by Will Durant
The most talked-of statue of this period was that which the intelligentsia of Europe chose Pigalle to make of Voltaire. Mme. Necker suggested it at one of her soirees on April 17, 1770. All of her seventeen guests (who included d’Alembert, Morellet, Ray nal, Grimm, and Marmontel) welcomed the proposal, and the public was invited to subscribe to the cost. Some objections were raised, for it was unusual to raise statues to any living persons except royalty, and none had been made of Corneille or Racine before their death. Nevertheless subscriptions poured in, even from half the sovereigns of Europe; Frederick sent in two hundred louis d’or to commemorate his old friend and foe. Rousseau asked permission to contribute; Voltaire objected; d’Alembert persuaded him to consent. Fréron, Palissot, and other anti-philosophes offered their tribute, but were refused; the philosophes proved slower than their opponents to forgive. As for Voltaire himself, he warned Mme. Necker that he was no fit subject for statuary:
I am seventy-six years old, and I have scarcely recovered from a severe malady which treated my body and soul very badly for six weeks. M. Pigalle, it is said, is to come and model my countenance. But, madame, it would be necessary that I should have a countenance, and the place where it was can hardly be divined. My eyes are sunk three inches; my cheeks are of old parchment, badly stuck upon bones that hold to nothing; the few teeth I had are all gone. What I say to you is not coquetry; it is pure truth. A poor man has never been sculptured in that condition; M. Pigalle would believe that he was being played with; and for my part I should have so much self-love that I should never dare to appear in his presence. I would advise him, if he wished to put an end to this strange affair, to take his model, with slight alterations, from the little figure in Sèvres porcelain.43
Pigalle doubled the problem by proposing to make a nude statue of the famous imp, but he was dissuaded. He went to Ferney in June, and for eight days the bashful philosopher sat for him, on and off, but so restlessly—dictating to a secretary, making grimaces, blowing peas at various objects in the room—that the sculptor came close to a nervous breakdown.44 Returning to Paris with a mold, he labored on the task for two months, and revealed the result on September 4; half the elite came to marvel and smile. It is now in the vestibule of the library of the Institute.
Pigalle’s only rival for sculptural primacy in this period was Étienne-Maurice Falconet, and Diderot tells us a pretty story of their enmity. Two years younger, Falconet avoided direct competition at first by making figures in porcelain. Especially delightful was the Pygmalion which Duru modeled after Falconet’s design, showing the Greek sculptor’s astonishment as his marble Galatea bends to speak to him. That figure could symbolize a half-forgotten truth: unless a work of art speaks to us it is not art. When Pigalle was shown this bit of clay transformed into enduring significance, he uttered the traditional compliment of one great artist to another: “I wish I had done that!” But Falconet, seeing Pigalle’s Louis XV Citoyen, did not entirely return the compliment. “Monsieur Pigalle,” he said, “I do not like you, and I believe you return my feeling. I have seen your Citoyen. It was possible to create such a work, since you have done it; but I do not believe that art can go one line beyond it. This does not prevent us from remaining as we were.”45
Falconet was soured by forty years of trials before full recognition came to him. He retired into himself, lived in Diogenic simplicity, quarreled readily, belittled his own work, and expressed contempt for fame, living or posthumous. Fame came at last with his Baigneuse (1757)—a pretty bather trying the water’s temperature with her toes.46 Now Mme. de Pompadour warmed to him; for her he carved Amour Menaçant— Cupid threatening to loose an arrow infected with love. For a time Falconet became the Boucher and Fragonard of sculpture, turning out such charming titillations as Venus and Cupid, Venus Disrobing before Paris … He excelled in designing candelabra, small fountains, and figurines; he carved in marble the Clock of the Three Graces now in the Louvre; and he pleased Pompadour by representing her as Music.47 In 1766 he accepted Catherine II’s invitation to Russia; in St. Petersburg he carved his masterpiece, Peter the Great on a prancing horse. He shared with Diderot and Grimm the favor of the Empress; labored for her through twelve years; quarreled with her and her ministers; left in a huff and returned to Paris. In 1783 he suffered a paralytic stroke; during the eight years that remained to him he kept to his room, confirmed in his gloomy view of life.
FIG. 1—MAURICE-QUENTIN DE LA TOUR: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, pastel portrait (1752). Musée de Saint-Quentin, France.
