Codifying the Passions in the Classical Age: a few reflections on Charles Le Brun’s scheme and its influence in France and in England
Line Cottegnies
Line Cottegnies, « Codifying the Passions in the Classical Age: a few reflections on Charles Le Brun’s scheme and its influence in France and in England », Études Épistémè, 1, 2002
Extrait de l’article
Offering a theoretical basis for the pictorial representation of the passions, Charles Le Brun’s Conférence sur l’expression générale et particulière is one of the most emblematic projects of French classicism. The lecture was given in 1668 in front of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture – the powerful Parisian institution which, under the aegis of Colbert, controlled the world of art – and only appeared in print a few years later when disciples of the master decided to publish it. The context was that of the wider movement towards political centralisation and rationalisation which concerned all aspects of life, including literature and the arts. Le Brun (1619-1690) was then a respected and influential master as well as a Rector of the Académie and “the King’s First Painter”. The lecture offers a description with numerous sketches presented as models for painters to represent the passions of the soul by adequate facial expressions. In its own way, and for the way it was received, it offers a fascinating insight into the comprehensive scheme of French rationalism. For if painters, theorists or rhetoricians before Le Brun had naturally concerned themselves with the issue of representing the passions, never had the enterprise been so systematic and comprehensive in scope. Even though it was generally to be dismissed as excessive and rigid in the eighteenth century, more vigorously so in England than in France, its influence in these two countries was profound and enduring. It has thus often been seen as a major source for the visual rhetoric that eventually led to the pathetic style in the arts, in the theatre and even, to a certain extent, in the fiction of the Neo-classical age. This paper examines some aspects of Le Brun’s scheme and of the way in which is was received in France and in England.
Le Brun’s project was deeply influenced by Descartes’ doctrine of the passions : with his influential mechanistic treatise on the passions, Les Passions de l’âme, the French philosopher had broken new ground by showing that the passions – seen all as equally good because they served the conservation of life – were first and foremost based on a mechanism revealing the close articulation between body and soul.