first description of an irregular garden in France.82 In addition he reported to Sophie the unflattering opinion Baron Holbach had formed of an “ emblematic” garden near London, possibly Lord Burlington’s at Chiswick. In the eighteenth century, gardens were thought of as tranquil places in which to walk and philosophize,83 and it would have been quite natural for Diderot to think in terms of a landscape park with a sequence of artfully composed “ sites” when he imaginatively entered the land­ scapes Vernet had created.84 Thus in Diderot’s Salon the idea of the garden as a place for philosophical discussion and the belief in the power of landscapes to suggest an astonishing variety of associated ideas are combined to provide the framework for the discussion of Vernet’s landscapes. Diderot’s “ Vernet promenade” is surely the finest example in all eighteenth-century art criticism of a viewer’s imaginative ability to expand the subjects of a group of paintings. Paradoxically, however, Diderot’s article also incorporates an important analysis of the limitations which

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circumscribed the spectator’s response. With the insight acquired from his varied roles as creative artist, critic, and “ philosophe,” Diderot was acutely aware that the kind of dream-like response he described in the Salon o f 1767 was always at risk of diffusion and disappearance. The article on Vemet’s landscapes falls into two distinct parts. In the first six sections Diderot responded enthusiastically to the landscapes, allowing his imagination to lead his reflections wherever it pleased.85 At the end of this section, he abandoned the fictive promenade and in the following pages the merits and defects of each landscape are analyzed with a detachment which comes as a surprise after the previous section.86 Before the end of the article is reached, however, Diderot returns once more to the enthusiastic mode of the earlier section in order to recount his “ nightmare” vision of the Storm and Fire at Sea , 87 These two ap­ proaches illustrate one of the central conflicts of Diderot’s art criticism, a conflict which he examined in the Essais sur la peinture. Paintings could be approached, on the one hand, through the reason and judgment, as he did in the second part of the Vernet article. On the other hand, there was the irrational response of “ sensibilité” and enthusiasm. A spectator fol­ lowing the first approach would conclude coldly: “ Cela est beau!” One who followed the latter approach would be: “ ému, transporté, ivre. . . . il ne trouvera point d’expressions qui rendent l’état de son âme.” 88 The first spectator remains detached, outside the work of art, while the second becomes involved and enters the fiction of the work completely. Diderot could see the positive and negative aspects of both these ap­ proaches. “ Le plus heureux est, sans contredit, ce dernier. Le meilleur juge? C’est autre chose.” 89 An excess of enthusiasm and sensibility ren­ dered the spectator incapable of distinguishing between an excellent and a mediocre work, since he was affected indiscriminately by either. How­ ever, an excess of critical analysis tended to produce a cold and unemo­ tional reaction which was, as far as Diderot was concerned, equally undesirable. It was essential for the spectator to find a balance between the direct and unconstrained reaction which would allow him to experi­ ence the full intensity of a painting, and the degree of critical judgement necessary to discern the true worth of the artist’s creation.90 Diderot grappled with this problem throughout his Salons, submitting many paintings to a rigorous critical scrutiny, yet also placing his critical faculties aside from time to time to immerse himself in the landscapes of Vernet and de Loutherbourg, or a history painting by Fragonard. In a letter to Sophie Volland, written while he was composing the Salon o f 1765, Diderot commented on his new found ability to balance these fa­ culties. “ Je me suis convaincu qu’il me restoit pleinement, entièrement toute l’imagination et la chaleur de trente ans, avec un fonds de connaiss-

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ance et de jugement que je n’avois point alors.” 91 He was, in fact, able to oscillate between these two poles, as we see in his reaction to the Shipwreck Vernet painted for him in 1769. In the slightly earlier Regrets sur ma vieille robe de chambre his reaction is unconstrained and enthu­ siastic. In the Salon o f 1769, however, his response is dominated by his critical faculties and he can no longer experience the same enthusiasm as before.92 While the experience of writing his Salons made Diderot aware of the difficulty of maintaining a balance between these different modes of perception, it also prompted him to explore the deeper causes of this conflict. There was, in his view, a fundamental difference between imag­ ination and judgment. L’imagination et le jugement sont deux qualités communes et presque opposées. L'imagination ne crée rien, elle imite, elle compose, combine, exagère, agrandit, ra­ petisse, elle s’occupe sans cesse de ressemblances. Le jugement observe, compare, et ne cherche que des différences. Le jugement est la qualité dominante du philsophe; l’imagination, la qualité dominante du poète.93

As “ l’esprit philosophique” progressed through the ages, men acquired ever greater critical intelligences. “ Il s’introduit par la raison une exact­ itude, une précision, une méthode . . . une sorte de pédanterie qui tue tout: tous les préjugés civils et religieux se dissipent, et il est incroyable combien l’incrédulité ôte de ressources à la poésie. . . .’,94 Made ever more aware of the true nature of things, men could no longer readily surrender themselves to the illusion of art. Children and savages were able to accept the most schematic representations as standing for the thing itself, whereas the critical and skeptical minds of Diderot’s generation demanded art works of the utmost sophistication in order to experience a comparable degree of illusion and to be moved with equal intensity. For them, all the resources of art were necessary to achieve and maintain a state of com­ plete illusion. The spectator’s critical sense had only to intrude momen­ tarily, the artist had only to betray the artificiality of his creation to the slightest degree, and the magic of art was destroyed. Ultimately the prob­ lem went beyond the limitations of an individual artist’s expressive means to the artificiality of art itself. “ Il y a dans la poésie toujours un peu de mensonge; l’esprit philosophique nous habitue à le discerner et adieu l’illusion et l’effet.”95 This passage is found, appropriately, in the “ six­ ième site” of the “ Vernet promenade,” just before Diderot destroyed the illusion of his presence in the landscape. Perhaps more clearly than any of his contemporaries, Diderot real­ ized the fundamental incompatibility of the reason and the imagination.96

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Indeed a conflict was almost inevitable between the spirit of critical in­ quiry which sought to unravel the secrets of the universe and contem­ porary demands for an art directed to the emotions and imagination. The ability of painting to stop, hold, and attach the viewer could no longer be taken for granted, when at any moment the spectator might cease to see the subject depicted and And instead only a series of colored marks on a flat surface. The extraordinary intensity which infuses all Diderot’s art criticism derives, I believe, from the tension introduced into his experi­ ence of painting through his sense of the conflict between reason and the imagination.97 His encounter with Vernet’s landscapes in the Salon o f 1767, however, helped him to see that the tendency of art to evaporate under the scrutiny of the understanding could be resisted if the painter was able to attain a persuasiveness which would draw the beholder ir­ resistibly into the picture space. As a result of their attempt to dispel the irrationalism which sur­ rounded human existence, the “ philosophes’’ discovered the need for an art which would restore to life some of the mystery that had been lost. In restoring the imaginative dimension of life, landscape painting had an important role to play. Le grand paysagiste a son enthousiasme particulier, c ’est une espèce d ’horreur sacrée. Ses antres sont ténébreux et profonds; ses rochers escarpés menacent le ciel; les torrents en descendent avec fracas, ils rompent au loin le silence auguste de ses forêts. L’homme passe à travers de la demeure des démons et des dieux. C’est là que l’amant a détourné sa bien-aimée, c ’est là que son soupir n’est entendu que d ’elle. C ’est là que le philosophe, assis ou marchant à pas lents, s ’enfonce en lui-même. Si j ’arrête mon regard sur cette mystérieuse imitation de la nature, je frissonne.9*

Here, in the Pensées détachées sur la peinture, Diderot explained the ultimate cause of his fascination with landscape painting.

4

The Drama of Landscape When in 1765 Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg exhibited his paintings at the Salon for the second time, Diderot, who had been impressed by the young artist’s earlier efforts in 1763, encouraged him to persevere in his chosen genre. Nevertheless he advised the painter to devote more time to the study of nature out of doors if he wished to develop his talents to the full. However, rather than simply listing the kind of natural phe­ nomena which the artist should study, Diderot presented his readers with an image of nature as a continually unfolding spectacle. Quitte ton lit de grand m atin.. . . Devance le retour du soleil. Vois son disque obscurci, les limites de son orbe effacées, et toute la masse de ses rayons perdue, dissipée, étouffée dans l'immense et profond brouillard qui n’en reçoit qu’une teinte foible et rougeâtre. Déjà le volume nébuleux commence à s’affaisser sous son propre poids; il se condense vers la terre; il l’humecte, il la trempe, et le globe amolli va s’attacher à tes pieds. Tourne tes regards vers le sommet des montagnes. Les voilà qui commencent à percer l’océan vaporeux. Précipite tes pas; grimpe vite sur quelque colline élevée, et de-là contemple la surface de cet océan qui ondule mollement au dessus de la terre, et découvre à mesure qu’il s’abaisse, le haut des clochers, la cime des arbres, les faîtes des maisons, les bourgs, les villages, les forêts entières, toute la scène de la nature éclairée de la lumière de l’astre du jour. . . .*

By describing nature as a constantly evolving process, Diderot empha­ sized the enormous variety of effects which the landscape painter could portray; he also implied that the artist should concern himself not simply with isolated scenes but with the very process of transformation and change itself. This view is further emphasized in a related passage in the Pensées détachées where Diderot described the process by which the light of the rising sun suddenly transformed a scene in nature: “l’astre du jour a paru, et tout a changé par une multitude innombrable et subite de prêts et d’emprunts; c’est un autre tableau, où il ne reste pas une feuille, pas un brin d’herbe, pas un point du premier.” Only at the end of the paragraph does it become apparent that he has been describing the

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changing images of nature as seen by the landscape painter. “ Mets la main sur la conscience, Vernet, et réponds-moi: Es-tu le rival du soleil? Et ce prodige est-il aussi au but de ton pinceau?” 2 On the basis of this evidence, I would argue that Diderot’s conception of landscape painting, like his conception of nature, was in essence both dynamic and dramatic. However, as Diderot and his contemporaries were well aware, a painting could represent only a single instant in time. Faced with the limitations of his medium, how was the landscapist to convey a faithful impression of the movement and change which formed an integral part of the natural world? The problems faced by the landscape painter were, in fact, very similar to those confronted by the history painter. Both aimed to represent subjects which involved action and movement by means of the static art of painting. By first examining contemporary views on history painting it should be possible to arrive at a better understanding of the way land­ scapists dealt with this dilemma. In recent years there has been a growing recognition that the impor­ tance given to the representation of human action and the passions in French art theory and criticism of the second half of the eighteenth cen­ tury represented something more than a desire to reassert the primacy of history painting in the hierarchy of genres.3 Although this new preoccu­ pation can be detected slightly earlier in the writings of other critics, notably Laugier and Grimm, it found its fullest expression in Diderot’s art criticism. The close relationship between his views on the theatre and his attitude towards painting, the stress which he placed on the represen­ tation of extreme emotions and violent subject matter, as well as his in­ sistence that painters depict the climactic moment of an event, all point towards a specifically dramatic conception of painting. The interconnectedness of these concerns is perhaps best illustrated by the remarkable passage in the Salon o f 1765, where Diderot described Fragonard’s Corésus sacrificing himself to save Callirhoé. In conversation with Grimm, he recounted a dream, inspired by reading Plato, in which he saw a series of images projected on a screen in a darkened room. One by one the images approached closer and closer to the climactic moment of Fragonard’s painting until the point where dream and reality corre­ sponded exactly. At this moment Grimm exclaims: “ Voilà le tableau de Fragonard, le voilà avec tout son effet.”4 By imagining a series of instants which Fragonard could have chosen to paint, Diderot was able to dem­ onstrate the dramatic rightness of the instant the artist eventually chose, while at the same time illustrating his understanding of painting as the depiction of a significant moment suspended from the ceaseless flow of events.

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Diderot’s preoccupation with the essentially instantaneous nature of painting is forcefully expressed in the article “Composition” : “ le peintre n’a qu’un instant presque indivisible; c’est à cet instant que tous les mouvements de sa composition doivent se rapporter.” Indeed, the painter’s choice of moment was the most crucial decision he made in the whole process of conceiving his work: “ l’instant une fois choisi tout le reste est donné.” 5 Previous writers had, of course, been aware that paintings could depict only a single moment of time, and earlier in the eighteenth century the Abbé Du Bos had emphasized the need for painters to concentrate on the complete expression of their chosen moment.6 However, this con­ cern stemmed primarily from a desire that painters should not offend against the temporal limitations of their medium. There is little in the writings of these earlier theorists to indicate that they shared Diderot’s consciousness of the multiplicity of instants within a single event, so clearly demonstrated in his analysis of Fragonard’s Corésus and Callirhoé. When in the Essais sur la peinture, Diderot restated his belief that paintings should represent only the briefest instant of time, he subtly modified his views by suggesting the possibility that a painting might retain some trace of the previous moment: comme sur un visage où régnait la douleur et où l’on a fait peindre la joie, je retrouverai la passion présente confondue parmi les vestiges de la passion qui passe; il peut aussi rester, au moment que le peintre a choisi, soit dans les attitudes, soit dans les carac­ tères, soit dans les actions, des traces subsistantes du moment qui a précédé.7

This change of emphasis confirms Diderot’s awareness of the ability of painting to depict not only the effects of the instant but the intercon­ nectedness of every moment. Thus, the artist’s chosen moment, “ dont la durée est celle d’un coup d’oeil,” must not be seen as an event existing in isolation, but as part of the ongoing movement of time.8 Although this specifically dramatic conception of painting was for­ mulated primarily with regard to history painting, that is to say in terms of the human figure in action and the expression of the passions, it is fundamental, as I have already suggested, to Diderot’s conception of land­ scape painting. Indeed, his dramatization of the phenomena of nature at the beginning of the article on de Loutherbourg in the Salon o f 1765 is as important to our understanding of his conception of landscape as his description of Fragonard’s Corésus and Callirhoé later in the same Salon is to our understanding of his views on history painting. Diderot’s vision of the dynamism inherent in landscape painting was in turn a reflection of his revolutionary conception of the workings of the natural world. In the concluding section of De l’interprétation de la nature

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(1753) Diderot challenged orthodox notions of a fixed and ordered uni­ verse and proposed a view of the world in which all natural phenomena were interconnected in a constant state of transformation. Anticipating the discoveries of modem science, he argued that the ever changing world of nature operated in a time span which in comparison with that encom­ passed by the life of man, approached the infinite.9 But as he made very clear in the Encyclopédie two years later, this vast spectacle was com­ pletely meaningless without the presence of man. Si l’on bannit l’homme ou l’être pensant et contemplative de dessus la surface de la terre, ce spectacle pathétique et sublime de la nature n ’est plus qu’une scène triste et muette; l’univers se tait, le silence et la nuit s’emparent. Tout se change en une vaste solitude où les phénomènes inobservés se passent d’une manière obscure et sourde.10

The cosmic drama of nature, evolving over millions of years, like a vast work of dramatic art, required an audience to give it meaning. Although Diderot’s speculations on the nature of the universe were considerably more daring than those of many of his contemporaries they were closely related to the most advanced ideas of contemporary science. In particular he was influenced by Buffon’s Histoire naturelle which had begun to appear in 1749. Buffon’s work asserted both the unity and the dynamism of nature: la Nature est elle-même un ouvrage perpétuellement vivant, un ouvrier sans cesse actif, qui sait tout employer, qui travaillant d ’après soi-même, toujours sur le même fonds, bien loin de l’épuiser le rend inépuisable: le temps, l’espace et la matière sont ses moyens, l’Univers son objet, le mouvement et la vie son b u t.11

Buffon went on to describe the forces which activate the movements of the sea and the air, which in turn cause storms or calm weather; all is interconnected, nothing is fortuitous or arbitrary. The implications of these ideas for landscape painting were consid­ erable. The relationship of the spectator to a painted landscape was a microcosm of the perceptual relationship of man to nature at large. Just as the order which man found in the world of nature was an illusion which stemmed from the briefness of the life of an individual in relation to the vast time-scale of nature, so too did the order imposed on nature by the landscapist represent only the record of the single instant in the con­ stantly changing spectacle surrounding him. By choosing to depict the most evanescent of natural phenomena, as well as different times and different atmospheric effects, the landscapist was able to heighten the spectator’s awareness of the dynamism of nature, for ultimately such