FIG. 2—CARMONTELLE (1717-1806): Melchior von Grimm. Musée Condé, Chantilly, France. (Photo Giraudon.)
FIG. 3—CARMONTELLE: Mme. d’Épinay. Musée Condé, Chantilly. (Photo Giraudon.)
FIG. 4—LOUIS TOCQUÉ (1696-1772): Count Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz. National Library, Vienna.
FIG. 5—ENGRAVING AFTER A PAINTING BY F. BOCK: Frederick the Great in Old Age. (Bettmann Archive.)
FIG. 6-AUGUSTIN PAJOU: Mme. du Barry, marble bust. Louvre, Paris.
F1G. 7—J.-F. OEBEN AND J.-H. RIESENER: Bureau du Roi (1769). Louvre, Paris.
FIG. 8-LOUIS-MICHEL VANLOO: Louis XV in Later Life. The Mansell Collection, London.
FIG. 9—Sèvres soft-paste porcelain, 1784. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, gift of R. Thornton Wilson, 1950, in memory of Florence Ellsworth Wilson.
FIG. 10—JACQUES-ANGE GABRIEL: The Petit Trianon (1762-68). French Embassy Press and Information Division.
FIG. 11—JEAN-JACQUES CAFFIERI: Jean de Jean de Rotrou. Comédie Française, Paris. Reproduced from Max Osborn, Die Kunst des Rokoko (Berlin: Propyläen Verlag, 1929).
FIG. 12—JACQUES-GERMAIN SOUFFLOT: The Panthéon, Paris (1757-90). French Embassy Press and Information Division.
FIG. 13—AFTER A PAINTING BY JEAN MARC NATTIER: Mme. Geoffrin.
FIG. 14—JEAN-HONORÉ FRAGONARD: Self-Portrait. Louvre, Paris.
FIG. 15—CARMONTELLE: Mme. du Deffand Visited by Mme. de Choiseul. From a drawing by G. P. Harding.
FIG. 16—JEAN-BAPTISTE GREUZE: Sophie Arnould. Reproduced by permission of the Trustees of the Wallace Collection, London.
FIG. 17—GREUZE: The Broken Pitcher (La Cruche Cassée). Louvre, Paris.
FIG. 18—FRAGONARD: The Swing. Reproduced by permission of the Trustees of the Wallace Collection, London.
FIG. 19—ANTONIO CANALETTO: View of St. Mark’s, Venice. Collection of Baron von Thyssen, Castagnola-Lugano. (Foto Brunel, Lugano.)
FIG. 20—GIAMBATTISTA TIEPOLO: The Banquet of Cleopatra. Palazzo Labia, Venice. (Fotografo Rossi, Venice.)
FIG. 21—TIEPOLO: Apollo Bringing the Bride to Barbarossa. The Residenz, Würzburg. (Photo-Verlag Gundermann.)
FIG. 22—ROSALBA CARRIERA: Self-Portrait. Windsor Castle. Copyright reserved.
FIG. 23—GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIAZZETTA: Rebecca at the Well. Brera, Milan.
FIG. 24—A. LONGHI: Carlo Goldoni. Museo Correr, Venice.
FIG. 25—The Royal Palace, Madrid. Spanish National Tourist Office.
FIG. 26—Façade of the Church of Santiago de Compostela, Spain (1738). Spanish National Tourist Office.
FIG. 27—FRANCISCO JOSÉ DE GOYA Y LUCIENTES: Charles IV and His Family. Prado, Madrid.
FIG. 28—GOYA: Charles III. Prado, Madrid.
FIG. 29—GOYA: The Duchess of Alba. Prado, Madrid.
FIG. 30—GOYA: Self-Portrait. Prado, Madrid.
FIG. 31—GOYA: The Tribunal of the lnquisition. Prado, Madrid.
FIG. 32—GOYA: La Maja Desnuda. Prado, Madrid.
FIG. 33—GOYA: La Maja Vestida. Prado, Madrid.
FIG. 34—GOYA: Saturn Devouring His Offspring. Prado, Madrid.
FIG. 35—FRANCESCO GUARDI: Concert in the Sala dei Filarmonici. Alte Pinakothek, Munich.
FIG. 36—ANTON RAPHAEL MENGS: Parnassus. Villa Albani, Rome.
FIG. 37—JEAN-ANTOINE HOUDON: Gluck. Louvre, Paris.
