Roger de Piles, [Dialogue on Colouring]. Edited by Giovanna Perini Folesani and Sandra Costa. Part Two

Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro

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Roger de Piles
Dialogue on Colouring [Dialogo sul colorito]
Edited by Giovanna Perini Folesani and Sandra Costa
Italian Translation by Monique Gabellini

Florence, Leo S. Olschki, 2016 (ma 2017)

Review by Giovanni Mazzaferro. Part Two

Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of Marie de' Medici, 1622, Madrid, Prado Museum
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Go back to Part One

ABOUT GIOVANNA PERINI FOLESANI SEE IN THIS BLOG: Giovanna Perini Folesani, Luigi Crespi as an Historiographer, Art Dealer and Artist Through his Correspondence (Part One and Two); Sandra Costa, Giovanna Perini Folesani, The Wise and the Ignorant - The Dialogue of the Public with Art (16th-18th Century); Giovanna Perini, The Writings of the Carraccis. Ludovico, Annibale, Agostino, Antonio, Giovanni Antonio; Roger de Piles, Dialogue on Colouring, Edited by Giovanna Perini Folesani and Sandra Costa (Part One and Two); Giovanna Perini Folesani, Sir Joshua Reynolds in Italy (1750-1752). Passage to Tuscany. The 201 a 10 Notebook of the British Museum

The classicism of colouring

One of Damon’s first statements risks taking the reader by surprise. We were accustomed to the concept of ideal beauty, originating not only from the imitation of nature, but also from the improvement of the same; it was a typical concept of Italian and then French classicism. Well, de Piles replaced the classicism of colour for the classicism of drawing. Also for de Piles, nature was imperfect, and also for him it had to be improved. This had to happen, however, through an analysis of the colours which would not 'dislike' each other: "Just as one who draws does not imitate everything one sees in a defective model, but on the contrary modifies, in appropriate proportions and contours, the defects that one finds, so the painter must not imitate indifferently all present colours, but must only choose those that are convenient to him. He can add others to them (if deemed appropriate) which can produce the same effect he imagines for the beauty of his work" (pp. 190-191). The definition of classicism following the stream of colouring, however, was difficult, because unlike the design, "whose rules are based on proportion, anatomy and the continue experience of the same thing, [...] colouring does not have yet well-known rules and the experience one can make of it, being almost always different in subject, has not yet established precise rules" (p. 202). It is therefore true that the creation of the Academy in France created the ideal conditions to form great painters (due tribute was therefore paid to the policy of Louis XIV and Colbert), but the bad habits practiced by masters had the potential to preclude students the ability to read colours. Of course, there were examples to follow, from Venetia (especially Titian) and Rubens: "The best advice I would like to give to painters [...] would be to go and see one year long, once every eight days, the Luxembourg gallery, giving everything else up and sparing nothing to this purpose. That day would surely be the most profitable of the week. Among all the painters, Rubens is the one who has made it easier and clearer the path to the colour" (p. 206).

Peter Paul Rubens, The Birth of Marie de' Medici, in Florence on 26 April 1573, 1622-1625,
Paris, Louvre Museum (formerly in Luxembourg Palace)
Source: The Yorck Project via Wikimedia Commons

Peter Paul Rubens, The Presentantion of Marie de' Medici's Portrait to Henry IV, 1622-1625.
Paris, Louvre Museum (formerly in Luxembourg Palace)
Source: The Yorck Project via Wikimedia Commons