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landscapes could be seen as epitomizing the vast but imperceptible changes occurring in nature over millions of years. Although many critics may not have been fully aware of the impli­ cations of these new ideas, a widespread appreciation of the landscapist’s concern with instantaneity can be discerned in art criticism throughout the second half of the eighteenth century. In 1746 La Font de Saint-Yenne commented on Vemet’s ability to fix on his canvas the most fleeting impressions which nature presented, describing the artist as “ un Phisicien habile scrutateur de la Nature, dont il fait épier les moments les plus rapides et les plus singuliers avec une sagacité étonnante.” 12 Aware that nature was never the same from one moment to the next, La Font de Saint-Yenne saw the difficulty of representing instantaneous effects as one of the central problems of landscape painting. These same difficulties were emphasized by the critic of the Mercure de France in 1759. Of Vernet’s landscapes he remarked: “ on y voit les effets de la nature les plus étonnans et les plus difficiles à rendre parce qu’ils sont momentanés et que le pinceau est obligé de les saisir comme au passage.” 13 Fréron’s account of the landscapes Vernet exhibited in 1765 expressed a similar concern. How was it possible, he asked, “ à rendre à ce degré de vérité même sans les voir des instans si rapides de cette nature?” 14 Indeed, the difficulties which the landscape painter faced in rendering “ les phéno­ mènes de l’instant” 15 were akin, if not quite comparable to those con­ fronted by the history painter. As Diderot noted in the Essais sur la peinture, the history painter had often to paint subjects either from his imagination or from the recollections of an event which had lasted for only an instant.16 The parallel between landscape and history painting may be taken even further. Like the history painter, who had to arrest the flow of action at the most compelling moment, the landscapist also had to select his instant with great care, so that his chosen moment would epitomize the state of nature he wished to portray. The interest of eighteenth-century critics in the instantaneous nature of landscape painting and, at least in La Font de Saint-Yenne’s case, in the singularity of natural phenomena, reveals a different set of concerns from those which they attributed to seventeenth-century landscape paint­ ers. In comparing Claude with Vernet, Cochin observed that “le Peintre moderne connaît encore mieux les variétés de la Nature, et qu’il produit des Tableaux plus différens dans leurs beautés.” 17 Diderot also com­ mented on the greater range of natural phenomena which Vernet’s land­ scapes explored. He found there “ l’univers montré sous toutes sortes de faces, à tous les points du jour, à toutes les lumières.” Although both Claude and Vernet were equally true in their rendering of nature, in Di­ derot’s opinion, Claude chose moments which were more ideally beau­

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tiful: “ des moments plus rares et des phénomènes plus extraordinaires.” 18 Yet although Claude might surpass Vernet in this respect, Vernet’s mo­ ments, because they were more common, were more easily recognizable, and in the eyes of Diderot and his contemporaries, this was a merit rather than a fault. The difference between the eighteenth-century concept of landscape painting and that of the previous century was highlighted in the criticism of the Abbé Le Blanc in 1747. Following the arguments of the seventeenth-century historian, the Abbé Saint-Réal, Le Blanc claimed that be­ cause painting was a static medium and only able to depict an instant in time, artists should avoid subjects which emphasized the instantaneous nature of their medium. Instead they should concentrate on subjects where the action had reached a point of repose, where movement had ceased, or in the case of landscapes, when nature appeared to be still. According to Le Blanc, landscapists who painted storm scenes with lightning flashes, as even some seventeenth-century painters, including Poussin, had done, offended against both common sense and the proper limitations of their medium. For this reason, the landscapes which Le Blanc admired most were those by northern artists which showed nature in repose, although he could equally have chosen the works of Claude to illustrate his arguments.19 The extent to which Le Blanc’s views differed from those of his contemporaries is indicated by the vehemence with which his ideas were attacked. The Abbé Gougenot, an honorary member of the Académie Royale and a friend of the foremost painters of his day, took particular exception to Le Blanc’s views on landscape. His comments are especially interesting because they almost certainly reflect contemporary artistic thinking on this matter: si jamais il y a un sujet susceptible d'action et de variété, ce sont les sujets de Paysage: il n'est pas possible d'y supposer un instant la nature dans le même état. Le Paysage change et varie tout autant de fois que la réfraction de la lumière du Soleil qui l’éclaire. La nature vous paroît en ce moment claire et lumineuse, de manière que tout cède à la clarté du Soleil; un instant après survient un orage, le Ciel s'obscurcit, ces maisons qui étoient auparavant d'un ton mat deviennent à leur tour lumineuses en comparaison des nues. . . . C 'est donc heurter de front la vraisemblance, que de supposer la nature en repos dans le Paysage, puisqu'il foudroit pour cela y supposer la lumière fixe, ce qui est de toute impossibilité. . . . Ce n'est donc pas comme le prétend M. l'Abbé le B. parce qu'on voit dans les Tableaux de Paysages plus de repos, qu'ils plaisent plus universellement; mais c'est par la raison contraire, qu'ils sont susceptibles de plus de variété et de mouvement.20

For Gougenot, as for Diderot, the very essence of landscape painting resided in its almost limitless possibilities for movement and drama, pos­

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sibilities which contemporary critics saw as inherent in the single instant chosen by the painter.21 It may seem paradoxical that the ability of painting to represent a single moment of time was seen by critics as a compelling means for depicting the movement of nature, but this was none the less the case. Diderot commented on Vemet’s ambition to create the illusion that the clouds in his paintings were moving. “ Les autres, en obscurcissant leurs ciels de nuages, ne songent qu’à en rompre la monotonie; Vernet veut que les siens aient le mouvement et la magie de celui que nous voyons.” 22 Ten years later the Mémoires secrets recorded an anecdote which shows how successful Vernet was in creating the illusion of movement. While visiting the Salon an “ amateur” remarked to the painter: “Je me hâte toujours . . . à chaque fois que je viens ici, de considérer ces nuages chargés qui forment votre orage, car j ’appréhende qu’ils ne soient diffous et évanouis à mon retour.” 23 When in 1789 the Gazette Nationale summed up Vemet’s achievements shortly after his death, it too commented on his ability to suggest the continual movement of nature through the depiction of instantaneous effects. “ Quelle fonte et quel mouvement admirable dans ces ciels! quelle indécision inexprimable dans ses brouillards!” 24 By rep­ resenting the appearance of nature at the very moment of change, the landscapist was able to suggest the state of nature existing both before his chosen moment as well as that about to follow.25 In view of the growing emphasis placed on the instantaneous nature of landscape painting, it is not surprising to find that artists were exploring new methods of recording the most fugitive natural phenomena. Roger de Piles listed a variety of methods which landscapists could employ to make studies after nature, ranging from chalk drawings and watercolors, to oil sketches and systems of short-hand color notation.26 Of these tech­ niques the oil sketch was certainly the most useful, since, as Vemet re­ marked, “ on a le dessin et la couleur en même temps.” 27 Desportes had painted oil studies directly from nature at the end of the seventeenth and in the early years of the eighteenth century, and it is known that Vernet made similar studies, although none of these have come to light. They may well have been similar to those of Valenciennes, who used them to record rapidly changing cloud formations and light effects.28 Valenciennes was acutely aware of the ceaseless drama of light and shade which modified the appearance of every landscape: les effets de la Nature ne sont presque jamais les mêmes aux mêmes instans ou à pareille heure . . . il est absurd à un Artiste de passer toute une journée à copier d'après Nature une seule vue car vouloir lier tous les instans successifs du jour et leurs effets gradués dans un seul moment, est le comble de la fausseté et la preuve la plus complète d ’un manque absolu de jugem ent.29

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It was necessary, Valenciennes argued, “ de saisir l’ensemble, le ton local et la lumière du moment du jour que l’on veut peindre” in the briefest possible space of time. To do this, oil sketches made during a period of no more than two hours and often in as little as half an hour, were es­ sential. With the aid of these “ maquettes” the artist was able to imbue his finished works with “ l’ensemble et l’unité des tons qui régnent à l’heure du jour que l’on a choisie.” 30 Vernet also emphasized the impor­ tance of clearly expressing the specific time of day chosen by the painter. “ Il faut,” he wrote in his letter on landscape painting, “ que l’heure que l’on choisit pour peindre un tableau se fasse sentir partout, et que chaque objet participe du ton général qu’offre la nature.” Nevertheless, invaluable as oil sketches were, they inevitably took time to make, and during this time the appearance of a landscape could change completely. A method which would allow natural phenomena to be recorded almost instantaneously was needed. One solution was the so-called “ alphabet of tones” devised by Vernet, a technique which, as Philip Conisbee has suggested, may have originated in the system of color notation described by de Piles.3' He advised landscape painters always to carry paper and crayon with which to make rapid sketches of any memorable effects they saw, indicating the colors with figures or letters. However, de Piles saw this method merely as an expedient to be used in place of the more laborious color sketch, which required considerably more equipment to execute. Vemet’s “ alphabet of tones” on the other hand, was used, not as a substitute for the oil sketch, but because it allowed light effects to be recorded almost as swiftly as they occurred. This intention becomes clear when one reads the description of the tech­ nique published by Vernet’s friend, the painter Antoine Renou. Enflammé à la vue de ces tableaux superbes, mais fugitifs, qui roulent dans les airs au-dessus de nos têtes, cet artiste, pour fixer sur la toile leur mobile harmonie, inventa un alphabet de tons, qu’il partoit toujours sur lui, dans un livre garni de plusieurs feuilles blanches. Les caractères divers de son alphabet étoient accollés à autant de teintes différentes. S ’il voyoit, au milieu des plus brillantes couleurs, se lever ou se coucher le soleil, un orage s’approcher ou s’enfuir, il ouvrait ses tablettes, et aussi promptement que l’on jette dix ou douze lettres sur le papier, il indiquoit toute la gradation des tons du ciel qu’il admiroit. Revenu chez lui, cet artiste, qui ne pou voit arrêter dans son atelier ce spectacle passager, l’ayant fixé aussi rapidement que l’éclair sur ses tablettes, le rendoit sur la toile d ’après ses chiffres, et jouissoit encore du charme de l’accord parfait des tons et de la justesse des effets qui l’avoit enchanté en contemplant le Ciel.32

The “ alphabet of tones” was strictly speaking only an aid to the painter’s memory and must have been of limited use as a means for accurately

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recording the transitory effects of nature. Its greatest significance lies in the evidence it provides of the artist’s overriding concern with instantaneity. Other means also existed by which landscape painters could empha­ size the essentially dramatic and instantaneous nature of their genre. The illusion that the movement of nature had been magically arrested on the canvas was enhanced by introducing figures who were themselves sus­ pended in the midst of some action. In Vernet’s view of the Garden o f the Vigna Ludovisi, for example, the artist chose to show the precise moment when the garden fountains begin to play, surprising and wetting the ladies standing nearby.33 Similarly, in the imaginary Seaport of 1749, now in San Diego,34 he depicted the instant at which a traveler, returning from a sea voyage, embraces his wife. The instantaneity is accentuated further by the cloud of smoke from a cannon which is fired aboard a ship in the harbor at this very moment. It is not difficult to find similar examples, either among Vernet’s works, or in those of other contemporary landscape painters. One thinks, for instance, of Hubert Robert’s view of the newly erected Pont de Neuilly35 where the artist has selected the exact moment when the cen­ tering of the arches is pulled away, collapsing into the Seine in a cloud of spray. The same artist’s The Accident,36 which shows a man plunging to almost certain death from the top of a ruined temple, creates the most complete expression of instantaneity by suggesting at the same time the fatal slip which precipitated the man’s fall, as well as his imminent fate. Indeed in the work of the most ambitious landscapists every device was used to create the illusion of an instant frozen in the ongoing movement of time. The dramatic power which a landscape painter was able to concen­ trate into a single instant is brilliantly conveyed by Diderot’s description of a Shipwreck exhibited by Vemet in 1771. Un vaisseau brisé par la tempête contre un vaste rocher est coulé bas, on n’en apperçoit que les agrès. L’orage, à peine éloigné, tient encore le ciel en désordre, les éclairs brillent au loin et la foudre tombe. Ici le précepte d’Horace est bien observé en maître, tout est tiré du sujet, tout court à l'action. Là, des matelots secourent un malheureux sans vètemens, qui luttant contre la mort, attrape et grimpe le long d ’un cordage qu’on lui tend pour gagner le mât, son unique espoir. Ici, une femme échappée à la fureur des flots, est entraînée loin d’eux par des matelots secourables; enfin on n’apperçoit que de funestes effets de la rage de ce cruel élément. Loin de se relâcher, M. Vemet s’est, je crois, surpassé dans ce morceau qui est du plus grand effet et de la plus grande vérité.*7

Vemet reinforces the precise moment through a variety of means. Flashes of lightning in the distance and the dramatic struggle of the voyagers to

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save themselves from the elements emphasize the instantaneous nature of the scene. However, in spite of the destruction everywhere apparent, the height of the storm has passed, suggesting that calmer weather will soon arrive. Within a single instant the painter suggests what has come before as well as what will come after this moment, thereby heightening the dramatic impact of his work. The shipwreck, in which the drama of man and the drama of nature are fused in an ongoing struggle, thus be­ comes an image of the state of constant transformation which character­ ized the Enlightenment’s new vision of the natural world.38 One consequence of the preoccupation of landscape painters and critics with the issues of instantaneity and change was the growing im­ portance attached to pairs and sets of landscapes during the second half of the eighteenth century. Although, as I have already argued, temporal change could be suggested within the compass of a single canvas, a se­ quence of events could be more fully developed if the number of images was multiplied. In fact, Roger de Piles had advocated the use of series of images if painters wished to represent successive phases of an event: si la Poésie augmente le plaisir par la variété des épisodes, et par le détail des cir­ constances, la Peinture peut en représenter tant qu’elle voudra, et entrer dans tous les événemens d’une action, en multipliant ses Tableaux; et de quelque manière qu’elle expose ses Ouvrages, elle ne fait point languir son Spectateur. . .