FIG 38—XAVIER-PASCAL FABRE (1766-1837): Vittorio Alfieri. Uffizi, Florence.
FIG. 39—FRA
NZ VON ZAUNER (1746-1822): Emperor Joseph II. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
FIG. 40—FABRE: The Countess of Albany. Uffizi, Florence.
FIG. 41—JOHN HOPPNER (1758-1810): Joseph Haydn. Windsor Castle. Copyright reserved.
FIG. 42—Esterházy Castle at Eisenstadt. Austrian Information Service.
FIG. 43—JOHANN NEPOMUK DELLA CROCE: The Mozart Family. Original in Mozart’s dwelling house in Salzburg, Austria.
FIG. 44—ÉTIENNE-MAURICE FALCONET: Statue of Peter the Great, Leningrad (1782).
FIG. 45—ARTIST UNKNOWN: Czar Peter III.
FIG. 46—ENGRAVING BY G. SKORODUMOV AFTER A PAINTING BY F. S. ROKOTOV: Catherine the Great. State Historical Museum, MOSCOW. (Sovfoto.)
FIG. 47—F. S. ROKOTOV: Grigori Orlov.
FIG. 48—IVAN STAROV: Potemkin’s Taurida Palace (1783), Leningrad. (Sovfoto.)
Jean-Jacques Caffieri could be more cheerful, having been nursed into success by his father, Jacques, one of the leading bronze workers of the preceding age. He gained early entry into the Academy of Fine Arts with his figure of an old man, clad only in whiskers, and entitled Le Fleuve (The River). The Comédie-Française engaged him to adorn its halls with busts of the French dramatists; he delighted everyone with his idealized representations of Corneille, Molière, and Voltaire. His masterpiece is a bust of the playwright Jean de Rotrou, which he made from an engraving preserved in the family; it is d’Artagnan in middle age—flowing hair, flashing eyes, pugnacious nose, bristling mustache; this is one of the finest busts in sculpture’s history. Jealous of the Comédie, the Company of the Opéra persuaded Caffieri to portray their heroes, too; he made busts of Lully and Rameau, but these have disappeared. A lovely Portrait of a Young Girl remains,48 perhaps a member of the Opéra ballet, a charming reconciliation of modest eyes and proud breasts.
Mme. du Barry’s favorite sculptor was Augustin Pajou. After the customary novitiate in Rome, he achieved early prosperity with royal commissions and orders from abroad. He made a dozen portraits of the new mistress; the one in the Louvre has a classic costume wondrously carved. At the King’s request he portrayed Buffon for the Jardin du Roi;49 then he commemorated Descartes, Turenne, Pascal, and Bossuet. His finest work survives in the reliefs with which he adorned the lower tier of boxes at the opera house in Versailles. He lived long enough to work for Louis XVI, to mourn that King’s execution, and to watch Napoleon bestride the Continent.
2. Architecture
Was there any memorable building in the France of these eighteen years? Not much. The churches were already too spacious for the remaining faithful, and the palaces were arousing the jealousy of the famine-stricken multitude. The renewal of interest in Roman architecture by the excavations at Herculaneum (1738) and Pompeii (1748-63) was nourishing a revival of classical styles—lines of simplicity and dignity, façade of columns and pediment, and sometimes a spacious dome. Jacques-François Blondel, professor at the Académie Royale de l’Architecture, was all for such classic forms, and his successor, Julien-David Le Roy, issued in 1754 a treatise, Les plus Beaux Monuments de la Grèce, which accelerated the intoxication. Anne-Claude de Tubières, Comte de Caylus, after much traveling in Italy, Greece, and the Near East, published (1752-67) seven epochal volumes, Recueil d’antiquités égyptiennes, étrusques, grècques, romaines, et gauloises, carefully illustrated from some of his own drawings; the whole world of French art, even of French manners, was powerfully influenced by this book toward rejecting the irregularities of baroque and the frivolities of rococo to seek again the purer lines of classic styles. So in 1763 Grimm told his clientele:
For some years past we have been making keen inquiry for antique monuments and forms. The predilection for them has become so universal that now everything is to be done à la grècque, from architecture to millinery; our ladies have their hair dressed à la grècque, our fine gentlemen would think themselves dishonored if they did not hold in their hands a little box à la grècque.50
And Diderot, the apostle of bourgeois romanticism, suddenly surrendered to the new wave (1765) on reading a translation of Winckelmann’s History of Ancient Art. “It seems to me,” he wrote, “that we must study the antique in order that we may learn to see nature.”51 That sentence itself was a revolution.
In 1757 Jacques-Germain Soufflot began to build the Church of Ste.-Geneviève, which Louis XV, when ill at Metz, had vowed to raise to the patron saint of Paris as soon as he should recover. The King himself laid the first stone, and the erection of this edifice “became the great architectural event of the second half of the eighteenth century” in France.52 Soufflot designed it in the form of a Roman temple, with a portico of sculptured pediment and Corinthian columns, and four wings meeting in a Greek cross in a central choir under a triple dome. Controversy marked almost every stage of the construction. Harassed and disheartened by attacks upon his design, Soufflot died in 1780, leaving the structure incomplete. The four piers designed by him to support the dome proved too weak, and Charles-Étienne Cuvillier replaced them by a much more beautiful circle of columns. This chef-d’oeuvre of the classical revival was secularized by the Revolution; it was renamed the Panthéon in memory of Marcus Agrippa’s masterpiece at Rome, as the burial place “of all the gods” of the new order, even of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Marat; it ceased to be a Christian church, and became a pagan tomb; it symbolized, in its architecture and its fate, the progressive triumph of paganism over Christianity.
The classic style won another victory in the first Church of the Madeleine (Magdalen), begun in 1764; colonnades and flat-ceiled aisles took the place of arches and vaults, and a dome covered the choir. Napoleon swept it away unfinished, to make way for the still more classical Madeleine that occupies the site today.
This reversion to grave classic modes, after the rebellious exuberance of baroque under Louis XIV and the playful elegance of rococo under Louis XV, was part of the transition, under Louis XV himself, to le style Louis Seize— the style of building, furniture, and ornament that was to take the name of the guillotined King. Art disciplined itself from incalculable curves and superfluous decoration to the sober simplicity of straight lines and structural form. It was as if the decline of Christianity had taken the heart out of the Gothic exaltation, and had left art no recourse but to a Stoic reserve shorn of gods and clinging to the earth.
The greatest of French builders in this generation was Jacques-Ange Gabriel, whose ancestry had put architecture in his blood. Commissioned by Louis XV (1752) to rebuild an old castle at Compiègne, he graced the entrance with a Greek portico of Doric columns, dentil cornice, and unem-bellished balustrade. He followed similar designs in rebuilding the right wing of the palace at Versailles (1770). To the same palace he added (1753-70) an exquisite opera house. The flushed columns, the delicately carved cornices and handsome balustrade, make this one of the loveliest interiors in France. Tired of court publicity and formality, Louis appealed to Gabriel to build him a petite maison hidden in the woods; Gabriel chose a site a mile from the palace, and raised there in French Renaissance style the Petit Trianon (1762-68). Here Pompadour had hoped to enjoy privacy and ease; Du Barry romped there for a while; then Marie Antoinette made it her favorite retreat as the royal shepherdess in those happy, careless days when the sun still shone upon Versailles.
3. Greuze
In the intimacy of aristocratic homes paintings were a favored decoration. Statues were cold and colorless; they pleased the eye and mind rather than heart and soul; paintings could reflect the flux of moods and tastes, and they could transport the spirit to open spaces, shady trees, or distant scenes while the body remained immured. So Claude-Joseph Vernet pictured so many ships riding in French waters that Louis XV, in a famous quip, thought it unnecessary to build more. The French government hired Vernet to visit the ports and make paintings of the vessels anchored there; he did, and made France proud of her fleets. Diderot secured one of Vernet’s seascapes and landscapes, and prized it so highly that he prayed to an
extemporized God: “I abandon all to thee, take all back; yes, all, except Vernet!”53—And there was Hubert Robert, who was called “Robert des Ruines” because he equipped nearly all his landscapes with Roman ruins, like The Pont du Gard at Nîmes. Nevertheless, Mme. Vigée-Lebrun assures us, he was “very much in demand” in Paris salons, though he was ruinously fond of eating.54—And there was François-Hubert Drouais, who preserved for us, with sensitive portraiture, the loveliness of the Marquise de Sorau and the innocent childhood of the future Charles X and his sister Marie-Adélaïde.55 But let us look more intimately at Greuze and Fragonard.