Relation between drawing and colouring

Of course, beyond advices on what to do, in order to learn to appreciate and practice the art of colour, the dialogue took the form of a series of reflections on the very essence of drawing and colour, and the interplay between them. Ms Perini Folesani rightly wrote (p. 78) that the argument between Damon and Panfilo appears on many occasions more as a dispute between lawyers than a real philosophical debate. In fact, de Piles was not a philosopher, although his Aristotelian formation translated once again itself in the need to operate scientific classifications, when he argued that drawing was the genus of painting and colour was what determined its difference and recognition. Clearly, the idea was borrowed from natural sciences; it was not yet equivalent to the systematic classification introduced by Linnaeus in the 1700, but there is much evidence that de Piles continued the taxonomic tradition of Renaissance (practiced for existence by Ulisse Aldrovandi) to explain the relationship between drawing and colouring. Although de Piles made it clear from the beginning that drawing and colour are both indispensable parts of the painting, the author stated: "... as you know, a genus is applied to more species and that is why it is less noble than the differentiating feature, which is owned only by a single species. And so the degree of animal (that is the genus of man) is jointly assigned to man and beast, while the degree of reason (that is the difference of man), is only assigned to man" (p.196). Drawing was the genus shared by painting with engraving, architecture and "other arts that give measures and proportions" while colour was the species that was characteristic only of painting itself. It should however be said that, earlier on (and contradicting himself in some way) de Piles had included drawing - understood in the sense of planning - in the sphere of influence of sculpture.

Peter Paul Rubens, The Wedding by Proxy of Marie de' Medici to King Henry IV, in Florence on 5 October 1600.
Paris, Louvre Museum (formerly in Luxembourg Palace)
Source: The Yorck Project via Wikimedia Commons

Peter Paul Rubens, The Exchange of Princessese, on 9 November 1615,  about 1622-1625
Parigi, Louvre Museum (formerly in Luxembourg Palace)
Source: The Yorck Project via Wikimedia Commons

Amateurs and collectors

The dialogue and the controversy provide an increasingly sharp picture of the role of 'amateurs', connoisseurs and collectors in art judgment. In fact, as we all know, this was not new. Already Giulio Mancini, in his Considerazioni sulla pittura (Considerations on painting) written around 1620, had claimed the right of the amateur to make judgments on art works, and indeed denied the opportunity of those expressed by artists. In the case of Mancini, however, the work was not published and, despite having its own manuscript circulation, it certainly did not have the influence, which the Dialogue on colouring by de Piles unquestionably exercised. Ms Sandra Costa dwelled on this issue with a beautiful essay entitled Dal Dialogue alle Conversations: il pubblico dell’arte secondo Roger de Piles (From the Dialogue to the Conversations: art public according to Roger de Piles (pp. 137-183)). First of all, the controversy would not have had the prominence it had, if some situations had not materialised: while it was exciting for a still small but gradually established audience, it was still - as recalled by Ms Perini Folesani at p. 134 - "a harmless and gentle avocation" distracting from politics. At the same time, the fact that de Piles was able to bring the discussion out from the Academy also meant that there were social conditions to engage the audience. In fact, as Ms Costa mentioned, at a closer look there were two controversies developing within the Academy during the seventeenth century: on the one hand, the discussion on colour and drawing and, on the other hand, the one on perspective and geometry, which was animated by Abraham Bosse. The fact that today we remember only one (the second remaining confined between specialists) is a sign that the choice between 'design' and 'colour' interested the public, both those who went to see paintings, and those who bought them. One of the few interventions of the ego-narrator in the Dialogue is, under this point of view, particularly indicative. At one point Panfilo and Damon were asked this question: "If you had to choose paintings – I interrupted - which would you take, the ones which are better drawn than coloured, or those which are better coloured than designed?" (p. 198).