Although de Piles was almost certainly thinking of a narrative series of history paintings such as Rubens’s Medici Cycle, the concept was sub­ sequently applied to landscape painting. Indeed the series format may be seen as a logical development of a conception of landscape painting which emphasized the irresistible movement inherent in the natural world. In the work of painters like Vernet and de Loutherbourg, the land­ scape series usually took the form of sets of the Times o f day.40 These usually consisted of four canvases representing morning, midday, evening, and night, although series of six and eight canvases were also executed.41 Rather surprisingly, in view of the popularity of these series, they received scant critical attention during the course of the century. Diderot, for ex­ ample, mentions the set of “ les quatre parties du jour” exhibited by Ver­ net in 1765, but he says nothing specific about either the individual canvases or the series itself.42 For specific comments, one has to wait until the end of the century, when Valenciennes devoted a long section to the subject as a whole and to the individual moments which make up the series. Ce sont ces momens variés et réguliers qui forment la chaîne de notre vie; mais il est bien peu de mortels qui sachent les goûter et en sentir le charme. C’est à leur con­ templation que Pâme s ’épanouit et connoît tout le prix de son existence. Les plaisirs

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qu'elle procure sont purs et innocens; ils nous attachent encore plus à ce qui nous entoure, et leur jouissance est un hommage renouvelé sans cesse qui rapproche l’homme sensible du créateur de toutes les merveilles de la nature.43

In spite of the rather conventional piety of the last lines, Valenciennes’s primary concern is with the ceaseless movement of time and the constant cycle of renewal and change to be found in nature. Although there is no comparable discussion of landscape series in Diderot’s art criticism, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that his views were essentially the same as those of Valenciennes. As I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, Diderot described the transformation of the landscape which occurs be­ tween early morning and sunrise in terms of a succession of “ tableaus” by Vernet, while in the Salon o f 1767 he merged all the landscapes Vernet exhibited in that year into one large series unified by the ongoing move­ ment of time over three days. Significantly, at the beginning of the 1767 “ promenade,” Diderot restated his belief in an ordered but constantly evolving natural world. “ Il y a une loi de nécessité qui s’exécute sans dessein, sans effort, sans intelligence, sans progrès, sans résistance dans toutes les oeuvres de Nature.”44 However, the fundamental iconoclasm of Diderot’s views in comparison with the more conventional sentiments of Valenciennes can be seen in his insistence that nature evolves according to its own laws and with complete indifference to man. “ Nous sommes dans la nature, nous y sommes tantôt bien, tantôt mal. . . . La nature est bonne et belle quand elle nous favorise, elle est laide et méchante quand elle nous afflige.”45 Diderot’s rejection of the traditional anthropocentric view of the world had important consequences, for it suggested that paint­ ers should study every aspect of nature. A series of landscapes depicting the widest possible range of natural phenomena could only increase man’s awareness and understanding of the processes which animated the world in which he lived. In sum, a series of landscapes made explicit the vision of nature which individual landscapes could only suggest. . The ability of the landscape series to express more fully the Enlight­ enment’s vision of an ordered but constantly evolving universe formed only part of its expressive function. The serial format also provided paint­ ers with a framework for exploring the wide expressive range made pos­ sible by a great variety of natural effects. In comparison with history painting, which was able to illustrate within the confines of a single canvas a wide range of emotional responses to a single dramatic event,46 land­ scape painting was limited to expressing a single dominant mood, whether it be the terror induced by a storm scene at one extreme, or the serenity and repose of a sunset at another. However, the juxtaposition of land­ scapes which depicted nature under differing conditions allowed the painter

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to extend the emotional range of the genre, giving it something of the complexity and variety available to history painting. This point can be illustrated more clearly by first considering land­ scape pairs. Probably the earliest discussion of landscape pendants in the history of art appeared in Gerard de Lairesse’s Het Groot Schilderboek in 1707.47 Lairesse singled out the qualities of variety and contrast as the essential characteristics of any two landscapes intended to be hung together. There is even no country so despicable but in less than nine miles distance it will exhibit a new prospect. How can it displease a painter to represent stormy weather and then calm and delightful sunshine? since the great unlikeness causes variety and this charms the eye . . . why, after satisfying my curiosity in viewing a solitary wil­ derness, should I not eiyoy the pleasure of a pleasant plain? or a woody landscape in opposition to an agreeable water view and a delightful prospect? I think the word fellows sufficiently implies that they are two pictures of equal size, alike framed and receiving the same light. As for the thoughts or design, the more different they are, the more agreeable and the better showing the richness of the m aster’s fancy.48

An essential part of Lairesse’s argument is contained in the last sentence. By pairing very different canvases the artist was able to show not only the variety of nature but also the range of his own powers of expression and invention, and by implication, the rich expressive possibilities of land­ scape painting itself.49 The fundamental importance of variety and contrast in eighteenthcentury aesthetics has been pointed out by Jean Starobinski among oth­ ers,50 and indeed these issues are discussed at some length in Montes­ quieu’s Essais sur le Goût. The imposing scenery of Lake Maggiore, where idyllic islands are set in a lake surrounded by rugged mountains, provided Montesquieu with an example of natural variety which would have been approved by Gerard de Lairesse. L’âme est étonné de ce contraste romanesque, de rappeller avec plaisir les merveilles des romans, où après d ’avoir passé par des rochers et des pays arides, on se trouve dans un lieu fait pour les fées. Tous les contrastes nous frappent, parce que les choses en opposition se relèvent toutes les deux. . . .

Contrasts were both able to heighten the effect of each source of pleasure and at the same time to provide necessary relief from sensations which became too intense: . . . tout nous fatigue à la longue, et surtout les grands plaisirs; on les quitte toûjours avec la même satisfaction q u’on les a pris, car les fibres qui en ont été les organes ont

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besoin de repos; il faut en employer d'autres plus propres à nous servir et distribuer pour ainsi dire le travail.51

Montesquieu described his reaction to violent contrasts in sensationalist terms which parallel the way in which critics responded to paintings in the Salon. Diderot, for example, turned to the still lifes of Chardin to soothe not only his eyes, but also his emotions after they had been aroused by the violent subject matter of history paintings.52 Although Montesquieu was primarily concerned with defining the nature of taste in abstract terms, similar criteria were applied directly to paintings by Watelet only a few years later. “On sait . . . que les objets qui ont les caractères les plus opposés, produisent ce qu'on appelle de beaux Effets en Peinture . . . pourvu qu’ils soient placés à propos.” He went on to illustrate this point by juxtaposing descriptions of contrasting landscapes. J ’aime à voir décrits ou représentés les champs d’Eden, et les montagnes entassées par les Géants; le soleil qui, prêt à descendre dans des nuages, embellit et éclaire le palais et les enchantements d’Armide; ou sur les bords d’une mer en fureur, la foudre échappée des ténèbres qui brise les rochers qu’elle éclaire. . . .5Î

Watelet could almost have been describing pairs of landscapes by Vernet or de Loutherbourg and it is hardly surprising to find contemporary critics discussing paired landscapes in exactly these terms. A pair of landscapes which Vernet painted for the Chevalier Le Gendré d’Aviray in 1765 prompted Diderot to recreate their effect by juxtaposing descriptions of each canvas in the introduction to his article on Vernet. He began with a vivid description of the Shipwreck but then immediately followed this with a description of its pendant. “Tournez vos yeux sur une autre mer,” he advised the spectator, “ et vous verrez le calme avec tous ses charmes.” 54 Just as Vernet was able to increase the impact of his Shipwreck by pairing it with a tranquil landscape, so was Diderot able to increase the effectiveness of his description of one canvas by contrast­ ing it with the other. TWo years later the critic of the Journal encyclopédique described the series of opposed sensations which Vernet’s landscapes made him experience: il fait éprouver un spectateur les sensations du froid ou du chaud, les impressions d ’un jour serein ou d ’un vent furieux; l’oeil se fixe sur ses marines croit voir l’agitation des vagues ou les ondulations d’une mer calme.55

The effect of the paired Shipwreck and Sunset painted for the Elector Palatine in 1771 was described even more graphically by Mairobert in the Mémoires secrets.

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The Drama o f Landscape Dans sa tempête avec le naufrage d'un bâtiment, on se trouve le coeur serré, on sent ce qu'éprouvent ces malheureux qu'il peint; on voit le ciel s’entr’ouvrir, la foudre en tomber et la mer engloutir un vaisseau. Le calme renaît à la vue d'une paysage et marine au coucher du Soleil; on oublie toutes les calamités de l’autre scène, et l’on participe aux occupations tranquilles des nouveaux habitants, ou l’on jouit de leurs plaisirs.54

Having been raised to a pitch of terror and excitement by the storm scene, the spectator’s emotions were soothed and restored to tranquillity through the contemplation of the sunset. This effect was, of course, increased by the added intensity which each work gained from being opposed to one so completely different.57 As one might expect, the opposition of effects was equally important in more extended groups of landscapes. This was particularly true of the sets of the Times o f day painted by both Vernet and de Loutherbourg.58 Indeed the very essence of the motif was the variety and contrast existing between the different hours of the day which the artist chose to portray. This assumption underlies Valenciennes’s discussion of the motif in the Réflexions à un Elève. Painters usually divided the day into four periods, he observed, because “ on trouvoit dans chacune d’elles et à l’instant déterminé pour chaque division, des contrastes plus décidés, des oppo­ sitions plus prononcées et les effets plus distincts.” He further empha­ sized the importance of contrasts between each landscape in a set when he described the effect made by the series as a whole. On a reconnu qu’en faisant quatre tableaux de ces instans de la journée et en les réunissant ensuite dans un même local, on en obtenoit beaucoup plus d'effet que s’ils eussent été séparés; que la fraîcheur du matin étoit mieux sentie à côté du brûlant horizon du soir, et qu'on appréçoit mieux le calme de la nuit et la lumière argentine et douce de la lune, en les mettant en opposition avec la lourde atmosphère et les rayons éblouissans du soleil à l’heure du midi.59

The intensification of effect which resulted from these contrasts, as well as the more varied and complex impression made by the ensemble, should be recognized as an important stage in the development of new expressive powers for landscape painting. Both Diderot and Cochin had remarked on the wide range of natural effects encompassed by Vernet’s art in par­ ticular, and early in the nineteenth century the painter and critic C.J.F. Lecarpentier recognized the expressive opportunities which this en­ hanced variety had created. Il est vrai de dire que Vernet a trouvé le moyen d’ennoblir un genre que les peintres de Hollande ses prédécesseurs avoient traité avec beaucoup de succès. . . . Vernet a le grand avantage sur les peintres de l’école hollandaise de s’être fait un genre tout

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différent, d ’avoir varié à l’infini les effets de la mer suivant les divers changements de l’atmosphère, ainsi que l'indication de chaque heure du jour, dont il a tellement saisi le caractère et la couleur, qu’il est impossible de s’y méprendre.60

The landscapist’s exploitation of both the endless variety of natural phe­ nomena as well as the dramatic potential of the contrasts existing between one canvas and another thus helped the genre to rival the intensity and drama of history painting. A recurring feature of Vemet’s sets of the Times o f day which re­ quires some explanation is his inclusion of storm scenes in the canvases representing midday. Although the popularity of the subject might seem to be a sufficient reason for its inclusion, the storm scenes nevertheless performed a specific function within the series. First, as in landscape pairs, these scenes were well-suited to providing the dramatic contrast necessary to offset the predominantly calm subjects of morning, evening, and night. Second, within the framework of the Times o f day, storm scenes solved an additional problem which had concerned painters for at least a century. Landscapists had traditionally favored scenes of sunrise and sunset as these hours exhibited varied and unusual atmospheric ef­ fects as well as rich contrasts of light and shade. Night scenes allowed painters the chance to explore the effects of moonlight as well as provid­ ing opportunities to contrast natural and artificial light, but during the middle of the day all these advantages were lost since, as Diderot ob­ served, “ les objets sont comme abreuvés de lumière.” 61 Although paint­ ers had been advised to introduce clouds and storm scenes to relieve the monotony of the unvaried light of midday since the seventeenth century,62 Vernet seems to have been the first landscapist to exploit the expressive possibilities of what had hitherto been regarded as a difficulty which it was better to avoid. Valenciennes was surely paying tribute to his pre­ decessor’s contribution when he advised students of landscape that “ [le midi] est l’heure la plus convenable pour représenter le spectacle terrible d’un orage ou d’un ouragon.” 63 The distinctive characteristics of the landscapes of an eighteenthcentury artist like Vernet can be better appreciated if his approach is compared with that of Monet, the most distinguished nineteenth-century painter to explore the series format. Whereas Monet’s series chart the minute variations of light falling on a single real motif, those of his eigh­ teenth-century predecessor depict the effects of widely differing moments of time and atmospheric conditions on varied imaginary sites (the mist of early morning, a storm at midday, the golden glow of sunset, and the moonlight of night). Nor do the differences end here, for the human presence, often excluded altogether from Monet’s images, was used by

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Vernet to accentuate further the differences between each canvas. As a critic remarked of the series painted for the Dauphin in 1763, “ les quatres parties du jour,” were represented “ avec des figures qui sont occupées aux différens travaux qui ont rapport au moment.” 64 Thus, while Monet, “ the anxious observer of the differences between minutes,” 65 sought to achieve his effects through the subtlest variations of light, color and motif, Vernet aimed to move the spectator by juxtaposing landscapes which would arouse radically different responses.66 According to the aesthetic standards of the eighteenth century, the series was an unrivalled means for demonstrating both the expressive power of landscape painting as well as the dramatic potential of the phe­ nomena of nature. For the painter the Times o f day provided a motif for demonstrating his mastery over the widest spectrum of natural phenom­ ena and of a comprehensive range of landscape expression.67 It is surely not a coincidence that in 1763, the year in which Vernet first exhibited a set of the Times o f day at the Salon, Diderot chose to celebrate the artist’s supreme power as an interpreter of the natural world. C ’est Vernet qui sait rassembler les orages, ouvrir les cataractes du ciel et inonder la terre; c ’est lui qui sait aussi, quand il lui plaît, dissiper la tempête et rendre le calme à la mer, et la sérénité aux deux. Alors toute la nature sortant comme du chaos, s’éclaire d’une manière enchanteresse et reprend tous ses charmes. Comme ses jours sont sereins! comme ses nuits sont tranquille! comme ses eaux sont transparentes! C ’est lui qui crée le silence, la fraîcheur et l’ombre dans les forêts. C ’est lui qui ose sans crainte placer le soleil ou la lune dans son firmament. Il a volé à la nature son secret; tout ce qu'elle produit, il peut le répéter.61

One final development of the concepts I have been concerned with in this chapter still needs to be discussed, but in order to do so we must briefly turn our attention from France to England. In 1771 de Loutherbourg traveled to London where he soon established himself as Garrick’s chief scene painter at Drury Lane. In 1781 he embarked on a theatrical venture of his own, combining his talents as a theatrical designer and landscape painter to create a new stage spectacle, the Eidophusikon.69 Although usually discussed in histories of English landscape as well as in accounts of the theatre, the Eidophusikon’s real significance can only be appreci­ ated if it is viewed in the context of French landscape painting of the second half of the century. It consisted of a small stage (approximately six feet by eight feet) on which the artist presented, by means of moving scenery and adjustable lighting, animated natural scenes. To heighten the illusion the action was contained within the frame of the proscenium arch and the auditorium was darkened. De Loutherbourg’s intentions were outlined in the European Maga­ zine early in 1772.

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He resolved to add motion to resemblance. He knew that the most exquisite painting represented only one moment of time of action, and though we might justly admire the representation of the foaming surge, the rolling ship, the gliding water, or the running steed; yet however well the action was depicted, the heightened look soon perceived the object to be at rest, and the deception lasted no longer than the first glance. He therefore planned a series of moving pictures, which should unite the painter and the mechanic by giving natural motion to accurate resemblance.70

It is clear from this account that de Loutherbourg saw the Eidophusikon from the point of view of a landscape painter eager to overcome the limitations of his medium, rather than as a stage designer wishing to exploit the subject matter of painting. The Eidophusikon thus brought to a logical conclusion the ambitions of eighteenth-century landscape paint­ ers to represent the endless movement of the natural world with complete fidelity. By bringing movement to views of nature the Eidophusikon finally allowed the art of landscape and the drama of nature to become one. The scenes which de Loutherbourg chose to present reveal yet an­ other aspect of his project which can be traced to his earlier career in France. A program published in the Morning Herald on March 14, 1781 announced five scenes interspersed with four transparencies and musical performances. The scenes were: 1st Aurora, or the Effects of the Dawn, with a view of London from Greenwich Park. 2d.Noon, the Port of Tangier in Africa, with the distant View of the Rock Gibraltar and Europa Point. 3d.Sun-set, a View near Naples. 4th, Moonlight, contrasted with the Effect of Fire. . . . The conclusive scene A Storm and Shipwreck.7'

With its representations of dawn, noon, sunset, and moonlight, as well as the concluding storm and shipwreck, the program was clearly derived from the sets of the Times o f day which Vernet had established as one of the major themes of landscape painting during the previous decades. Some idea of the effects of these scenes can be gauged from W.H. Pyne’s account of the opening “ tableau.” The opening subject of the Eidophusikon represented the view from the summit of One-tree Hill, in Greenwich Park, looking up the Thames to the Metropolis. . . . This scene, on the rising of the curtain, was enveloped in that mysterious light which is the precurser of daybreak, so true to nature, that the imagination of the spectator sniffed the sweet breath of morn. A faint light appeared along the horizon; the scene assumed a vapourish tint of grey; presently a gleam of saffron, changing to the pure varieties that tinge the fleecy clouds that pass away in morning mist; the picture brightened by trees and the projections of the lofty buildings, and burnishing the vanes on the cu­ polas; when the whole scene burst upon the eye in the gorgeous splendour of a beauteous day.72

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Pyne’s description inevitably recalls Diderot’s evocation of dawn in the Salon o f 1765 with which I began this chapter, just as de Loutherbourg’s whole enterprise brings to mind Diderot’s account of the dream in which he saw Fragonard’s Corésus and Callirhoé.li De Loutherbourg’s audience, long familiar with Vernet’s landscapes and undoubtedly conditioned by contemporary attitudes towards paint­ ing, must have been ready to surrender themselves completely to the illusion of nature changing and evolving before their eyes. Furthermore, they would have been equally prepared to savour to the full the contrast­ ing sensations aroused by the variety of scenes presented to them, sen­ sations made even more intense by the new dimensions of time and movement. Although short-lived, the success of the Eidophusikon was immense. Reynolds advised his friends to take their daughters while Gainsborough visited the exhibition repeatedly. Gainsborough was even inspired to con­ struct an illuminated “ exhibition box” of his own in which to view land­ scapes painted on glass.74 In 1781 Diderot was writing his last Salon and one wonders if he received reports of the remarkable exhibition which had recently taken place in London. There is no evidence that he did, but surely if he had been able to visit the Eidophusikon, he too would have been entranced.

