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Essays on Painting

Denis Diderot

from the Salon of 1763: Jean-Baptiste Greuze

This Greuze here is really my kind of person.…

Most of all, I like the genre. It is moral painting. What, has not the paintbrush been devoted long enough to debauchery and vice? Should we not be content to finally see it compete with verse drama to touch us, to teach us, to correct us, to invite us to be virtuous? Have courage, my friend Greuze! Moralize in painting, and do so always. When you are about to leave this life, there will not be a single one of your compositions that you will not be able to recall with pleasure. For were you not at the side of this young girl who, gazing at the head of your Paralytic, cried out with a delightful vivacity Oh, my Lord, how he touches me; but if I look upon him again, I believe I will cry; if only this young girl were mine! I would have recognized her by this wave of emotion. When I saw this eloquent and pitiful old man, I felt, like her, my soul becoming tender and tears ready to fall from my eyes….

Everything is related to the main figure and what is being done in the present moment, and what was done in the previous moment.…

From the top to the bottom, there is nothing that does not evoke the pity felt for the old man.

There is a large sheet hanging on a rope, drying. This sheet has been very well conceived, for the subject of the painting and for the effect of the art. One suspects that the painter was quite deliberate in painting it with such broad dimensions.

Everyone present has precisely the degree of purpose that corresponds to their age and character. The number of figures gathered in a relatively small space is very large; however, they are present without confusion, because this master excels above all in ordering his scene. The color of the flesh is true. The fabrics are well cared for. There is no unease of movement. Each person is focused on what they are doing. The youngest of the children are cheery, because they have not yet reached the age when one feels. The shared feeling of sadness among the older ones is expressed very powerfully. The son-in-law seems to be the most affected, as it is to him that the patient addresses his speech and his gaze. The married girl seems to listen with pleasure rather than pain. If not extinguished, the attention of the old mother is at least desensitized; and that is entirely natural. Jam proximus ardet Ucalegon (“Close by, Ucalegon’s house is already burning”—Virgil, Aeneid). She can no longer promise herself any consolation other than the same tenderness from her children, for a time not far away. And then comes the age that hardens the fibers, dries out the soul.

Some say that the paralytic is leaned too far back, that it is impossible to eat in this position.

He does not eat, he speaks, and one would be ready to raise up his head.

They say it was his daughter’s duty to present him with food, and his son-in-law’s to raise his head and pillow, because skill is asked of one and strength of the other. This observation is not so well founded as it seems at first. The painter wanted his paralytic to receive aid marked by the one he was least entitled to expect it from. This justifies the good choice he made in favor of the girl; it is the real cause of the tenderness on her face, her gaze, and of the speech he addresses to her. Displacing this figure would have meant changing the subject of the painting. To put the girl in the son-in-law’s place would have been to overthrow the whole composition: there would have been four women’s heads in a row, and the succession of all these heads would have been unbearable.…

Jean-Baptiste Greuze, The Paralytic (Filial Piety), 1763

It is said that this artist lacks fertility; and that all the heads of this scene are the same as those of his painting The Village Bride, and those of his The Village Bride the same as those of his Peasant Reading to His Children.…

If (the artist) encounters a head that strikes him, he will get down on bended knees before the owner of this head to lure them into his studio. He observes constantly, in the streets, in the churches, in the markets, in shows, on walks, in public meetings. When he meditates on a subject, he obsesses over it, follows it everywhere. His very character suffers as a result. He takes his character from his painting; he becomes brusque, sweet, subtle, caustic, gallant, sad, cheerful, cold, hot, serious or crazy, depending on the thing he projects.…

Ah, Monsieur Greuze, that you are different from yourself, when it is tenderness or purpose that guides your brush. Paint your wife, your mistress, your father, your mother, your children, your friends; the others, however, I advise you to send back to Roslin or Michel Van Loo.

Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Girl with Dead Canary, 1765

from the Salon of 1765: Jean-Baptiste Greuze

What a pretty elegy! What a pretty poem! What a fine idyll Gessner¹ would make of it! It could be a vignette drawn from this poet’s work.

A delicious painting, the most attractive and perhaps the most interesting in the Salon. She faces us, her head rests on her left hand. The dead bird lied on top of the cage, its head hanging down, its wings limp, its feet in the air. How natural her pose! How beautiful her head! How elegantly her hair is arranged! How expressive her face! Her pain is profound, she feels the full brunt of misfortune, she’s consumed by it. What a pretty catafalque the cage makes. How graceful is the garland of greenery that winds around it!

