The Power of Friendship: Amity and Politics in European Art And
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP: AMITY AND POLITICS IN EUROPEAN ART AND GARDENS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY by EMILY T. EVERHART (Under the Direction of Alisa Luxenberg) ABSTRACT The attention that Enlightenment philosophers and their patrons and readers paid to theories of friendship in the eighteenth century has been examined by cultural historians. Yet, art historical interest in the subject has been limited to the iconography of friendship deployed around 1750 by the marquise de Pompadour, royal mistress of the French king Louis XV, to secure her position after the end of their sexual relationship. Examining the numerous allegories commissioned by elite European patrons before and after Pompadour’s death, my research challenges the assumption that an iconography of friendship began and ended with the marquise. It identifies the actual and metaphorical settings of Pompadour’s and other patrons’ allegories that were located in gardens characterized by their remove from court and city and by the emerging English landscape style, and it contextualizes these sites of friendship within a contemporary critical discourse on the nature and existence of friendship. Enlightenment thinkers, especially the French Voltaire, the marquise de Lambert, and the English Joseph Addison and Alexander Pope debated the nature and existence of friendship in society throughout the eighteenth century. They considered who should be counted as a friend, the extent of friends’ obligations to each other, the function of friendship, and the possibility of true and perfect friendship. They were informed by philosophers of antiquity, the Renaissance, and the seventeenth century who had written on friendship and who, like their eighteenth-century counterparts, found true friendship to be a rare virtue. The dissertation begins with the contemporary literature on friendship and a re- examination of the marquise de Pompadour’s friendship iconography, and it concludes with the project initiated by the Russian empress Catherine the Great to memorialize her friend, Voltaire. These two patrons of friendship allegories, like the others discussed here, variously found themselves on the margins of the elite societies to which they desired membership, and they deployed their representations of friendships as claims to such status. Their allegories of friendship commemorated personal relationships, but they were also means by which they claimed to possess the virtue of friendship and to share that virtue with select, influential friends. INDEX WORDS: Friendship, L’amitié, Allegory, Landscape architecture, Eighteenth century, Pompadour, Catherine the Great, Voltaire, Choiseul, Du Barry, Pigalle, Caffieri, Bellevue, Hôtel d’Évreux, Sanssouci, Louveciennes, Fragonard, Vien, Vigée-Lebrun, Victoire, Falconet, Boizot, Sèvres, Stowe, Pavlovsk, Chanteloup, Betz, Palais Bourbon, Tsarskoe Selo, Marquise de Lambert, Thiroux d’Arconville, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP: AMITY AND POLITICS IN EUROPEAN ART AND GARDENS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY by EMILY T. EVERHART BA, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY, 2002 MA, CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY, 2005 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2015 © 2015 EMILY T. EVERHART All Rights Reserved THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP: AMITY AND POLITICS IN EUROPEAN ART AND GARDENS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY by EMILY T. EVERHART Major Professor: ALISA LUXENBERG Committee: ASEN KIRIN JANICE SIMON SHELLEY ZURAW NELL ANDREW Electronic Version Approved: Julie Coffield Interim Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2015 DEDICATION For Thomas Edward and Alaister Eugene iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am deeply grateful for the advice and encouragement of my mentor and advisor, Alisa Luxenberg. Her consistent, thoughtful consideration of my project and editing of my writing made this dissertation possible. I thank my entire thesis committee for their diverse interests and ideas and their challenging questions that shaped my research. My dear friend and colleague, Dr. Elisabeth Hodges, also provided indispensable feedback and encouragement. I appreciate the individuals who granted me the University of Georgia Graduate School Dean’s Award, the Wilson Center for Humanities & Arts Graduate Research Awards, the Short-Term Pre-Doctoral Residence at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, and the Andrew Ladis European Travel Scholarship. These made it possible for me to conduct research in libraries and museums in the United States and abroad. I also am grateful to the librarians and curators of those institutions whose knowledge of their collections massively improved my research. I have been happy to have the staff of the Lamar Dodd School of Art to expertly keep me on track. Finally, I could not have begun or concluded this project without the support of my friends and family, especially my husband and friend, Rommel Wells. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................v INTRODUCTION: A PORTRAIT OF FRIENDSHIP........................................................1 CHAPTER 1 POLITICS, PLACES, AND PLEASURES OF FRIENDSHIP ..............................11 Friendship and Politics ........................................................................................14 Friendship, Equality, and the Public Sphere .......................................................18 Places and Spaces of Friendship .........................................................................35 Love and Friendship ...........................................................................................44 2 FRIENDSHIP AT THE MARQUISE DE POMPADOUR’S CHÂTEAU DE BELLEVUE ............................................................................................................54 The Garden Sculptures at Bellevue.....................................................................59 Pompadour’s Court: The Suite d’estampes .........................................................77 The Garden Sculptures at the Hôtel d’Évreux ...................................................87 3 THE PERSISTENCE OF FRIENDSHIP: THE LEGACY OF MADAME DE POMPADOUR IN FRANCE ...............................................................................124 Friendship in the Decorative Arts .....................................................................127 Love and Friendship at Madame du Barry’s Château de Louveciennes ..........144 Madame Victoire and the Renewal of Bellevue as a Site of Friendship ..........163 4 “HAPPY RETREATS”: GARDEN TEMPLES OF FRIENDSHIP .....................228 vi The Temple of Friendship at Stowe ..................................................................233 The Pagoda of the Château de Chanteloup .......................................................241 “Exaggerated Adulation”: Frederick the Great’s Temple at Sanssouci ...........250 The Temple of Friendship at Pavlovsk .............................................................258 The Temples at Betz and the Palais-Bourbon ...................................................266 Friendship and the English Style Garden..........................................................281 5 FRIENDSHIP AND FOOLERY: CATHERINE THE GREAT AND VOLTAIRE IN THE GARDENS OF TSARSKOE SELO AND FERNEY .............................315 AFTERWARD: REPRESENTING FRIENDSHIP AFTER REVOLUTION ................370 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................388 APPENDIX ......................................................................................................................416 vii INTRODUCTION A PORTRAIT OF FRIENDSHIP “The Ancients knew all the good things that Friendship brings; but they so exaggerated its portraits, that these were regarded as beautiful ideas of a thing that does not exist in real life.” Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert (1647-1733), “Traité de l’amitié” (1736)1 “True virtue has attractions that one cannot resist. If the portrait that I try to make of you does not please you; do not take it out on her.” Jacques Pernetti (1696-1777), Conseils de l’Amitié (1747)2 The “portraits” of friendship created in eighteenth-century art were charged by claims to power as well as by beautiful ideas. Their patrons and artists were informed by numerous texts on the subject from antiquity through their own time, and they exemplify the unique and diverse methods of attending to and appropriating classical culture that characterized the Enlightenment and much eighteenth-century art. Eighteenth-century writers and artists established conceptions of friendship that departed from those held in previous centuries and proved to be especially advantageous for patrons who, for various reasons, were marginalized in elite societies. Among them, women commissioned images of friendship representing their relationships with powerful men and offering their loyalty to potentially beneficial allies. 1 “Les Anciens ont connu tous les biens qu'apporte l'Amitié ; mais ils en ont fait des portraits si chargés, qu'on les a regardés comme de belles idées d'une chose qui n'était point dans la nature.” Anne Thér se de 2 “La vraie vertu a des attraits ausquels on ne résiste point. Si le portrait que j’essaie de vous en faire ne vous plaisoit pas; ne vous en prenez point à elle.” Jacques Pernety (Pernetti), Les Conseils de l’Amitié (Paris: