Stendhal's Views on Art

From Elizabeth Gilmore Holt, From Classicists to the Impressionists: Art and Architecture in the 19th century (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1981), pp.40-42.

Marie Henri Beyle (1783-1842), better known by his pen name "Stendhal" is famous today as the author of novels such as The Red and the Black and The Charterhouse of Parma, but in his own time he was also a prominent art critic. As such he represented early 19th century Romanticism, which emphasized the role of strong emotions and inspiration in the creation of works of art. In the excerpts below are his reactions to some of the works on display at the Salon of 1824, the official art exhibit in Paris sponsored by the French academy. He strongly rejects the classicism represented by Jacques-Louis David, an earlier painter who dominated French painting in the late 18th and very early 19th centuries. (David's 1799 painting, The Intervention of the Sabine Women, which receives particular scorn from Stendhal, may be seen at the bottom of this page.)

To get the full impact of Stendhal's Romanticism, you might compare his comments below with those of the classicist Ingres, from Day 1. These two selections make clear the differences in how the defenders of classicism and of Romanticism defined great art. The Romantics' attack on classicism will help lay the foundations for later experiments in art, such as Impressionism.

ARTICLE   1,  AUGUST  31,  1824,  Journal  de  Paris                                                                   \

We are  at  the  dawn  of  a revolution in  the Fine Arts.  The huge  pictures  composed  of thirty nude figures inspired by antique statues  and the heavy tragedies in verse in five acts are, without a doubt, very respectable  works; but in spite of all that may  be said in  their  favor, they  have begun to be a little  boring. If the painting of the "Sabines" were  to appear today, we would find that its figures were without passion and that in any country it is absurd to march off to battle with no clothes on. "But that is the way it is done in antique bas­relief!" [i.e. ancient Greek or Roman figures carved into a wall] cry out the classicist  painters, those  men who  swear by David  and who cannot say three words without speaking of style. And what do I care about antique bas-relief! Let us try to do good  modern  painting.  The Greeks liked the nude; we, we never  see it, and  I will go further and say that it disgusts us.

Without heeding the clamours of the opposite  party,  I am going  to tell the public frankly and simply what I feel about each of the pictures  it will honor with its attention. I will give the reasons for my particular point of view. My aim is to make each spectator search his soul, analyze his personal manner of feeling, and come in this manner to form his own opinion, to a way of seeing based on his individual  character, his taste, his dominating  passions, provided that he has passions, for unfortunately they are necessary in the judgement of art.

ARTICLE  4,  SEPTEMBER  12

Throw the  most  ordinary  man   into prison, one the least familiar with every idea of art and  literature, in a word, one of those ignorant lazybones who are encountered in such large numbers in a vast  capital, and  as soon  as he has recovered from his initial  fright, tell  him that he will  be set  free if he is capable of  showing at the Salon a nude figure perfectly drawn according to the system of  David. You would be  astonished to see the prisoner in the experiment reappear in the outside world at the end of two or three years.  Correct, scholarly  drawing  imitated  from antiquity as  the school of David comprehends  it  is an exact science like  arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry, etc. That is to say, with infinite  patience and with the brilliant genius of  Bareme, one  can  arrive in two or three years at a knowledge of the conformation and the exact position of the hundred muscles which cover the human body  and  be able to reproduce them with a brush. During the thirty years that David's tyrannical government has lasted, the  public has  been obliged  to believe, under penalty of being charged with bad  taste, that to have had the patience necessary to acquire the exact science of drawing was  to be  a  genius. . . .

But I return  to the prisoner we have  thrown into a tower of Mont San Michel.  Tell  him:  "You will be free when you are capable of depicting in a manner recognizable by the  public, the despair of a lover who has just lost his sweetheart,· or the joy of a father who sees the son appear whom he believed to be dead"; and the unfortunate will find himself condemned by this to perpetual imprisonment. This is because, unfortunately  for  many artists, the passions are not an exact science that the ignorant may master. To be able to paint the passions, they must have been seen, their devouring  flames must have been felt.  Note well that I do not say that all passionate  people  are good painters;  I say that all great artists have been passionate   men.  This is equally true in all the arts, from Giorgione dying of love at thirty-three because Morto de Feltre, his student, had stolen his mistress, to Mozart, who died  because he imagined that an angel disguised as a venerable old man called  him to heaven.

The  school  of  David  can only  paint bodies; it is decidedly inept  at  painting souls