Oh, what a beautiful hand! What a beautiful hand! What a beautiful arm! Note the truthful detailing of these fingers, and these dimples, and this softness, and the reddish cast resulting from the pressure of the head against these delicate fingers, and the charm of it all. One would approach the hand to kiss it, if one didn’t respect this child and her suffering. Everything about her enchants, including the fall of her clothing, how beautiful the shawl is draped! How light and supple it is! When one first perceives this painting, one says: Delicious! If one pauses before it or comes back to it, one cries out: Delicious! Delicious! Soon one is surprised to find oneself conversing with this child and consoling her. This is so true, that I’ll recount some of the remarks I’ve made to her on different occasions.

Poor little one, how intense, how thoughtful is your pain! Why this dreamy, melancholy air? What, for a bird? You don’t cry, you suffer, and your thoughts are consistent with your pain. Come, little one, open up your heart to me, tell me truly, is it really the death of this bird that’s caused you to withdraw so sadly, so completely into yourself? … You lower your eyes, you don’t answer. Your tears are about to flow. I’m not your father. I’m neither indiscreet nor severe. Well, well, I’ve figured it out, he loved you, and for such a long time, he swore to it! He suffered so much! How difficult to see an object of our love suffer! ... Let me go on; why do you put your hand over my mouth? On this morning, unfortunately, your mother was absent; he came, you were alone; he was so handsome, his expressions so truthful! He said things that went right to your soul! And while saying them he was at your knees; that too can easily be surmised; he took one of your hands, from time to time you felt the warmth of the tears falling from his eyes running the length of your arm. Still your mother didn’t return; it’s not your fault, it’s your mother’s fault ... My goodness, how you’re crying! But what I say to you isn’t intended to make you cry. And why cry? He promised you, he’ll keep all his promises to you.

When one has been fortunate enough to meet a charming child like yourself, become attached to her, give her pleasure, it’s for life ... And my bird? ... My friend, she smiled ... Ah, how beautiful she was! If only you’d seen her smile and weep! I continued: Your bird? When one forgets oneself, does one remember one’s bird? When the hour of your mother’s return drew near, the one you love went away. How difficult it was for him to tear himself away from you! ... How you look at me! Yes, I know all that. How he got up and sat down again countless times! How he said goodbye to you over and over without leaving! How he left and returned repeatedly! I’ve just seen him at his father’s, he’s in charmingly good spirits, with that gaiety from which none of them are safe ... And my mother? ... Your mother, she returned almost immediately after his departure, she found you in the dreamy state you were in a moment ago; one is always like that. Your mother spoke to you and you didn’t hear what she said; she told you to do one thing and you did another. A few tears threatened to appear beneath your eyelids, you either held them back as best you could or turned away your head to dry them in secret. Your continued distraction made your mother lose her patience, she scolded you, and this provided an occasion for you to cry without restraint and so lighten your heart. Should I go on? I fear what I’m going to say might rekindle your pain. You want me to? Well then, your good mother regretted having upset you, she approached you, she took your hands, she kissed your forehead and cheeks, and this made you cry even harder. You put your head on her breast, and you buried your face there, which was beginning to turn red, like everything else. How many sweet things this good mother said to you, and how these sweet things caused you pain! Your canary warbled, warned you, called to you, flapped its wings, complained of your having forgotten it, but to no avail; you didn’t see it, you didn’t hear it, your thoughts were elsewhere; it got neither its water nor its seeds, and this morning the bird was no more ... You’re still looking at me; is it because I forgot something? Ah, I understand, little one, this bird, it was he who gave it to you. Well, he’ll find another just as beautiful … That’s still not all; your eyes stare at me: and fill up with tears again. What more is there? Speak, I’ll never figure it out myself ... And if the bird’s death were an omen . . . what would I do? What would become of me? What if he’s dishonorable? … What an idea! Have no fear, it’s not like that, it couldn’t be like that ... —Why my friend, you’re laughing at me; you’re making fun of a serious person who amuses himself by consoling a painted child for having lost her bird, for having lost what you will? But also observe how beautiful she is! How interesting!