Notes Preface 1.

“ Esthetic Theory and Criticism in the Enlightenment: Some Examples of Modern TVends,” in Introduction to Modernity, ed. Robert Mollenauer, Austin, Texas, 1965, p.73.

2.

More detailed accounts of the Salon with additional references may be found in Denis Diderot, Salons, I, ed. Jean Seznec and Jean Adhémar, Oxford, 1957, pp. 1-8 and Pierre Rosenberg, The Age o f Louis X V , Toledo, 1975, pp.9-10.

3. For the development of art criticism in France see, H. Zmÿewska, “ Le Critique des Salons en France avant Diderot,“ G.B A ., LXXVI, 1970, pp. 1-143. 4. “ Towards a Supreme Fiction: Genre and Beholder in the Art Criticism of Diderot and His Contemporaries,“ New Literary History, VI, 1974-75, pp.543-85; “ Absorption: A Master Theme in Eighteenth-Century French Painting and Criticism,“ Eighteenth-Cen­ tury Studies, IX, 1975-76, pp. 139-77; “ Absorption and theatricality: painting and be­ holder in the age of Diderot,“ Studies in Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, CLII, 1976, pp.753-77. These articles form the basis for Fried's book, Absorption and The­ atricality: Painting and the Beholder in the Age o f Diderot, Berkeley, 1980. 5. See, for example the comments of Georges Wildenstein in the collection of essays, Le Paysage Français de Poussin à Corot, L. Hourticq et al., Paris, 1925, p.51. “ Entre Tannée 1730 environ et la fin du XVIIIe siècle s’étend l’une des périodes les plus fécondes de la peinture de paysage en France.” 6. See Absorption and Theatricality, p.76.

Chapter 1 1. André Félibien, Coréférences de iAcadém ie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Paris, 1668. The quotation is taken from Rensselaer W. Lee, Ut Pictura Poesis: The Humanist Theory o f Painting, Art Bulletin, 1940; rpt. New York, 1967, p. 19, n.78. 2. Jonathan Richardson, An Essay on the Theory o f Painting, London, 1725. French edition, Paris, 1728. 3. See Joseph Burke, English Art : 1714- 1800, Oxford, 1976, p.l97ff. with references to further literature. 4. For Reynolds’s objections to Richard Wilson’s attempts to elevate landscape see his Discourses on A rt, ed. Robert Wark, Yale, 1975, p.255 and also Burke, p.227.

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Notes fo r Chapter 1

5.

La Font dc Saint-Yenne, Réflexions sur quelques causes de l'état présent de la peinture en France, The Hague, 1747, pp.30-31.

6.

Denis Diderot, Salon de 1763 in Salons, ed. Jean Seznec and Jean Adhémar, Oxford, 1957-67,1, p.229. All further references to Diderot's Salons are to this 4 vol. edition.

7.

Jean-B aptiste D eperthes, Théorie du Paysage . . . , Paris, 1818, p .l. D eperthes (1761-1833), although a pupil of Valenciennes, devoted his energies to writing about landscape rather than actually painting.

8.

Quoted by Jean-Baptiste Oudry in his “ Conférence" read before the Académie Royale in 1749, printed in Conférences de l'Académie Royale . . ., ed. Henri Jouin, Paris, 1883, p.381.

9.

Boucher's pupil Juliart is a good example. See Correspondance des Directeurs de l'A c a d é m ie de F rance à R o m e avec les S u rin te n d e n ts d e s B â tim e n ts , ed . A. de Montaiglon and J. Guiffrey, Paris, 17 vols., 1887-1912, X, pp.185-86. According to Diderot Juliart had no talent for landscape either, Salons, III, pp. 175-77.

10. This is not to say that there were no landscape painters of talent working in France during the seventeenth century. The most important included Jean François Millet, Jean Le maire, Pierre Patel the Elder, and Jacques Rousseau. See Anthony Blunt, Art and Architecture in France; 1500 to 1700, Harmondsworth, 1970, pp. 184-85. 11.

Rudolf Wittkower, Art and Architecture in Italy; 1600-1750, Harmondsworth, 1958, p. 19.

12.

E.H . Gombrich, “The Renaissance Theory of Art and the Rise of Landscape,” in Norm and Form; Studies in the art o f the Renaissance, London, 1966, p. 115.

13.

Quoted by Gombrich, p. 107. On Norgate see also H.V. and M. Ogden, English Taste in Landscape in the Seventeenth Century, Ann Arbor, 1955.

14. Roger de Piles, Cours de Peinture par principes, Paris, 1708, p.230. 15. Félibien, quoted by Lee, p. 19, n.78. 16. De Piles, p.54. 17. Lee, p. 19. 18. De Piles, p.202. 19.

Ibid., p.204. De Piles’s distinction between the heroic and pastoral categories of land­ scape may be traced back to Vitruvius's account of the different properties of the tragic, the comic, and the satyric scenes of the classical theatre. For the origin and subsequent development of these categories see Gombrich, “ The Renaissance Theory of Art and the Rise of Landscape,” pp. 119-21.

20. Ibid., p.231. 21. Ibid., pp.229-30. 22.

The fundamental study on Du Bos is Alfred Lombard, L'Abbé Du Bos, un initiateur de la pensée moderne, Paris, 1913.

23.

Abbé Du Bos, Réflexions Critiques . . ., Paris, 1733, II, p.323.

Notes for Chapter 1

89

24. Ibid., I, p.51. 25. Ibid., I, pp.52-53. 26. Ibid., I, p.54. 27.

On the revival of history painting see Jean Locquin, La Peinture d ’Histoire en France de 1747 à 1785, Paris, 1912, p.5ff.

28.

The best modem account o f Vemet’s career is that by Philip Conisbee, Claude-Joseph Vemet, London, 1976. See also Léon Lagrange, Joseph Vernet, Paris, 1864 and Flor­ ence Ingersoll-Smouse, Joseph Vemet;peintre de marine, 1714-1789, 2 vol., Paris, 1926.

29. “ La Critique des Salons en France avant Diderot," G.Æ.A., July-August, 1970, p.34. 30. La Font de Saint-Yenne, p. 101. 31. Ibid., pp. 102-3. 32.

Abbé Gougenot. Lettre sur la peinture, la sculpture et Varchitecture, 1748. This may be found in vol. Ill o f the collection of eighteenth-century Salon criticism compiled by Mariette, Cochin, and Deloynes, now held in the Cabinet des Estamps, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, hereafter referred to as Deloynes collection. The contents of the collection are listed by Georges Duplessis, Catalogue de la Collection de Pièces sur les Beaux-Arts imprimées et manuscrites recueillies par Pierre-Jean Mariette, Charles-Ni­ colas Cochin, et M. Deloynes . . . , Paris, 1881.

33.

Baillet de Saint-Julien, Lettres sur la peinture à un amateur, Geneva, 1750, p.24. De­ loynes collection, IV, no.46.

34.

The view that genius should not be bound by distinctions between the genres is well illustrated by Diderot’s almost complete disregard for such considerations in his lit­ erary works. As Dieckmann has observed: “ not one [of Diderot’s narrative works] has any indication of the literary genre to which it might belong in Diderot’s opinion, and critics have found it very difficult to classify them .” “ The Relationship Between Di­ derot’s Satire I and Satire II,’’ in Studien zu Europäischen Aufklärung, Munich, 1974, p.73.

35.

Baillet de Saint-Julien, pp.24-25.

36.

Ibid., p.26.

37.

Pierre Estève, Lettre à un ami sur l’exposition des tableaux, faite dans le grand Sallon du Louvre le 25 août 1753, p. 11, Deloynes collection, V, no.56.

38.

Baillet de Saint-Julien, La Peinture, ode de Milard Telliab, London, 1753, p.10. De­ loynes collection, V, no.57.

39.

On Diderot’s attitude towards history painting see Jean Seznec, “ Diderot and Histor­ ical Painting,” in Aspects o f the Eighteenth Century, ed. Earl Wasserman, Baltimore, 1965, pp. 129-42. In my view Seznec somewhat overstates the case.

40.

Salons, I, p.67.

41.

Salons, II, p. 123.

42.

Diderot, Essais sur la peinture, in Oeuvres esthétiques, ed. Paul Vernière, Paris, 1968, pp.725-26. All further references to the Essais sur la peinture and the Pensées détachées sur la peinture are to this edition.

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Notes for Chapter 1

43.

Ibid.,p.727.

44.

It is worth recalling here Wittkower’s observation that “ the glorious inconsistencies in Diderot’s writings appear paradoxical only if one attempts to dissect his personality by separating his retardative from his advanced views,” “ Imitation, Eclecticism, and Genius,” in Aspects o f the Eighteenth Century, p. 145.

45.

See Locquin, pp. 162-63. The phrase “ école de moeurs” comes from La Font de SaintYenne’s Sentiments sur quelques ouvrages du Salon de 1753.

46.

Salons, I, p.233.

47.

Salons y III, p. 143.

48.

Ibid., p. 142.

49.

Ibid., p. 144.

50.

For the importance of empathy and immediacy as means for drawing the spectator into the fiction of the work of art see chapter 3 below, pp.56-57.

51. Salons, III, pp. 163-64. 52. Oeuvres esthétiques, p.764. 53. Salons, III, p.267. 54. Ibid., p.268. 55. Ibid., p.268. 56. A brief review o f the translation of Burke’s Enquiry appeared in the Correspondance littéraire in March, 1765. See the edition by Maurice Toumeux, Paris, 1877-82, VI, p.237. If Diderot wrote this review, as has been suggested, he was not impressed with the translation, but its appearance no doubt prompted him to re-examine the original. 57.

“ Diderot and Burke; a study in aesthetic affinity,” P.M .L.A., LXXV, 1960, 527-39. For a survey of ideas concerning the sublime see Samuel H. Monk, The Sublime, Ann Arbor, 1960.

58.

Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin o f Our Ideas o f the Sublime and Beautiful, ed. James T. Boulton, London, 1958, p.39.

59. Salons, III, p. 165. 60. Burke, p.45. 61.

Burke remarks: “ As our creator has designed we should be united by a bond of sympathy, he has strengthened that bond by a proportionable delight, and there most where our sympathy is most wanted, in the distress of others.” p.46.

62. Ibid., pp.57-58. 63. Salons, III, p. 165. 64. Oeuvres esthétiques, pp.97-98. 65. Salons, III, p. 166. Some years later, in one of the Pensées detachées, Diderot applied these concepts specifically to landscape. See Oeuvres esthétiques, p.772.

Notes for Chapter 1

91

66.

[Elie Fréron], “ Exposition des Peintures, Sculptures et Gravûres,” L'Année littéraire, 1759, V, p.227.

67.

Claude-Henri Watelet, L'Art de Peindre . . . Avec des Réflexions sur les différentes parties de la peinture, Paris, 1760, pp. 123-24.

68.

Ibid., p. 124.

69.

Ernest TUveson, “ Space, Deity, and the "Natural Sublime/ ” M.L.Q. XII, March, 1951, pp.20-38.

70.

Addison’s essays are among the most important early discussions of the significance of landscape as a direct source of imaginative stimulation. See in particular Spectator nos.411-14. On Addison's aesthetic theories see Walter J. Hippie, The Beautiful, the Sublime, and the Picturesque, Carbondale, Illinois, 1957, pp. 13-27. For the influence of the Spectator in France see Peter Gay, The Enlightenment, 2 vols., London, 1970, II, pp.51-55.

71.

Spectator, no.413.

72.

Salons, I, p.218. cf. Diderot's remarks in the Lettre sur les sourds et m uets, ed. Paul Hugo Meyer, Diderot Studies, VII, 1965, p. 101, “ Convenez . . . que si les astres ne perdoient rien de leur éclat sur la toile, vous les y trouveriez plus beaux qu’au fir­ mament, le plaisir réfléchi qui naît de l'imitation s'unissant au plaisir direct et naturel de la sensation de l'objet. Je suis sûr que jamais clair de lune ne vous a autant affectée dans la nature que dans des Nuits de Vernet.”

73.

Salons, II, p. 118.

74.

Salons, III, p.230.

75.

For a more detailed discussion of the significance of the spectator’s creative partici­ pation in the work of art see chapter 3 below, pp. 59-62. The “ beholder’s share” is discussed from a different point of view by E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion, 2nd ed., London, 1962, pp. 154-244.

76.

In 1747 the Abbé Le Blanc observed that “ le froid qu’on reproche aux Paysages n’y est pas, il n’est que dans ceux qui n’en sont pas affectés.” Lettre sur l'exposition des Ouvrages de peinture, sculpture . . . de l'année 1747, Paris, 1747, p. 157. Le Blanc thus anticipates Diderot in suggesting that the sensibility of the spectator has an important part to play in the appreciation of landscapes.

77.

Christian Ludwig von Hagedorn, Refléxions sur la Peinture, Paris, 2 vols., 1775, I, p.319. The influence of Hagedorn’s ideas is in evidence throughout the Pensées dé­ tachées. See also Paul Vernière, “ Diderot et Hagedorn, une étude d’influence,” Revue de litt comparée y 1956, pp.239-54.

78.

For an examination of the landscapes of Vernet, Robert, de Loutherbouxg, and Volaire in relation to K ant’s discussion of the sublime in his Critique o f Pure Reason (1790) see French Painting 1774-1830: The Age o f Revolution, Paris and New York, 1974-75, pp.676-77.

79.

“ Lettres sur les salons de 1773, 1777 et 1779 adressées par Du Pont de Nemours à La Margrave Caroline-Louise de Bade,” ed. Karl Obser, Archives de l'Art Français, Nou­ velle Période, II, 1908, pp.20-21.

92

Notes fo r Chapter 1

80.

Françoise Soubeyran and Jacques Vilain, “ Gabriel Bouquier, Critique du Salon de 1775,“ La Revue du Louvre, XXV, 1975, p.96.

81.

Coup de Patte sur Le Sallon de 1779, Deloynes collection, XI, no.202.

82.

Discours sur 1*origine, les progrès et l'état actuel de la peinture en France, 1785. De­ loynes collection, XIV, no.325, pp.29-30.

83. “ Dialogue des morts . . . ,” Journal Général de France, October 2, 1787, pp.469-70. 84. Hagedorn, I, p.320. 85. Les tableaux du Louvre où il n'y a pas les sens commun. Histoire véritable, 1777. Deloynes collection, X, no. 186, p. 12. 86.

“ Première lettre sur les peintres . . . 1771,“ Mémoires secrets, 36 vols., London, 1777-89, XIII, p.69.

87. Ibid., XIII, p.216. In 1775 Mairobert observed: “ Le genre du paysage continue à être fort à la mode parmi nos peintres, comme le plus aisé, comme celui de plus prompte défaite, et qui assujettit moins le génie à des règles précises.“ XIII, p. 172. 88. Ibid., XXXVI, pp.379-80. 89. On this see Locquin and Robert Rosenblum, Transformations in Late Eighteenth-Century Art, Princeton, 1967. 90. Courtes mais véridiques réflexions sur l'exposition des tableaux de l'année 1775.De­ loynes collection, X, no. 159, p. 12. For illustrations of these two works see Conisbee, nos. 46 and 47. 91. Journal de Paris, 1785. Deloynes collection, XIV, no.350. 92. Wille’s painting is illustrated in the catalogue of the exhibition, The Age o f Revolution, p.83. The vogue for depicting real shipwrecks in English romantic painting is discussed by T.S.R. Boase, “ Shipwrecks in English Romantic Painting,” J .W .C .I., X X II, pp.332-46. The culmination of this trend in French painting came in 1819 with the exhibition o f Géricault’s Raft o f the Medusa. 93. The subject of Vernet’s painting comes from Bernadin de Saint-Pierre’s novel Paul et Virginie, first published in 1788. The immense popularity of the book would have ensured that the subject of the painting was almost as well known as a real event. Vernet’s painting is now in the Hermitage, Leningrad. For an illustration see Conisbee, 1976, no.48. 94. C.H. Watelet and P.C. Levesque, Encyclopédie Méthodique: Beaux Arts, 2 vols., Paris, 1787-91, I. 95. Early in the nineteenth century Vemet’s importance as an artist who had raised the status of landscape was recognized by C.J.F. Lecarpentier. Vernet “ voulut l’ennoblir, et il se plaça lui-même au rang des peintres d ’histoire, par les scènes pathétiques et par les figures intéressantes et bien dessinées dont il orna ses productions.” Galerie de Peintres Célèbres, Paris, 1821, II, p.243. % . For Valenciennes see Paula Rea Radisich, Eighteenth-Century Landscape Theory and the Work o f Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes, diss. University of California, Los Angeles, 1977. Radisich does not address the issues with which I am concerned in the present study.

Notes fo r Chapter 2

93

97. Vemet’s letter is printed in full in F.E.T.M .D.L.I.N. [Comte de Toulongeon] Manuel du Muséum Français, VII, Paris, 1805, pp.67-68. 98. Throughout the eighteenth century the highest offices in the Académie Royale, those of Recteur, Professeur and Adjoint à Professeur, were occupied by history painters. No genre painter was able to rise above the position of Conseiller. 99.

J.B. Deperthes, Théorie du paysage, p.4.

Chapter 2 1.

See Lee, Ut Fictura Foesis, pp. 9*16 and Blunt, Art and Architecture in France, pp.209-10 and p.279 n.63; as Blunt points out, Academic art theory derived the phrases “ la belle nature“ and “ le choix raisonnable“ from Boileau.

2.

Michelangelo’s remarks on northern painting, ascribed to him by Francesco de HoQanda, provide probably the best known statement of this point of view. “ They paint in Flanders only things to deceive the external eye, things that gladden you and of which you cannot speak ill. Their painting is o f stuff, bricks and mortar, the grass of the fields, the shadows of trees, and bridges and rivers, which they call landscapes, and little figures here and there; and all this, although it may appear good to some eyes, is in truth done without reasonableness or art, without symmetry or proportion, with­ out care in selecting or rejecting, and finally without any substance or verve.“ Quoted in J. Rosenberg, S. Slive and E.H . ter Kuile, Dutch Art and Architecture; 1600-1800, Harmondsworth, 1966, pp. 139-40.

3.

Reynolds, pp. 196-97.

4.

De Piles, p.204.

5.

Ibid., pp.70-71.

6.

Ibid., p.204.

7.

De Piles, Abrégé de la vie des peintres, Paris, 1699, p.404.

8.

For Parisian collections see A.N. Dézallier D’Argenville, Voyage pittoresque de Paris, 1757, and also Anita Brookner, Greuze, New York, 1972, pp.40-46.

9.

For a discussion of landscape oil sketches see chapter 4, pp.75 and p. 105 n. 28.

10.

Jouin, pp.368-69.

11.

For the dissemination of Locke’s ideas see Paul Hazard, TheEuropean Mind; 1680-1715, London, 1964, pp.287-90.

12.

Diderot’s observation, “ Chaque artiste ayant sesyeux, etpar conséquent sa manière de voir, devrait avoir son coloris,“ also suggests the influence of Locke, Oeuvres complètes, ed. Jules Assézat and Maurice Tourneux, 20 vols., Paris, 1875-77, XIII, p.25; hereafter cited as Oeuvres.

13.

Herbert Dieckmann, Cinq Leçons sur Diderot, Paris, 1959, p. 112.

14.

Oeuvres esthétiques, p.406.

15.

Jean Le Rond D’Alembert, Oeuvres, Paris, 1805, I, p. 185.

16.

Ibid., p.219, D’Alembert’s emphasis.

94

Notes fo r Chapter 2

17. Ibid.,p.220. 18. Oeuvres esthétiques, p.422. 19. Oeuvres, XIV, p. 197. 20. Oeuvres esthétiques, p.665. 21. Oeuvres, XIII, p.24. 22. Ibid., XIV, pp.201-2. 23. Oeuvres esthétiques, p.720. 24.

Ibid., p.760. For an excellent discussion of the importance of pictorial unity in Di­ derot's art criticism see Michael Fried, “ Towards a Supreme Fiction,” pp. 559-70, and Absorption and Theatricality, pp.82-92. To this can be added, T. Puttfarken, “ David’s Brutus and theories of pictorial unity in France,” Art History 4, 1981, pp.291-304.

25. Dieckmann, p. 118. Diderot's fullest discussion of the concept of imitation is found in the introduction to the Salon o f 1767, Salons , III, pp.58-64. See also Salons , IV, pp.85-86 where the same views are attributed to La Tour. 26. Thus Diderot could write in the Salon o f 1769, “ Chardin n’est pas un peintre d’histoire, mais c’est un grand homme.” Salons, IV, p.82. 27. Salons, III, p.268. 28.

Ibid., p. 159. Cf. the remarks of Jean-Joseph Taillasson, Observations sur quelques grands peintres . . ., Paris, 1807, p. 124: “ l’ordonnance de ses [Vemet’s] ouvrages a une unité si parfaite, qu’on ne pouroit en ôter la moindre partie sans leur nuire.”

29. Ibid., p. 131. 30. Oeuvres esthétiques, p.771. 31. Ibid., pp.686-87. 32. Ibid., p.688. 33.

For the importance of suppressing any direct appeal to the spectator’s attention in eighteenth-century French painting, see chapter 3, pp.55-56.

34. Salons, III, p.249. 35.

Friedrich Melchior Grimm, Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique . . ., ed. Maurice Toumeux, 16 vols., Paris, 1877-82, VI, pp.294-95.

36. Ibid., p.295. The extent to which Grimm grasped the essence of Diderot's understand­ ing of the need for art to follow the creative laws of nature rather than its external configurations is evident from these extracts, particularly his suggestion that “ l’imitateur . . . créant a l’example de la nature, sache conserver à chaque chose sa grâce et sa fraîcheur.” 37. Salons, III, p. 160, but see also p.225. 38. Oeuvres esthétiques, p.761. For a similar statement see Salons, I, p.217. 39. Ibid., p.809. The Vernet Shipwreck owned by Diderot isilllustrated pi. 29.

in Salons, IV,

Notes for Chapter 2

95

40.

Salons, I, pp. 217-18. See also Diderot’s remarks on Vemet’s Shepherdess o f the A lps, painted for Mme Geoffrin, Salons, I, pp.229-30; and on a landscape by de Louthertoourçg, Salons, n , p.166: “ le site et le siÿet étoient donnés, et la muse du peintre emprisonnée.”

41.

Oeuvres esthétiques, p.761.

42.

Oeuvres, XVIII, p.335. “ Un bon peintre d’histoire se tirerait difficilement d’un portrait comme La Tour, qui de son côté, ne tenterait pas une composition historique: chacun a son talent, d ’autant plus restreint qu’il est grand.” However, this view also tended to reinforce the belief that each painter should practice the genre which best suited his talents which may help to explain Diderot’s attitude to Greuze’s abortive attempts to be recognized as a history painter. See Salons, IV, pp. 103-6.

43.

Le Cabinet de VAmateur et de l'Antiquaire, II, 1843, pp.42-43. The letter is reprinted by Lagrange, p. 179.

44.

Oeuvres y II, p.330. For a similar view dating from the end of the century see Archibald Alison, Essays on the Nature and Principles o f Taste, Edinburgh 1790, pp.89-90.

45.

Diderot would have approved of Hubert Robert’s refusal to paint exact views of the gardens at Versailles after the trees had been felled in the 1770s. In reply to the King's request that he make his designs directly from the subject the artist is reported to have said: “ Quel est votre objet Sire . . . ? Ce n’est pas d’avoir un raccourci géométrique de cette vaste scène, mais de faire retrouver à votre âme la sensation douloureuse qu’elle éprouve en jetant les yeux sur cette nature morte, sur ces monuments des arts qui, isolés, n’ont plus d’aspect agréable, et semblent participer aux ruines de la pre­ mière. Laissez-moi faire; je promets à V.M. que je reproduirai à ses regards tout ce qu’elle voit: mais qu’elle ne donne point d’entraves à mon imagination.” Mémoires secrets, XI, 1784, pp. 31-32.

46.

For a very similar reaction to Vemet’s see Gainsborough’s letter to Lord Hardwicke. “ Mr. Gainsborough presents his Humble respects to Lord Hardwicke and shall always think it an honor to be employed in anything for his Lordship; but with respect to real Views from Nature in this Country he has never seen any Place that affords a Subject equal to the poorest imitations of Gaspar or C laude.. . . Mr. G. hopes Lord Hardwicke will not mistake his meaning, but if his Lordship wishes to have anything tolerable of the name of G, the subject altogether as well as figures etc. must be of his own Brain; otherwise Lord Hardwicke will only pay for Encouraging a Man out of his way and had much better buy a picture of some of the good Old M asters.” Letters o f Thomas Gainsborough, ed. Mary Woodall, London, 1963, pp.87-88.

47.

See for example the Coup d'oeil sur le salon de 1775 par un aveugle, p. 19, Deloynes collection, X, no. 162: “ Les peintres qui sentent, font sentir, sans qu’ils le cherchent. L’aspect de leurs paysages vous rappelle des lieux, qui vous ont fait éprouver les sensations qu’ils veulent vous inspirer. C’est un choix de plaines, de vallées, de mon­ tagnes, de lieux ouverts ou fermés, de terre et d’eaux, que le sentiment a guidé. Vous soupirez devant ces tableaux, comme à l’aspect de la nature.”

48.

Although it now seems perfectly fitting to describe Vemet’s Ports o f France as “ among the masterpieces of French painting,” (Conisbee, 1976) such a view would have seemed surprising to eighteenth-century critics.

49.

For an account of the painting o f the Ports o f France and additional bibliography see

96

Notes for Chapter 2 Conisbee, 1976. The series is illustrated in its entirety in the French edition of Conisbee's catalogue, Musée de la Marine, Paris, 1976, nos.36-50.

50. For the low status of view painting in relation to imaginary landscapes in eighteenthcentury Venice, see Michael Levey, Painting in XVIII Century Venice, London, 1959, p.70. 51. Correspondance littéraire, III, p.93. 52. Ibid., p.432. 53. Oeuvres esthétiques, p.265. 54. Lettre sur le salon de 1755, p.57. Deloynes collection, VI, no.71. 55. “ Lettre sur l'exposition,” Journal encyclopédique, October, 1759, p. 107. For similar views see the Mercure de France, 1759, and the Observateur littéraire, 1761. 56. “ Exposition des ouvrages de Peinture,” L'Année littéraire, 1757, V, pp.345-47. 57. “ Observations sur l'exposition,” LObservateur littéraire, 1759, Deloynes collection, XL, no. 1259. 58. “ Observations d ’une société d’amateurs,” LObservateur littéraire, 1761, Deloynes col­ lection VII, no.94. 59. Sentiments sur plusieurs des tableaux exposés cette année dans le grand salon du Lou­ vre, 1755. Deloynes collection, VI, no.73. The author is identified by Mariette in a manuscript note as M. de la Porte, Professeur de Mathématique. It is not clear whether this writer should be identified as the Abbé Joseph de la Porte, who later contributed to the Observateur littéraire. However, the difference in the views of the two writers suggests that this is not so. 60. “ Réflexions sommaires sur les ouvrages exposés au Louvre,” Mercure de France, November, 1755, p. 183. The painting is illustrated in Conisbee, Paris, 1976, no.37. 61. Collection des Livrets des Anciennes Expositions, ed. Jules Guiffrey, Paris, 42 vols., 1869-72, XVIII, Salon de 1755, no.98, p.23. 62. L. Lagrange and A. de Montaiglon, “ Joseph Vemet: pièces et notes pour servir à l'histoire de ses tableaux des Ports de France,” Archives de Part français, VII, 1856, p. 141. 63.

For an illustration see Conisbee, Paris, 1976, no.38.

64. Journal encyclopédique, October, 1759, p. 106. 65.

C.J. Mathon de la Cour, Second Lettre à Monsieur . . . sur les peintres . . . exposées au Salon du Louvre en 1765, p. 11. Deloynes collection, VIII, no. 109.

66.

Salons, I, p.67.

67.

Ibid., p.229. Diderot also remarked on the “ actions naturelles et vraies; figures vigo­ ureusement et spirituellement touchées” o f the Port o f Dieppe, exhibited in 1765. See Salons, II, p. 121 and pl.33.

68.

Salons, I, p.228. For an illustration see Conisbee, Paris, 1976, no.49.

69.

Oeuvres esthétiques, p.720. Earlier in the century Du Bos had said exactly the oppo­ site; see Refléxions critiques, I, p.51.

Notes o f Chapter 2

97

70.

Salons, II, p. 172 and pl.64.

71.

The painting is illustrated in Conisbee, Paris, 1976, no.43.

72.

Archives de l'art français, VII, 1856, p. 150.

73.

Ibid., pp. 152-53.

74.

Nouvelles archives de Fart français, 3rd Series, IX, 1893, p.7.

75.

Ibid., p.7.

76.

See Vernet’s comments on the artist's viewpoint in his “ letter** on landscape painting reprinted in Conisbee, 1976. “ Il faut après s ’être placé ainsi,prendre, pour sujet de votre dessin ou de votre tableau, ce que le même coup d*oeil peut embrasser, sans remuer ni tourner la tête; car chaque fois qu*on la tourne pour voir un objet qu*on n*apercevait pas, ce sont tout autant de tableaux nouveaux qui demanderaient le changement de la forme des objets, celui de leurs plans, et par conséquent celui de la perspective.’’

77.

Nouvelles archives de Fart français, 3rd Series, IX, 1893, p.8.

78.

Ibid., p. 17.

79.

Unfortunately, although eighteenth-century writers occasionally mention the presence of the artist’s self-portrait in a landscape, they do not comment on the artist’s reasons for portraying himself. It should be noted that such self-portraits, which occur in the landscapes of Hubert Robert, Richard Wilson, Vanvitelli, Canaletto, and Bellotto as well as Vernet, almost always occur in realistic landscapes. The practice of including the image of the artist in realistic landscapes can be traced to Renaissance Italy. The earliest example I know is the woodcut View o f Florence which exists in a unique impression in Berlin. According to Hind the woodcut reproduces a six part engraving by Rosselli dating from the 1480s. See A.M. Hind, Early Italian Engraving, London, 1938,1, pp. 145^6.

