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The Art of Pleasing The The Art of Pleasing the Eye Portraits by Nicolas de Largillierre and Spectatorship with Taste for Colour in the Early Eighteenth Century Roussina Roussinova Academic dissertation for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Art History at Stockholm University to be publicly defended on Friday 15 January 2016 at 13.00 in Auditorium 215, Humanistvillan, Frescativägen 24. Abstract This study examines the interaction between portraits by the exponent of French colourist painting Nicolas de Largillierre (1656–1745) and elite spectatorship in the early eighteenth century as enactment of the idea of painting as an art of pleasing the eye. As developed in the theory of art of Roger de Piles (1635–1709), the idea of painting as an art of pleasing the eye coexisted with the classicist view, which in turn emphasised the potential of painting to communicate discursive meanings and hence to engage the mind. The idea of painting as an art of pleasing the eye was associated with a taste that valued the pictorial effects of painting and related to the ideal of honnêteté, which expanded on the art of pleasing in polite society by means of external appearances as a sign of social distinction. The aim of the study is to explore how portraits by Nicolas de Largillierre address the spectator and how such paintings might have come to have meaning for spectators in the early eighteenth century. To do this, the study takes a performative approach and defines meaning as a product of the interplay of pictorial effects and spectatorial response, progressing from the initial encounter throughout the sustained exploration of the paintings. Building on close analyses of selected paintings and readings of texts that bear on issues of pictorial imitation, spectatorship and social interaction, the study brings into focus the interplay of cognitive and sensory activities, including verbal articulation and bodily movement, which come into play in the production of meanings through the act of spectatorial experience. The study also emphasises the interplay of the mimetic and the material aspects of the paintings as an important bearer of meanings and identifies several interrelated sites of tension in which the pictorial effectiveness of the portraits resides. The study concludes by suggesting that to infer such meanings, the spectator should be prepared to respond to the address of the paintings actively, by engaging the mind, the senses and the body. Such an interpretation of the interaction between portrait paintings and spectators proposes a complex view of the ways in which artistic and spectatorial practices in the early eighteenth century might have interacted to create meanings while reproducing at the same time social and aesthetic conventions and ideals, such as the art of pleasing the eye. Keywords: spectatorship, pleasure, meaning, body and mind, senses, illusion, imagination, touch, colour, attention, attraction, detail, display, portraiture, art theory, amateur, conversation, honnêteté, performativity, Nicolas de Largillierre, Roger de Piles. Stockholm 2015 http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-123716 ISBN 978-91-7649-314-4 Department of Culture and Aesthetics Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm THE ART OF PLEASING THE EYE: PORTRAITS BY NICOLAS DE LARGILLIERRE AND SPECTATORSHIP WITH TASTE FOR COLOUR IN THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY Roussina Roussinova The Art of Pleasing the Eye Portraits by Nicolas de Largillierre and Spectatorship with Taste for Colour in the Early Eighteenth Century Roussina Roussinova © Roussina Roussinova, Stockholm University 2015 Cover image: Nicolas de Largillierre, Study of Hands (detail). Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre)/Franck Raux ISBN 978-91-7649-314-4 Printed in Sweden by Holmbergs, Malmö 2015 Distributor: Department of Culture and Aesthetics, Stockholm University Contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ vii Introduction ......................................................................................................................9 Theme of the study ......................................................................................................9 Where ‘words become superfluous’: point of departure ..................................................9 Aim of study.................................................................................................................................... 12 Painting, pleasure and elite spectatorship: transformations of taste ......................... 13 A new taste for portraiture ........................................................................................................ 19 Theoretical perspectives and methodology .............................................................. 21 Performativity and performative meaning .......................................................................... 21 Approaching painting: recognition as process ................................................................... 23 The performance of painting: spectacle and conversation ........................................... 24 Performing spectatorship ........................................................................................................... 25 Material and scope of analysis................................................................................... 26 Images ................................................................................................................................................ 26 Texts ................................................................................................................................................... 28 Previous Research ..................................................................................................... 31 Painting, imitation and spectatorial experience ................................................................. 31 Portrait painting and its performative aspects ................................................................... 33 Nicolas de Largillierre .................................................................................................................. 35 Outline ...................................................................................................................... 37 1. Portraiture, spectatorship and sociability ................................................................... 39 Ways of experiencing portrait painting ..................................................................... 39 ‘Who’ and ‘how’ in portrait painting ..................................................................................... 39 Colour in question ........................................................................................................................ 42 Alike or well-painted? .................................................................................................................. 47 Alike and well-painted: likeness as effect ............................................................................. 51 Performing likeness: likeness as appearance and artefact .............................................. 55 Spectatorship: experience between knowledge and pleasure ................................... 62 The superficial beauties of painting and the superficial beauties of talk ................. 62 Accommodating spectatorship with the effects of painting......................................... 64 Eye and mind: instruments of spectatorial experience and judgement .................... 68 Spectatorship as a sign of distinction .................................................................................... 72 Conversation as a mode of spectatorial experience ......................................................... 75 2. The moment of attraction: the subject’s appearance ................................................. 82 Staging appearances .................................................................................................. 82 Defining pictorial composition: subject matter and pictorial form ........................... 82 Performing virtuosity: Largillierre’s Self-portrait, 1711 ..................................................... 86 The appearance of difference ................................................................................................... 88 Performing difference: variations on the theme of looking ......................................... 92 Means of attraction ................................................................................................... 98 The moment, the effect: painting-‘machine’ ...................................................................... 98 Le tout ensemble – between discursive and visual unity ................................................... 100 From drawing to painting: visual unity and its discontents ........................................ 103 Artful imitation: grace and enthusiasm ............................................................................... 106 Landscape as setting ................................................................................................................... 110 Dimensions of pictorial space: movement and transformation ................................ 113 3. From attraction to attention: setting the spectator in (e)motion ............................. 118 Towards a conversational exploration of portrait painting .................................... 118 In search of the
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