ENGLISH VERSION Jonathan Richardson sr. & jr. Traité de la peinture et de la sculpture. École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, 2008

Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro

CLICK HERE FOR ITALIAN VERSION

Jonathan Richardson sr and Jonathan Richardson jr
Traité de la peinture et de la sculpture [Treatise on painting and sculpture]

Edited by Isabelle Baudino and Frédéric Ogée

École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, 2008

Isbn 978-2-840-56-232-0

Jonathan Richardson sr., Self-Portrait, 1729, London, National Portrait Gallery
Source: Wikimedia Commons

[1] Text of the flap:

"This book combines the theoretical writings of Jonathan Richardson (1667-1745) and his son Jonathan Richardson (1694-1771), published in London from 1715 to 1725, in the version translated into French by Antoine Rutgers and Lambert Ten Kate, which was published in Amsterdam in 1728 under the supervision of Richardson [senior] himself.

These aesthetic writings were the first of its kind published in England before Hogarth (Analysis of Beauty - 1753) and the Speeches by Reynolds (1769-1792). They contributed to establish the taste for painting in England, at the time of the transition from a decorative to an expressive painting, which would take into account the subjectivity of the viewer. They dealt with the status of the artist and the function of art, well before the formation of the Royal Academy in 1768.

Richardson gave foundation to a national art, giving to the portrait - the dominant genre practiced by English artists, and by himself in particular - the qualities of a great, modern art comparable to the painting of historic events (which was by itself completely absent from the English debate). These tests, of an educational value, targeted a new audience originating from the middle class, in search of a cultural identity and arisen in England at the time of Enlightenment, with the advent of the new parliamentary monarchy. Their publication appears today as the ‘great project’ essential to the knowledge of this period of the history of art."

Jonathan Richardson sr. (attributed), Portrait of Alexander Pope, 1736 ca,, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts
Source: Wikimedia Commons

[2] It is necessary to try to shed light on the chronology of the writings of Richardson. The father published in 1715 ‘An Essay on the Theory of Painting’; of 1719 are (always authored by the father) the ‘Two Discourses’, whose respective titles are ‘An Essay on the whole Art of Criticism as it relates to Painting’ and ‘An Argument in Behalf of the Science of a Connoisseur’. Finally, in 1721, a four hands work with his son was published: ‘An Account of the Statues, Basreliefs, Drawings and Pictures in Italy, France etc. with Remarks’. Three years passed and a second revised edition of the first two titles (those of 1715 and 1719) came to light. Finally in 1728 (curiously, it is assumed for a misprint, only on p. 7 a reference is contained to 1729) a French edition of the three works appears in Amsterdam. The French translation is operated by Rutgers and Antoine Lambert Ten Kate, under the supervision of Richardson's father. The collection of the writings of Richardson (it is clear that the prevalence is still that of the parent) is called Traité de la Peinture et de Sculpture. It is composed of:

• A Essai sur la Théorie de la peinture (A Essay on the Theory of Painting);
• A Essai sur l' Art de Critiquer en fait de Peinture et a Discourse on the Science of a Connaisseur (A Essay on the Art of Criticizing in fact of Painting and a Discourse on the Science of a Connoisseur);
• Descriptions des Divers de Tableaux, Dessins , Statues , Bustes , Bas- Reliefs etc. . qui se trouvent en Italie , avec des Remarques (Descriptions of Various Paintings, Drawings, Statues, Busts, Bas-Reliefs etc.. which are in Italy, with Remarks).

This edition reproduces the text of the French translation of 1728, although we can certainly say that the introduction of the curators is written with a special eye to focus on the significance which the writings of Richardson had on British circles at the time of their publication.

Jonathan Richardson sr., Portrait of George Vertue, 1733, London, National Portrait Gallery
Source: Wikimedia Commons

[3] On the biography of Richardson sr. see PP. 9-13; Richardson was originally a painter, and a student of John Riley (a famous portraitist of the time); he was also one of the founders of the Academy of Great Queen Street (1711), the first place where British artists were trained and could reflect collectively (also on the way to market themselves). But, above all, were his theoretical writings that marked a break with the past. The early 1700s were particularly important for the newly born Great Britain: a long period of internal social peace was starting, with unexplored areas of individual liberty guaranteed by the parliamentary monarchy and a rapid economic development. Those years saw the appearance on the scene of new classes, and in particular of a rich bourgeoisie in search of legitimacy, recognition and identity, also through the relationship with art and with painting in particular. Also the figure of the buyer of art (to which the artist relates) changed, or in any case became more varied: it was no longer simply the court aristocrat, but also the affluent bourgeois enriched with commerce; and that wealthy rich bourgeois, who was enjoying economic means, thought of purchasing art objects also as an investment, even if he lacked the substantive criteria of judgment to do so. On the other hand, up to that time England did not know any systematic reflection on painting (if not under a complete theoretical aspects on painting of historic themes by Shaftesbury). Richardson sr. was the first attempting to fill this void with his writings, which had all basically a didactic and formative character. The distinctive features of these writings are easily recognizable:

• a reflection expressly addressing the new affluent social class, which systematically uses examples of and comments on individual works of art to be more understandable to the reader;
• an indication on overall standards to judge the value of the individual work of art;
• the substantial refutation of the inability of the British artist to produce works of some significance, also conducted by scaling down the importance of painting on history particularly in favour of the genre of portrait, through which it can become easier to understand human nature.