80.

Oeuvres, XIV, p. 197.

81.

Oeuvres esthétiques, p.728. See also p.781 for a similar view.

82.

Salons, I, p.229. See also Salons, IV, p. 188, where Diderot praised a view by Hubert Robert in similar terms: “ Vue des jardins du prince Borghese à Rome : Le point de vue est choisi avec discernement et produit un effet agréable.** For Vernet’s remarks on “ viewpoint” see note 76.

83.

Mathon de la Cour, Lettre . . . à Madame X X X sur les peintures . . . exposées dans le Salon du Louvre en 1763, p.44. Deloynes collection, VIII, no. 101.

84.

“ Exposition des Tableaux,” L'Année littéraire. VI, 1765, p. 161.

85.

J.J. Taillasson, Observations sur Quelques Grands Peintres . .., Paris, 1807,

86.

See Valenciennes, p.478, and Deperthes, pp. 151-52.

87.

Encyclopédie Méthodique: Beaux A rts, I, p.619.

88.

The name which Valenciennes gave to realistic landscapes, “ le paysage portrait,” confirms that in art theory at least, imaginary landscapes still occupied the dominant place; see Valenciennes, pp.479-82.

89.

Encyclopédie Méthodique: Beaux A rts, I, p.620.

pp. 127-28.

98

Notes for Chapter 3

Chapter 3 1.

Salons, ID, pp. 129*67. For illustrations of three o f the landscapes Vernet exhibited in 1767 see pis. 21-23.

2.

Ibid., p. 159.

3.

“ Réflexions sommaires sur les ouvrages exposés au Louvre,” Mercure de France, November, 1755, p. 183.

4.

“ Observations sur les Tableaux exposés au Louvre,” Mercure de France, October, 1757, pp. 164-65.

5.

“ Description des Tableaux exposés au Salion du Louvre,” Mercure de France, Oc­ tober, 1763, p.201.

6.

Sentiments sur plusieurs des tableaux exposés . . . dans le grand salon du Louvre, 1755, p. 12. Deloynes collection, VI, no.73.

7. “ Exposition des ouvrages de Peinture,” LA nnée littéraire, 1757, V, p.345. 8. “ Exposition des ouvrages de Peinture . . . au Salon du Louvre,” Journal encyclopé­ dique, October, 1757, p.99. 9. Critiques des peintures et sculptures de Messieurs de L Académie Royale, 1765. De­ loynes collection, VIII, no. 107, p. 19. 10. Mathon de la Cour, Lettres sur les peintres . . . exposées au salon du Louvre en 1767, p.259. Deloynes collection, XLIX, no. 1302. 11. Promenade de critics au salon de l'année 1785, pp.20-21. Deloynes collection, XIV, no.333. 12. It is worth noting Richard Wilson’s comment on Claude’s landscapes: “ you may walk in Claude’s pictures and count the miles.” Quoted by Denys Sutton, An Italian Sketch­ book by Richard Wilson, London, 1968,1, p. 14. 13. See Diderot’s remarks on his approach to art criticism in Salons, I, p.195. Jacques Chouillet, La Formation des idées esthétiques de Diderot: 1745-1765, Paris, 1973, re­ marks on Diderot’s ability to recreate works of art in his own medium (pp.591-94). Gita May makes the same observation in Diderot et Baudelaire, Geneva, 1957, pp.97-98. 14. M. -A. Laugier, Jugement d'un Am ateur, p.6. 15. A. -J. Pernety, Dictionnaire Portatif de Peinture, Sculpture et Gravure, Paris, 1757, p.268. My emphasis. 16. Hagedom, I, p. 136. 17. For an important discussion of Karnes’s concept of “ ideal presence” and much else that is germane to this chapter, see Eric Rothstein, “ ‘Ideal Presence’ and the ‘Non Finito’ in Eighteenth-century Aesthetics,” E.C .5., IX, 1975-76, pp.307-32. 18. Henry Home, Lord Karnes, Elements o f Criticism, 6th ed., Edinburgh, 1785,1, p.93. 19. Ibid., p.94. 20. The powers of painting to deceive the eye o f the beholder had, o f course, been cele­ brated in classical discussions of painting, most notably by Pliny the elder, see the

Notes fo r Chapter 3

99

discussions in Gombrich, Art and Illusion, p. 173 and Jean Hagstrum, The Sister A rts, Chicago, 1958, pp.23-24. However, eighteenth-century critics were not concerned with illusionism as such, but with the expressive possibilities which resulted from it. 21.

Oeuvres y IV, pp.284-85.

22.

Oeuvres esthétiques y p. 197.

23.

Ibid., p. 197.

24.

Lettres à Sophie Volland, ed. André Babelon, Paris, 1938, II, p. 108. The incident described by Diderot was in no way exceptional. At the opening performance of Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide in Paris on April 19, 1774, members of the audience had to be restrained from climbing onto the stage to assist in the action. See W. Brockway and H. Weinstock, The World o f Opera, London, 1963, p.75.

25.

Oeuvres esthétiques y pp.29-30.

26.

Herbert Dieckmann, “ The Presentation of Reality in Diderot’s Tales,’’ Diderot Studies y III, 1961, p. 110.

27.

Salons, I, p.226.

28.

Salons y III, p.245.

29.

Salons, II, pp. 173-74, and pi.67.

30.

In much of the following section I am greatly indebted to the writings of Michael Fried, in particular his “ Towards a Supreme Fiction,“ pp.551-70, and Absorption and The­ atricality pp.76-92. y

31.

Salons, III, pp.235-36.

32.

Oeuvres esthétiques y p.712; see also p.766. Du Bos had earlier criticized allegorical paintings for the same reasons; see Réflexions critiques I, pp. 182-211. y

33.

Correspondance littéraire, III, p.317. The importance of this article was first pointed out by Fried, who reprints and translates it in full in Absorption and Theatricality, pp. 161-66.

34.

Salons y II, p.95, and pl.24. See also Oeuvres esthétiques y p.792.

35.

See chapter 2, pp. 27-30.

36.

For an alternative view of the problem of unity in the landscapes of Ver net and his contemporaries see Fried, Absorption and Theatricality, pp. 132-36. In emphasizing “ the disjunctive, implicitly temporal nature of our experience” o f Vemet’s landscapes Fried chooses to overlook the immediately perceptible unity of mood which charac­ terizes the painter’s pastoral landscapes as well as the unifying “ caractère distinctif” of the Ports o f France. He also excludes from his analysis those works which are dominated by a single dramatic event, notably the Shipwrecks and pictures such as the G ulf o f Bandol and the Port o f Cette.

37.

Salonsy III, p. 142.

38.

See chapter 1, pp. 12-13 and p.90 n. 57.

39.

See Salons, III, p. 142 and chapter 1, pp. 10-11.

40.

Salons III, p. 143. y

100

Notes for Chapter 3

41. See ibid., p. 144. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid. My emphasis. 44. Although I find much to admire in Michael Fried's analysis of the “ Vernet promenade" (Absorption and Theatricality, pp. 118-32) I have difficulty in accepting his genre-determined distinction between a “ dramatic” and a “ pastoral” mode of painting. (Fried in fact admits that this distinction “ is by no means absolute.” [p. 132]). Diderot’s anecdote about the rival versions of the Matyrdom of St Bartholomew, itself contained within the “ Vernet promenade” , demonstrates, in my view, his expectation that the viewer will identify totally with the subject, whether the work be history or genre. The aim of all the genres, and indeed of all the arts, in Diderot’s view, was to affect the beholder’s emotions with the intensity of life itself. The only way to do this, as I have argued throughout this chapter, was to make the spectator believe that the scene or event was actually occurring before his eyes. The reasons why painters were re­ quired to go to such extraordinary lengths to achieve this end will be clarified, I trust, in the closing pages of this chapter. 45. Some idea of the attitude to shipwrecks can be gained from the introduction to J.L.H .S. Deperthes, Histoire des Naufrages, Paris, 1789, p.xi. “ C ’est dans la vue d ’inspirer la générosité et la bienfaisance, ces doux épanchemens des coeurs vertueux, et qui les attachent si fortement à l’humanité, qu’on a formé le plan de ce Recueil d ’infortunes sur mer, il offre aux âmes sensibles une galerie de tableaux touchans, variés, et d ’autant plus intéressans que la vérité en est la base. . . For paintings of shipwrecks see Eduard Huttinger, “ Der Schiffbruch; Deutungen eines Bildmotivs in 19 Jahrhundert,” in L. Grote, ed. Beiträge zur Motivkunde des 19 Jahrhunderts, Munich, 1970, pp.211-44; L. Eitner, “ The Open Window and the Storm-Tossed Boat; an Essay in the Iconog­ raphy of Romanticism,” Art Bulletin, 1950, pp.281-90; and T.S.R. Boase, “ Shipwrecks in English Romantic Painting,” J.W .C .L, XXII, 1959, pp.332-46. 46.

Baillet de Saint-Julien, La peinture, ode de Milard Telliab . . ., London, 1753, p. 10. Deloynes collection, V, no.57.

47.

Salons, III, pp. 163-64.

48.

See Aram Vartanian, “ Diderot and the Phenomenology of the Dream,” Diderot Stud­ ies, VIII, 1966, pp.217-53, esp. pp.250-51. For an interesting discussion of eighteenthcentury attitudes towards dreams see N. Powell, Fuseli: The Nightmare, London, 1973, pp.37-52.

49.

Minos au Sallon ou La Gazette infernale, [1785], p. 12. Deloynes collection, XIV, no. 345.

50.

It should be noted that Diderot was aware that the spectator’s identification with the sufferings of those who inhabited the fictional world of paintings could only be taken so far. The spectator needed to maintain a certain detachment even while he was immersed in the painting before him. Diderot analyzed the problem, appropriately enough, while he was himself immersed in the landscapes of Vernet. “ Je fais deux rôles, je suis double; je suis Le Couvreur, et je reste moi. C ’est le moi Le Couvreur qui frémit et qui souffre, et c’est le moi tout court qu’a du plaisir . . . et voilà la limite de l’imitateur de Nature. Si je m’oublie trop et trop longtemps, la terreur est trop forte; si je ne m’oublie point du tout, si je reste toujours un, elle est trop faible. C’est ce

Notes for Chapter 3

101

juste tempérament qui fait verser des larmes délicieuses,” Salonsf III, p. 144. Although it limits the degree to which the spectator was to become involved in a painting, this statement nevertheless reaffirms Diderot's belief that it was essential to make the spectator identify totally with the subject, even if only for a brief space of time. 51.

Oeuvres esthétiques, p.218.

52.

Ibid., p.738.

53.

Ibid.

54.

Correspondance littéraire, IV, p. 174.

55.

Oeuvres esthétiques, p.819.

56.

Lettre sur les sourds et m uets, ed. P. Meyer, Diderot Studies, VII, 1965, p. 102.

57.

Correspondance littéraire, IV, p.429.

58.

Hugh Honour, Romanticism, London, 1979, pp. 119-22.

59. See W. Folkierski, Entre le classicisme et le romantisme, Paris, 1925, pp.99-133. 60. For a general discussion of the importance of incompleteness in eighteenth-century painting see Rothstein, pp.326-27. See also Dieckmann’s comments in “ Esthetic The­ ory and Criticism in the Enlightenment,” p.98-99. 61. Salons, III, p.242. 62. Salons, II, pp. 145-46, and pl.54. 63. For the differing reactions to Greuze's painting see Edgar Munhall, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Hartford, 1976, pp. 104-5. 64. In the Salon o f 1767, Diderot argued, by implication, that every spectator's response to a work of art is unique, just as each person gives to the same words or phrases a purely personal meaning; see Salons, III, pp. 156-57. 65. For the development of this concept in twentieth-century painting see Charles Mitchell, “ Very Like a Whale: The Spectator's Role in Modern A rt,” in On Contemporary A rt, ed. Bernard Smith, Oxford, 1974, pp.35-88. In a perceptive review of the 1976 Vemet exhibition, Edward Lucie-Smith draws a parallel between the effect of eighteenthcentury landscapes on the spectator and the response to abstract paintings such as those by Rothko; “A Real Abstractionist,” Art and A rtists, August, 1976, pp.31-35. 66. Salons, III, p.163 ; see also the description of the Shipwreck which follows this, pp. 163-64. This is also quoted in chapter 1, p. 11. 67.

Ibid., pp. 159-60.

68. 44Exposition de peintures,” Avant-coureur, 1767, p.200 Deloynes collection, XLIX, no. 1301. 69.

Mathon de la Cour, Lettre sur les peintures, sculptures et gravures exposées au salon du Louvre en 1767, p.259. Deloynes collection, XLIX, no. 1302.

70. Le Frondeur, ou Dialogues sur le Sallon, 1785, p.64. Deloynes collection, XIV, no.329. “ M. Vemet réveille en moi le souvenir des airs de Ballet de Rameau. Ces larges masses de flots en fureur et de rochers efîrayans, me rappellent ces basses sonantes et hardies dont il accompagnait des chants légers commes les nuages de l'air. . . .”

102

Notes for Chapter 3

71.

Quoted by D. Mornet, Le Sentiment de la Nature en France, Paris, 1907, p. 190.

72.

J.J. Rousseau, Les Rêveries du promeneur solitaire, ed. M. Raymond, Lille, 1948, pp.79-80.

73. Quoted by M ornet, p.289. 74. Oeuvres esthétiques, p. 97. 75. Salonsy III, p. 147. 76. Ibid., p.227. 77.

Ibid., pp.228-29. For a discussion of the “ poétique des ruines” in Diderot’s thought see R. Mortier, La poétique des ruines en France, Geneva, 1974, pp.90-97.

78.

Archibald Alison, Essays on the Nature and Principles o f Taste, Edinburgh, 1790, pp.41-42.

79.

The concept of associationism is discussed by Addison in the Spectator, no.417, 1712. See also H.F. Clark, “ Eighteenth-Century Elysiums: the role of ‘association’ in the landscape movement,” J.W .C .I., VI, 1943, pp. 165-89; and G .L. Hersey, “ Association­ ism and Sensibility in Eighteenth-Century Architecture,” E .C .5., IV, 1970,pp.71-89.

80. Thomas Whately, Observations on Modern Gardening, London, 1770,p. 155. The sage is quoted at greater length by Alison, pp.43-44.

pas­

81. Lettres à Sophie Volland, I, pp.59-60. The letter is dated October 1, 1759. 82.

Dora Wiebenson, The Picturesque Garden in France, Princeton, 1978, p.29.

83.

Ibid., p. 14. This notion appears as early as 1712 in Addison’s Spectator no.447 and persists throughout the century.

84.

In the introduction to his edition of the Salon o f 1767, Seznec suggests that the “ Vernet promenade” may have been inspired by a visis Diderot made to Grandval shortly after the Salon of that year, see Salons, III, p.vi.

85.

Ibid., pp. 129-58.

86.

Ibid., pp. 161-62.

87.

Ibid., pp. 163-65.

88.

Oeuvres esthétiques, p.739.

89.

Ibid., pp.739-40.

90.

The spectator’s position, in fact, mirrors the artist’s need to balance creative enthu­ siasm with artistic judgement, a thesis which Diderot was to develop later in the Paradoxe sur le comédien.

91.

Lettres à Sophie Volland, II, p. 182.

92.

Salons t IV, pp.388-89 and pp.88-89. On the Regrets sur ma vieille robe de chambre see J. Seznec, “ A propos de la vieille robe de chambre,” in Europäische Aufklärung: Herbert Dieckmann zum 60 Geburtstag y Munich, 1967, pp.271-80.

93.

Salons y III, p.153.

94.

Ibid.