I don’t like to trouble anyone; despite that, I wouldn’t be too displeased to have been the cause of her pain. The subject of this little poem is so cunning that many people haven’t understood it; they think this young girl is crying only for her canary. Greuze has already painted this subject once. He placed in front of a broken mirror a tall girl in white satin, overcome by deep melancholy. Don’t you think it would be just as stupid to attribute the tears of the young girl in this Salon to the loss of her bird, as the melancholy of the other girl to her broken mirror? This child is crying about something else, I tell you. And you’ve heard for yourself, she agrees, and her distress says the rest. Such pain! At her age! And for a bird! But how old is she, then? How shall I answer you, and what a question you’ve posed. Her head is fifteen or sixteen, and her arm and hand eighteen or nineteen. This is a flaw in the composition that becomes all the more apparent because her head is supported by her hand, and the one part is inconsistent with the other. Place the hand somewhere else and no one would notice it’s a bit too robust, too developed. This happened, my friend, because the head was done from one model and the hand from another. Otherwise this hand is quite truthful, very beautiful perfectly colored and drawn. If you can overlook the small patch that’s a bit too purplish in color, it’s a very beautiful thing. The head is nicely lit, as agreeably colored as a blonde’s could be; perhaps she could have a bit more relief. The striped handkerchief is loose, light, beautifully transparent, everything’s handled with vigor, without compromising the details. This painter may have done as well, but he’s never done anything better.

This work is oval, it’s two feet high, and it belongs to Monsieur de La Live de La Briche.

After the Salon was hung, Monsieur de Marigny did the initial honors. The Fish Maecenas² arrived with a cortege of artists in his favor and admitted to his table; the others were already there. He moved about, he looked, he registered approval, disapproval; Greuze’s Girl With Dead Canary caught his attention and surprised him. That is beautiful, he said to the artist, who answered him: Monsieur I know it; I am much praised, but I lack work. —That, Vernet interjected, is because you have a host of enemies, and among these enemies there is someone who seems to love you to distraction but who will bring about your downfall. —And who is this enemy? Greuze asked him. —You yourself, Vernet answered..

from the Salon of 1763: Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin

Here is the real painter; here is the true colorist. There are several small paintings by Chardin in the Salon. Almost all of them depict various fruits surrounded by the accessories of a meal. They are nature itself; the objects all stand out from the canvas in such a way that the eye is ready to take them for reality itself. The one you see as you walk up the stairs is worth particular attention. On top of a table, the artist has placed an old Chinese porcelain vase, two biscuits, a jar of olives, a basket of fruit, two glasses half-filled with wine, a Seville orange, and a meat pie. I feel I need to make myself another pair of eyes when I look at other artists’ paintings; to see Chardin’s I need only keep those that nature gave me and use them well.

If I wanted my child to be a painter, this is the painting I should buy. “Copy this,” I should say to the child. “Copy it again.” But perhaps nature itself is not more difficult to copy. The fact is, that porcelain vase is made of porcelain; those olives really are separated from the eye by the water they are immersed in; you have only to put out your hand and you can pick up those biscuits and eat them, that orange and cut it and squeeze it, that glass of wine and drink it, those fruits and peel them, that meat pie and slice it.

Jean-Baptiste Simeon Chardin, Still-Life with Olive Glass, 1760

Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin, The Ray, 1728

Here is the man who truly understands the harmony of colors and their reflections. Oh, Chardin! It is not white or red or black you mix on your palette, it is the very substance of things themselves, it is air and light that you take on the point of your brush and apply to your canvas.

After my child had copied and recopied this piece of work, I should set him to work on the same master’s The Ray. The object itself is disgusting, but that is the fish’s very flesh, its skin, its blood: the real thing would not affect you otherwise. Monsieur Pierre, (you are a famous painter), but when next you go to the Academy, look carefully at this canvas and learn, if you can, the secret of using your talent to redeem the distastefulness that is present in certain natural objects.

This magic is beyond our understanding. There are thick layers of paint in some places, laid one on top of the other, that make their effect by glowing through, from the bottom upward.

In other places, it is as though a vapor had been breathed onto the canvas; in others still, a light foam has been thrown across it. Rubens, Berchem, Greuze, Loutherbourg could all explain this technique to you better than I, for all of them can also make your eyes experience its effects. If you move close, everything becomes confused, flattens out, and vanishes. Then as you move back, everything takes shape and recreates itself again. I have been told that Greuze, upon coming into the Salon and noticing the Chardin painting I have just described, looked at it, then heaved a profound sigh as he walked on: a eulogy both briefer and more valuable than mine.

1 Johann Matthias Gessner (1691–1761). German humanist and translator/adaptor of Latin literature.

2 Poisson Mécene: Marigny’s family name was Poisson, which means “fish” in French