Mind you: Richardson was not a revolutionary. He moved in the wake of Seventeenth Century’s French and Italian literature on art, which he shows to know well. However, he presented himself with a popular and proactive approach which was substantially new in the English world, and that will open later on the way to Hogarth and Reynolds.

Jonathan Richardson sr., Portrait of Nathaniel Seymour, 1730-1735 ca, Yale Center for British Art
Source: Google Project

[4] We talked about French literature on art. The editors remind us (p. 18) that substantially Richardson "continued a pedagogical tradition inherited from Fréart de Chambray (Idée de la perfection de la peinture, 1662, adapted in English from 1668 by John Evelyn) and especially from Conférences de l’Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture that Félibien had published in 1668" (p. 18). But the most obvious influence was that of Roger de Piles and its L'idée du peintre parfait (1699), translated into English in 1706, and the Cours de peinture par principes. Richardson, for example, mentioned the Balance des Peintres by de Piles (p. 131-134), noting however that the methodology used by the French did not include a sufficient number of parameters for a good evaluation. Above all, Richardson took the view that it would be substantially impossible to come to objective results, as the substantial element on which he founded his whole critical structure was the freedom of individual judgment.

Jonathan Richardson sr., Portrait of Richard Mead, London, National Portrait Gallery
Source: Wikimedia Commons

[5] We have said that the writings of Richardson sr. and jr. were translated into French in 1728, under the supervision of the author. Baudino and Ogée believe that the decision to translate can be read "as a wish to spread in the continent a - little provocative - English answer to many French theoretical texts on these issues as well as a desire to participate in a form of international conversation on arts to sort the English debates out of a single national perspective"(p. 26). The transposition in English - warn the editors - was however not literal; if the first essay on the theory of painting had been substantially reproduced in a complete form, the same cannot be said of the two speeches of 1719, of which several pages had not been translated at all. The gaps were mainly of two types: on the one hand all pages addressing the question of the relationship with the art in a purely theological profile had been cut (the approach was the English Protestant, alien, if even not potentially unpopular with French readers); on the other hand the pages were missing which had been directly inspired by the thought of John Locke, in which "Richardson raised the problem of aesthetic expertise in connection with the Lockean epistemology, wondering what knowledge is required to determine the appreciation of works of art " (p. 27). The work that seems to have undergone the most noticeable changes was then the final one, which is the Descriptions de Divers Tableaux, Dessins, Statues, Bustes, Bas-Reliefs etc. qui se trouvent en Italie, avec des Remarques: a preface was added on the concept of bello ideale (Ideal beauty), authored by Lambert Ten Kate; all descriptions of works of art that were not in Italy had been eliminated, while the Italian section was quite enriched in quantitative terms. Unfortunately we cannot express a more articulate opinion on this section, because the editors of this edition warned that “only some representative excerpts are proposed hereafter" (p. 25). But as these are excerpts from the description of the Vatican collections, it is easy to see the disparity between the large space devoted to a description of the Stanze by Raphael compared to the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo.

[6] Schlosser (La letteratura artistica, p . 539) spent nice words for Richardson with reference to An Account of the Statues , Basreliefs , Drawings and Pictures in Italy , France etc with Remarks . "It has enjoyed a consideration not common: Winckelmann believed in a sense that this was the best book about figurative arts, even if felt very little in general on this type of literature. The work of Richardson... constitutes a very considerable testimony, characteristic in all directions for the nation to which it belongs. The author, painter and passionate lover, at the same time (especially of drawings) pursued purely practical purposes alongside those ideals: the exposure is not purely informative, as in the Italian literature, but reasoned, and next to serious oversights and mistakes, often one can find with pleasure good comments and original views." Instead, the earlier writings of Richardson father were simply cited. Cicognara had in his library (Catalogue raisonné ... ) a copy of the French translation in 1728 and expressed himslef as follows : " This Work was done with a lot of critical judgement, and whatever are the many assessments contained in it, was one of the first one enunciating Works of Artists, and not only dry biographical information "(p. 32). 

[7] See also (not in this collection): Carol Gibson Wood, Jonathan Richardson. Art Theorist of the English Enlightenment, Yale University Press, 2000.