Notes for Chapter 4

103

95. Ibid., p. 157. 96.

In the Salon o f 1769, Diderot further explored the conflict between reason and imag­ ination. There he sees not only “ resprit philosophique“ as the enemy of art but the contemporary preoccupation with commerce as well; Salons, IV, pp. 111-12. Archibald Alison was also aware of this conflict; see Essays on the Nature and Principles o f Taste, pp.7-8 and p. 13. Ernest Tliveson, The Imagination as a Means o f Grace, Berke­ ley, 1960, notes the beginning of this disjunction in Addison’s Spectator, no.419. Tlive­ son’s remarks are worth quoting as they provide an important adjunct to Diderot’s views. “ In ages of superstition, men, in spite o f and partly because of intellectual darkness, live closer to saving nature than they do in times of enlightenment. A reason for the romantic attempt to recreate the atmosphere, or supposed atmosphere of folk literature is the effort to regain the reverence for nature, the simplicity and immediacy of feeling attributed to the uneducated pious man. . . . perhaps there is an inveterate enmity between the understanding and the imagination . . . our thoughts go forward to this kind of phrase used by writers at the end of the century who said that an age of philosophy cannot be an age of poetry. We think of Macaulay saying that poetry, like a magic lantern in a dark room, shines best in a dark age. . . . The possibility that imagination, far from being an ideal ally of reason, is its inveterate rival and antagonist, now emerges into the open.” pp. 129-30.

97. The conflict between reason and sensibility forms one of the themes of Diderot’s Le Neveu de Ram eau, written around 1762 and revised throughout this decade and the next, i.e. the period during which Diderot was writing his Salons. See Arthur M. Wilson, Diderot, New York, 1972, pp.415-23. 98.

Oeuvres esthétiques, p.772.

Chapter 4 1.

Salons t II, p. 165. This passage forms part of a longer section which should be read as a whole.

2.

Oeuvres esthétiques, p.809.

3.

See Michael Fried, Absorption and Theatricality, pp.76-82 for an excellent discussion of the new dramatic conception of painting.

4.

Salons, II, pp. 188-98. In connection with Diderot’s “ dream” it is worth noting that Locke described the mind as a dark room into which images of the world were pro­ jected, Essays on Human Understanding, II, xi, 17. Fragonard’s canvas is now in the Louvre. For an illustration see Salons, II, pl.71.

5.

Oeuvres, XIV, pp. 198-99.

6.

See Du Bos, Réflexions critiques, I, pp.80-107. Du Bos’s anticipation of Lessing on this point has long been recognized; see Lee, Ut Pictura Poesis, p.61.

7.

Oeuvres esthétiques, p.715. This passage should be read in coiyunction with a slightly earlier remark. “ Le peintre n’a qu’un instant; et il ne lui pas plus permis d’embrasser deux instants que deux actions. Il y a seulement quelques circonstances où il n’est ni contre la vérité, ni contre l’intérêt de rappeler l’instant qui n’est plus, ou d’annoncer l’instant qui va suivre. Un catastrophe subite surprend un homme au milieu de ses fonctions: il est à la catastrophe, et il est encore à ses fonctions.” (p.712). See also

104

Notes o f Chapter 4 Diderot's similar comments in the Pensées détachées, p.776. A similar account o f the painter's ability to suggest past or future instants is found in Shaftesbury's “ A Notion of the Historical Draught or Ikblature of the Judgement of Hercules" (1712), a work which Diderot certainly knew. See Characteristicks o f Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, 3 vols., Birmingham, 1773, III, pp.354-56. For Lessing’s concern with the “ pregnant moment" which suggests the moments before and after the chosen instant see note 25.

8.

See Fried, Absorption and Theatricality, pp.90-91 and pp.214-15 n.89, and Rothstein, 44 ‘Ideal Presence' and the ‘Non Finito’ " , pp.316-19.

9.

See Diderot, Oeuvres philosophiques, ed. Paul Veraière, Paris, 1956, pp.240-42.

10.

Oeuvres, XIV, p.453. Just over one hundred years later, Baudelaire, in his Salon o f 1859, was to re-emphasize the importance of man in giving significance to the world o f nature. See Art in Paris; 1845-1862, trans J. Mayne, London, 1965, p. 194.

11.

Bouffon, Oeuvres philosophiques, ed. Jean Piveteau, Paris, 1951, p.31. Buffon’s ob­ servations were first published in volume XII of the Histoire Naturelle in 1764. For Buffon’s and Diderot’s views on nature see Gay, The Enlightenment, II, pp. 150-62.

12.

La Font de Saint-Yenne, Réflexions sur la peinture, p. 102.

13.

"Exposition de nouveaux ouvrages de peinture . . . dans le grand Salon du Louvre," Mercure de France, October, 1759, p. 190. According to Zm^ewska, G.B.A., JulyAugust, 1970, p. 109, the author of this review was Marmontel.

14.

Fréron, "Exposition des Tableaux," L Année littéraire, VI, 1765, p. 162.

15.

Salons, II, p. 120.

16.

Oeuvres esthétiques, p.722. Du Bos had made this point earlier in the Reflexions cri­ tiques, I, pp.211-12.

17.

C.N. Cochin, Oeuvres diverses, Paris, 1771, II, p.32.

18.

Salons, I, p.229.

19.

Le Blanc’s argument appeared in his Lettre sur l'exposition des ouvrages de pein­ ture . . . , de Vannée 1747, Paris, 1747, pp. 145-60. The observations of Saint-Réal on which it is based can be found in his Oeuvres, Paris, 1745, II, pp.260-62. They were first published in Saint-Réal’s Césarion, in 1684.

20.

Gougenot, Lettre sur la peinture, sculpture et Varchitecture . . ., 1748, pp.72-75, Deloynes collection, III, no.32. Although there has been some doubt over the authorship of this review, Gougenot’s hand has been firmly established by Zmijewska, pp.60*62.

21.

The issues raised by Le Blanc were discussed by both Hagedom and Lessing during the 1760s. Although Hagedorn admitted the justice of some of Le Blanc’s observa­ tions, he nevertheless argued that painters were justified in representing violent and instantaneous actions on expressive grounds. See Réflexions sur la peinture, II, pp.92-98. Lessing however returned to the position advocated by Le Blanc and Saint-Réal: "All phenomena of whose very essence, according to our conceptions, it is that they break out suddenly and as suddenly vanish, that what they are they can be only for a mo­ ment—all such phenomena, whether agreeable or terrible, do, by the phenomena which art bestows, put on an aspect so abhorrent to Nature that at every repeated view of them the impression becomes weaker, until at last the whole thing inspires us

Notes for Chapter 4

105

with horror and loathing.” Laocoôn, iii, trans. W.À. Steel, London, 1930. Laocoôn was first published in 1766, one year after Hagedorn’s Réflexions. 22.

Salons, III, p. 131. See also Salons, I, p.227.

23.

“ Lettre II Sur les Peintures . . . exposées au Salon du Louvre, le 25 août 1777,” Mémoires secrets, XI, p.29.

24.

Gazette Nationale, ou le Moniteur universel, II, 6 December 1789, reprint, Paris, 1847, n , p.319.

25.

Lessing recommended the choice of moments which implied both prior and succeeding instants; see Laocoôn, iii, and xvi. “ Painting, in her co-existing compositions, can use only a single moment of the action, and must therefore choose the most pregnant, from which what precedes and follows will be most easily apprehended.” (xvi) On Diderot and Lessing see Jean Seznec, Essais sur Diderot et l'antiquité, Oxford, 1957, pp.58-78.

26.

De Piles, pp.246-52.

27.

This remark comes from Vemet’s “ letter” on landscape painting, first published in 1817 by Louis-Joseph Jay in his edition of Bottari’s Recueil de lettres sur la peinture. It is conveniently reprinted by Conisbee, 1976.

28.

The sale catalogue of the contents of Vemet's studio in 1789 records under lot 17: “ 33 Tableaux et Etudes, peints d'après nature, tant à Rome qu'à Naples, de différentes grandeurs,” while Vemet's practice of painting oil studies after nature is mentioned in the article “ Paysage” in the Encyclopédie méthodique: “ M. Vemet, autant qu’il l’a pu, a toujours peints ses études d ’après nature.” For eighteenth-century artists' oil studies in general, see the useful survey by Philip Conisbee, “ Pre-Romantic Plein-Air Painting,” Art History, II, 1979, pp.413-28, and the catalogue of the Arts Council Exhibition Painting from N ature, London, 1981.

29.

Valenciennes, pp.405-6.

30.

Ibid., p.408.

31.

Conisbee, 1979, p.424.

32.

Renou's account is found in a note to his translation of Du Fresnoy’s L'Art de peindre, Paris, 1789, pp.86-87.

33.

The painting is in the Hermitage, Leningrad, and is illustrated in Conisbee, 1976, no.20. Vemet’s own presence in this view adds a personal dimension to the artist’s concern with instantaneity, emphasizing the fact that it is the artist who has selected both the view and the precise moment that is depicted. On the artist’s presence in realistic landscapes, see chapter 2, ppi42-43.

34.

Illustrated in ibid., no. 17.

35.

Musée Carnavalet, Pari?. Illustrated in Salons, IV, pi. 106.

36.

Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris.

37.

Salons, IV, p. 178.

38.

Needless to say, such a scene would have been recognized by Diderot and his contem­ poraries as the very embodiment of the sublime. See chapter 1, pp. 12-14.

106

Notes o f Chapter 4

39. De Piles, pp.449-50. 40. The subject of the Times o f day was not restricted to landscape painting, and earlier in the eighteenth-century examples of the theme come more often from genre painting. Among French painters, both Lancret (National Gallery, London) and Boucher treated the theme. (Boucher’s series is now known only from engravings, although there are versions of Morning in London and Stockholm, see Wallace Collection Catalogues: Paintings and Drawings, London, 1968, pp.30-31). The set of four landscapes by Claude known as the Times o f Day (Hermitage, Leningrad) were executed at different times and probably received their collective title during the eighteenth century. See D. Cecchi, Lopera completa di Claude Lorrain, Milan, 1975, p. 116, no.224. Poussin, on the other hand, incorporated the four times of day as a subsidiary theme in his late series, The Four Seasons. See A. Blunt, Nicolas Poussin, London, 1966, I, p.332. The series, in the French Royal Collection since 1665 and now in the Louvre, was well known to eighteenth-century artists. 41.

In the interests o f clarity I have restricted my discussion in this chapter to sets of imaginary landscapes. Sets of realistic views, such as Vernet’s Ports o f France, intro­ duce other criteria, which I hope to examine on another occasion.

42.

Salons, II, pp. 121-22. The series, painted for the royal Château de Choisy, is now in the Louvre. For illustrations see Salons, II, pis. 34-35 and Pierre Rosenberg et al., Musée du Louvre: Catalogue illustré des Peintures, Ecole française, XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, Paris, 1974, II, nos. 870-74.

43. Valenciennes, p.427. 44. Salons, III, p. 132. 45.

Ibid., p. 137. For a discussion o f Diderot’s ambivalent attitude towards the position of man in nature see Gay, The Enlightenment, II, pp.156-62.

46.

See, for example, Du Bos’s discussion of Raphael’s Donation o f the Keys in Réflexions Critiques, I, pp.93-95.

47.

This is the view of Marcel Rothlisberger, Claude Lorrain, The Paintings, 2 vols., Lon­ don, 1961, I, p.27, n.38. The Groot Schilder-boeke appeared in English translation in 1738, but a French edition was not issued until 1787, although Lairesse’s views on a range of subjects had become known to French readers in 1775 through Hagedom’s Réflexions. The absence of a French edition until near the end of the century does not mean, of course, that French artists were not familiar with his ideas. Artistic contacts between France and the Low Countries were sufficiently strong during the eighteenth century to ensure the dissemination of artistic ideas.

48.

My quotation comes from the second English edition, London, 1778, p.214.

49.

Poussin’s contrasting landscapes, The Storm and Calm, painted for Pointel in 1651, provide an important precedent for the paired canvases of eighteenth-century land­ scapists. These two works admirably fulfil Lairesse’s requirement that landscape pen­ dants should be as dissimilar as possible. For illustrations and a discussion o f these works, see Pierre Rosenberg, Nicolas Poussin, Rome, 1977, nos. 34 & 35. Claude’s pairs, by way o f contrast, tend to emphasize their unity rather than their diversity, having similar subjects and expressing comparable moods, although differing in com­ position and direction of light. See Rothlisberger, I, p.27.

Notes for Chapter 4 50.

107

Jean Starobinski, The Invention o f Liberty, 1700-1789, Geneva, 1964, p.39. These con­ cepts are applied to eighteenth-century discussions o f landscape by K. Claire Pace, “ Strong Contraries . . . Happy Discord: Some Eighteenth-Century Discussions about Landscape,” Journal o f the History o f Ideas, 1979, pp. 141-55. Pace limits her discus­ sion to English views on the opposing sensations produced by the works o f Salvator and Claude, and does not explore the implications of these ideas for contemporary landscape painting.

51. Montesquieu, Essais sur le Goût, ed. C.J. Beyer, Geneva, 1967, pp.93 and 79. The most important sections o f the Essais from my point of view are nos. V, VI, and VIII. The Essais first appeared in 1757 in the Encyclopédie, VII. 52. Salons, II, pp. 128-29. 53. Watelet, p. 122. 54.

Salons, II, p. 120. See pl.36, for an illustration of the Shipwreck.

55.

“ Exposition des Peintures . . . au Salon du Louvre,” Journal Encyclopédique, Decem­ ber, 1767, p.97.

56. “ Première lettre sur les peintures . . . au sallon du Louvre, le 25 août, 1771,” Mém­ oires sècrets, XIII, p.69. For illustrations of a similar paired Calm and Shipwreck see Conisbee, 1976, nos. 45-46. 57.

The reactions o f eighteenth-century critics to Vemet’s paired landscapes emphasizes the importance of viewing his works not as separate, self-contained images, but as parts of larger pictorial structures. Algarotti emphasized the importance o f seeing paired landscapes together in a letter to Zanetti in 1759. Describing a paired Calm and Shipwreck he wrote: “ ella non ha mai veduto cose più vere, e insieme più belle.” Algarotti, Opere, Venice, 1791-94, VIII, p.83 (my emphasis). Although eighteenthcentury critics do not describe paired landscapes of this kind in terms o f the contrasting pictorial categories of the sublime and the beautiful, such distinctions must neverthe­ less have been in their minds.

58.

Although de Loutherbourg did not treat the theme with the same regularity as Vemet, he exhibited a set of Times o f day in 1763 and was to do so again in later years. It is difficult to ascertain the exact position occupied by this theme in de Loutherbourg’s output in the absence o f a catalogue of his work. The m ost recent account of de Loutherbourg remains the exhibition catalogue by Riidiger Joppien, Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg, London, 1973.

59.

Valenciennes, p.427. Vemet also emphasized the importance of viewing sets o f Times o f day as a whole when he wrote to Marigny in 1762 concerning the set he was painting for the Dauphin. Vemet pointed out the need to keep all four canvases together in his studio until the set was complete: “ ces tableaux ettants faits pour jouer leurs rolles ensemble et se faire valloir l’un et l’autre. De plus, comme j ’espère être allors en état de me rendre à Paris, je pourrois les porter avec moy, les faire mettre en place maimême selon la jour et l’ordre convenable. . . . ” Nouvelles archives de l'art français, 3rd Series, IX, 1893, p.50.

60.

C.J.F. Lecarpentier, Galerie de Peintres Célèbres, Paris, 1821, pp.245-46.

61.

Salons, III, p.272. Diderot was here criticizing de Loutherbourg for failing to create

108

Notes for Chapter 4 sufficient contrasts in a midday scene. Unlike Vernet, he had painted a Calm as his midday canvas in a set of the Tunes o f day.

62. On this see Sebastian Bourdon’s Cor\férence, “ Sur la lumière,” read to the Académie Royale in 1669, reprinted in Jouin, Conférences, pp. 122-36. 63. Valenciennes, p.435. 64. “ Exposition des ouvrages de l’Académie Royale des Peintures . . . au Salon du Louvre . . . (le 25 Août 1763),” Journal encyclopédique, September, 1763, p. 116. 65. Gustave Geffroy in 1891, quoted by Joel Isaacson in Claude Monet, Observation and Reflection, London, 1978, p.39. 66. For Monet’s series see Steven Z. Levine, Monet and his Critics, New York, 1976, and the same author’s “ Monet’s Pairs,” Arts Magazine, 49, June, 1975, pp.72-75, and ‘4Décor/Decorative/Decoration in Claude Monet’s A rt,” Arts Magazine, 51, February, 1977, pp. 136-39. The affinities between Monet’s practice and late eighteenth-century art theory are explored by Levine in a recent article, “ The ‘Instant’ of Criticism and Monet’s Critical Instant,” Arts Magazine, 55, 1981, pp. 114-21. Monet’s paired sea­ scapes of the 1860s, such as those painted at Ste. Adresse and near Le Havre, certainly have more in common with Vernet’s sets than the monumental series of Monet’s last years. 67. Robert Wark’s comments on the wide range of historical styles explored by eighteenthcentury artists would seem to be applicable to Vernet’s exploration of an increased range of natural phenomena in his landscapes. “Any one stylistic vocabulary was inadequate to convey the different emotions these artists assumed as their province. This aspiration towards universality of expression led the artists to examine in a more conscious and deliberate way than ever before the means at their disposal for creating contrasts of mood.” Ten British Pictures, San Marino, 1971, p. 12. The extent to which individual canvases of a set of the Times o f day can be identified with the works of specific seventeenth-century artists (for example, shipwrecks with Salvator Rosa, sun­ sets with Claude or moonlight scenes with the Dutch specialists in this genre) is hard to determine, although Vernet did produce works which were consciously in the styles of both Salvator and Claude (see P. Conisbee, “ Salvator Rosa and Claude-Joseph Vernet,” B .M ., CXV, 1973, pp.789-94). The effect of a set of four different landscapes might be considered comparable to the impressions gained by a visitor walking through a suite of rooms decorated in different styles by Robert Adam, or even with the effect of M ozart’s operatic ensembles, in which different characters respond with differing emotions to a single situation. 68.

Salons, I, p.228.

69.

The name Eidophusikon meant literally “ image of nature.” The best accounts are those by Austin Dobson, A t Prior Park and other Papers, London, 1924, pp. 111-17, and Ralph G. Allen, “ The Eidophusikon,” Theatre Design and Technology, December, 1966, pp. 12-16. See also Burke, English Art: 1714 to 1800, pp.382-85, who stresses de Loutherbouig’s importance as an intermediary between French and English art.

70.

The European Magazine, I, March, 1782, p. 182.

71.

Quoted by Allen, p. 12.

72.

W.H. Pyne, Wine and Walnuts, 2 vols., London, 1823, 1, p.284.

Notes for Chapter 4

109

73.

A common source o f inspiration for Diderot's imaginative account of Fragonard’s painting and de Loutherbourg’s exhibition may be the animated spectacles mounted by Servandoni in the Salle des Machines in the lUileries from 1738. These included the Descent o f Aeneas into HeU (1740), The Return o f Ulysses to Ithaca (1741), Hero and Leandra (1742), and Tasso’s Enchanted Forest (1745).

74.

For Gainsborough’s “ exhibition box” see Jonathan Mayne, “ Thomas Gainsborough’s Exhibition Box,” Victoria and Albert Museum Bulletin, July, 1965, pp. 17-24. One as­ pect of Gainsborough’s experiment which seems to have been overlooked is the fact that the candles used to illuminate the glass screens would have produced a flickering light, thereby producing the impression of movement. This effect is completely lost when it is exhibited, as at the recent Gainsborough exhibition, Tfete Gallery, London, 1980-81, using modern artificial lighting.

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Index Adam, Robert, 108 Addison, Joseph, 6; Pleasures o f the Imagination, 14-15,103 Alembert, Jean Le Rond d \ 26; on imitation, 26-27 Algarotti, Francesco, conte d’; on landscape pendants by Vernet, 107 Alison, Archibald: and associationism, 64 A vanhcoureur, 62 Bachaumont, Louis Petit de, 18 Baillet de Saint-Julien, Louis Guillaume: questions distinctions between genres, 8; on Vernet’s Shipwreck exhibited in the Salon of 1753,57 Batteux, Charles, 26 Bellori, Giovanni Pietro, 24 Bouquier, Gabriel: questions distinctions between genres, 17 Bourdon, Sébastien, 18 Buffon, George-Louis Leclerc de, 72 Burke, Edmund: and the sublime, 12*13; and empathy, 56 Burlington, Richard Boyle, Earl of, 65 Carracci, Annibale: and attitudes towards landscape, 3 Chardin, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon, 23,28 Claude Lorraine, 3, 18,73-74; Times o f Day, 106; use of pendants by, 106 Cochin, Charles-Nicolas: on variety of effects in Vemet’s landscapes, 73 Coup de Patte sur le Sallon de 1779, 17 De Machy, Pierre-Antoine, 30 Deperthes, Jean-Baptiste, 2,21 Desportes, François, 25,75 Diderot, Denis: the nature of his Salons, viii, x; his enthusiasm for Vernet*s landscapes, 2; and the human image in painting, 9; describes Vernet as a history painter, 10; questions the concept of history painting.

10; on moral purpose of art, 10-11; on Poussin’s Landscape with a snake, 12,29; and Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry into ...th e Sublime and the Beautiful, 1213,56; and expressive power of landscape, 14; on imaginative associations and landscape, 15,63-64; on the imaginative participation of the spectator in works of art, 16,58-59; abhorrence of manière, 26; and imitation, 27-28; and pictorial unity, 27-28,54; on unity in landscapes, 29-30,5556; on clair-obscur, 30; on differences between imitation and copying, 30-31; and limitations of genius, 31,32; on the artist’s imaginative transformation of his subject, 33,39-40; criticism of Vernet’s Ports o f France in 1758,36; later views on the Ports o f France, 39-40; on limitations in subject matter, 40; on point of view, 43,95; on Vernet’s paintings in the Salon of 1767,4749,52-53, 56-58,61,63-68; views on landscape compared with those of contemporary critics, 50; on illusion in the theatre and in fiction, 51-52; enters the space of paintings by Robert, Loutherbourg, and Le Prince, 53; on dangers of lack of finish, 54; on the need to ignore the spectator’s presence, 55; and choice of subjects, 56; and empathy, 56-57; and dreams, 57; compares effects of music and painting, 59; on sketches, 60; and indeterminacy of subject matter, 60-61; on Greuze’s Girl weeping over her dead bird, 60-61; and reverie before nature, 62-63; and lanscape gardens, 65; on conflict between imagination and reason, 65-68,100,102, 103; on movement in landscapes, 69-70; and dramatic conception of painting, 70; on Fragonard’s Corésus sacrificing himself to save Callirhoé, 70-71; and instantaneous nature of painting, 71,103; on dynamism in nature, 71-72; on movement in Vernet’s

118

Index

landscapes, 75; and landscape series, 79,84; on contrasting pendants by Verdet, 8 1; and the Eidophusikon, 86 Dieckman, Herbert, 26,28,52 Domenichino, Domenico Zampieri, called, 31 Du Bos, Jean-Baptiste, abbé: sensationalist art theory of, ix, 6,51; and history painting, 6; and landscape painting, 6-7; on art and the emotions, 7; on choice of moment, 71 Dughet, Gaspar, 3, 18 Du Pont de Nemours: questions distinctions between genres, 17 Encyclopédie, 26-27 Epi nay, Louise-Florence d \ 65 Estève, Pierre: compares Vemet’s Shipwrecks to Poussin, 9 Falconet, Etienne-Maurice, 32 Félibien, André, 1, 20 Fragonard, Jean-Honoré, 66; Corésus sacrificing himself to save CaUirhoé, 70, 7 1, 86 Fréron, Elie-Catherine, 13-14; and Veret’s Ports o f France, 36-37,44,48 Fried, Michael, viii, 28 Gainsborough, Thomas: and Eidophusikon, 86, 109; and freedom of invention in landscape, 95 Garrick, David, 84 Genius: not bounded by genres, 8,32,89; limitations of, 31,95 Girardot de Marigny, 32 Gougenot, Louis, abbé: on instantaneous landscape, 74 Greuze, Jean-Baptiste, 10, 57; and indeterminacy of subject matter, 60-61; A Marriage Contract, 60; Girl weeping over her dead bird, 60; moral subjects of, 61; attempts at history painting, 95 Grimm, Friedrich Melchior, viii, 27; on differences between imitation and copying, 31; criticism of Vemet’s Ports o f France, 35-36; on need for immediacy in painting, 54-55; on imaginative involvement of spectator, 58; on indeterminacy in music and painting, 59; and dramatic conception of painting, 70 Hagedorn, Christian Ludwig von: and the sublime, 16-17; on distinctions between genres, 18; on the spectator’s involvement in paintings, 50-51 Holbach, Paul Henri Dietrich, baron d \ 65 Journal encyclopédique: on Vemet’s Ports o f France, 36,39; on contrasting effects in

Vemet’s pendants, 8 1 Journal Général de France, 17-18 Kames, Henry Home, Lord: on ideal presence, 51,52 Kant, Immanuel: and the sublime, 91 Lacombe, Jacques, 34 La Font de Saint-Yenne, viii; and Du Bos’s art theory, 7; and Vemet’s landscapes in the Salon of 1746, 7-8; on instantaneous cffccts in Vernet’s landscapes, 73 La Grenée, Louis-Jean-François: Roman Charily, 55 Lairesse, Gerard de: and landscape pendants, 80, 106 Largillierre, Nicolas de, 3 La Rochefaucauld, François de, 56 La Tour, Maurice Quentin de, 23,94 Laugier, Marc-Antoine, abbé: and criteria for judging paintings, 50,53; and dramatic conception of painting, 70 Le Blanc, Jean-Bernard, abbé: on landscapes in repose, 74 Lecarpentier, Charles-Jacques-François: on variety in Vernet’s landscapes, 82-83; on Vemet’s efforts to ennoble landscape, 92 Le Prince, Jean-Baptiste: View o f St. Petersburg, 40; Russian Pastoral, 53 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, x, 104, 105 Locke, John, 6,26,51 Loutherbourg, Phillippe-Jacques de, ix, 11; Landscape with shepherds, 53; Shipwrecks, 57; works in the Salon of 1765 discussed by Diderot, 69, 71; and Times o f Day, 78,82, 107; and the Eidophusikon, 84-86 Mairobert, Pidansat de: on limitations of landscape, 18-19; and vogue for genre painting, 19; on landscape pendants by Vemet, 81-82; on vogue for landscape in 1775,92 Marigny, Abel-François Poisson, Marquis de: and Vemet’s Port o f Cette, 41-42 Mathon de la Cour, Charles-Joseph: and Vemet’s Port o f Dieppe, 39; on point of view, 43-44; and imaginative entry into landscapes, 48-49; on Vemet’s landscapes in the Salon of 1767,62 Mercure de France: on documentary value of Ports o f France, 38; on imaginative entry into landscapes, 48; on instantaneity in Vemet’s landscapes, 73 Michelangelo Buonarroti: on landscape painting, 93 Minos au SalIon ou La Gazette infernale, 58 M onet, Oscar-Claude: series of, compared with Vernet’s, 83-84, 108

Index Montesquieu, Charles de Secondât, baron de: on variety and contrast, 80-81 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 108 Norgate, Edward, 4 Oudry, Jean-Baptiste: on imitation, 25 Pernety, Antoine-Joseph, 34; on effet, 50 Pierre, Jean-Baptiste: satirized by Vernet, 21 Piles, Roger de: on subjects of landscapes, 4; and theory of landscape, 4-5; on categories of landscape, 5,88; on selective imitation in landscape, 24; and disregard for topographical landscape, 34; and techniques for outdoor sketches, 75,76; on the series, 78 Porte, Joseph de la: and Ports o f France, 36-37 Ports o f France: See Vernet Poussin, Nicolas, 3,74; Et In Arcadia Ego, 6; Landscape with a snake, 12,29; Storm, and Calm, 106 Rameau, Jean-Philippe: music of, compared to Vernet’s landscapes, 62, 101 Rembrandt van Rijn, 3 Renou, Antoine, 76 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 1,24,86 Richardson, Jonathan, 1 Rome, Prix de: for landscape, 3, 20 Robert, Hubert, ix, 20, 21,23,53; Ruins of, compared to De Machy’s, 30-31; Italian Kitchen, 54; and associations stimulated by ruins, 63-64; Pont de Neuiiiy, 77; The Accident, 77; and paintings of Versailles, 95; and choice of viewpoint, 97 Rosa, Salvator, 9, 18 Rothko, Mark, 101 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 10,62 Rubens, Sir Peter Paul, 3,18, 24, 78 Saint-Réal, César Vichard de, abbé, 74 Salon: institution of, vii-viii Sedaine, Michel-Jean, 52 Servandoni, Jean-Jérôme, 15,109 Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Carl of: and unity of time, 104 Sublime, 12-14, 16-17, 56-57 Taillasson, Jean-Joseph: and importance of figures in Vernet *s Ports o f France, 45; on unity in Vernet *s landscapes, 94 Teniers, David, 18 Times o f Day, 78-79,82-85, 106 Tournehem, Charles-François-Paul Lenormant de, 7 Valenciennes, Pierre-Henri, 2, 20,45; and

119

landscape studies, 75-76; and Times o f Day, 78-79; on contrasting effects in landscape, 82; and paysage portrait, 97 Vernet, Claude-Joseph: Ports o f France, ix, 3445; domination of eighteenth-century French landscape by, x; exhibits at Salon of 1746,7; importance of figures in landscapes of, 8-10,45; described as poète, 9; and the sublime, 11; compared to Poussin by Diderot, 12; moral significance in Shipwrecks of, 12; and associationism, 16; praised by Bouquier, 17; works of, seen as inferior to history painting, 18; Construction o f a Highway and Approach to a Fair, 19; Death o f Virginie, 20; letter to Robert on the Salon of 1785,20-21; unity in landscapes of, 29; letter to Girardot de Marigny, 32; working methods of, 32-33; and artistic independence, 33; and pictorial unity in Ports, 35-36,38-39,41,99; and documentary value of Ports, 38; Interior o f the Pori o f Marseille, 38,42; Gulf o f Bandol, 39; View o f the Port o f Dieppe, 3940; Port o f Rochefort, 40; First View o f Bordeaux, 40; Port o f Cette, 40-42,48,57; letters to Marigny, 41-42; Exterior o f the Port o f Marseille, 42-43; self-portraits of, in the Pons, 42-43,105; on point of view, 43, 97; Pori o f La Rochelle, 43; Shipwreck in the Salon of 1785,49; paintings in the Salon of 1767,47^9, 52,57-58,61-68; dramatic impact in Shipwreck of, 57; and indeterminacy of subject matter, 61-62; Storm and Fire at Sea in the Salon of 1767, 66; Shipwreck owned by Diderot, 67; . landscapes of, described by Diderot as a sequence of natural events, 69-70; movement in landscapes of, 75; and use of oil sketches, 76; and alphabet of tones, 7677; Garden o f Vigna Ludovisi, 77; Seaport of 1749,77; and representation of instant, 77; and Times o f Day, 78-79,82-84,85, 107; and landscape pendants, 81-82; series of, compared to Monet’s, 83-84; Shepherdess o f the Alps, 95 Vien, Joseph-Marie, 45 Villette, M.de, 19 Volland, Sophie, 65,66 Watelet, Claude-Henri: and expressive power of landscape, 14; in Discourse des Morts, 18; and status of landscape, 20; and vues, 34,45; on contrasting effects in landscape, 81 Watteau,'Jean-Antoine, 18 Whately, Thomas, 64-65 Wille, Pierre-Alexandre, 20 Wilson, Richard, 1,97,98