De Piles’ public - mind you - was "a selected and limited audience that, although without precise skills in painting, was provided with a degree of education in line with what was more generally considered to be essential to the cultural baggage of a Gentleman" (p. 149). De Piles addressed the audience with clear educational intents (since the translation of du Fresnoy’s De arte graphica, where he inserted a final glossary of technical terms). It had an ambivalent nature, because it could be the customer on the one hand and the user on the other one. Under this set of cultured figures, de Piles aimed at distinguishing between simple amateurs and connoisseurs. Amateurs were those staying in front of the work and judging on the basis of pure sensation; connoisseurs, instead, rose to a higher level and expressed their opinions (sometimes re-evaluating completely ignored works) on the basis of their studies, including on the one hand the review of the largest possible number of works (whether seeing them live, in France or with a much desired trip to Italy, or indirectly, through prints and engravings) and on the other one the reading of basic texts. The recipients of the Dialogue on Colouring, ultimately, were precisely the connoisseurs and collectors (and often the two groups were overlapping). Interestingly, the connoisseur of the French writer was not (and could not be otherwise) the connoisseur who would triumph in the art world during the nineteenth century. Attributing authorship, in view of de Piles, "does not constitute [...] a true form of knowledge of painting. More connected to memory that judgment, the practice of attribution is then traced, and so to say lowered, to a more technical than cognitive procedure" (p. 174).  

Peter Paul Rubens, The Coronation on Marie de' Medici in St. Denis, on 13 May 1610, 1622-1625
Paris, Louvre Museum (formerly in Luxembourg Palace)
Source: The Yorck Project via Wikimedia Commons

Peter Paul Rubens, The Victory at Jülich, on 1 September 1610, about 1622-1625
Paris, Louvre Museum (formerly in Luxembourg Palace)
Source: The Yorck Project via Wikimedia Commons

Reflections on the Italian side

I said at the beginning of this review that, specifically, I happened to disagree in some points with the views taken by Ms Perini Folesani. What puzzled me is her reading and interpretation of art criticism in Italy during 1600. Ms Perini Folesani compared the current critical misfortune of the French with the long critical misfortune of Malvasia, of whom she is perhaps (and since decades) the staunchest supporter. In particular, she strongly resized the role of Bellori (generally considered the most important Italian theoretician of the seventeenth century) and reduced him to a substantial level of mediocrity. The drafting of the Lives, clearly inspired by Charles Errard, at the time director of the French Academy in Rome, would be the most obvious result: "I will not go back on what I wrote about Bellori in general, about the basically occasional and political nature of his Lives or about the quality and scope of his links with France in particular […]. Certainly, the task assigned to Bellori in Rome was not only intentionally functional to the artistic and academic prestige of France (whether welcome or not), but also - though not intentionally but more specifically - to the incipient internal debate in Paris, where it was intended to strengthen the theoretical French classicist positions, although the ones of Errard (the real inspirer behind the operation, and not just a friend of the Roman writer) more than those of Le Brun. [...] In short, the emergence and growth of the controversy drawing vs. colour in Paris provides the true historical context - and a different hermeneutical key - to comprehensively assess the operation of Bellori’s Lives" (pp. 46-48). Perini Folesani added that, in the light of these facts, the practical results achieved by the Lives in terms of influence on the debate were modest. It seems to me - and not only to me, I think - that this thesis might be a bit disproportionate. It is evident that Bellori’s Lives had well known limits (to the point that those who thought that the making of art of the seventeenth century was all contained in his work would miss, for example, Bernini). That said, if we wanted to empty Bellori of any critical faculties and let him charge of having sought support in the French world, we would forget what Italy had become in the mid-seventeenth century in respect to France: a periphery. France was not only the seat of the new and grandiose Academy with whom one had to count in good or bad, but also a source of important commissions. To spell it even more clearly: the dedication of Malvasia’s Felsina Pittrice to Louis XIV (with the related events of the jewel sent in gratitude by the king and lost) and the inclusion in the same Felsina of the "woodcut endpiece" where you see the images of the French translation of Dufresnoy’s book, translated by de Piles, and the first edition of Leonardo's Treatise on painting, published in Paris in 1651, are telling us exactly the same story (a story of seeking favours and legitimacy) also for the Bolognese historian. The final outcome of Malvasia’s attempt was not, to be honest, heartening. If, for example, one assumes - as a criterion for the success of a book - its translation in other languages (I think it is a good standard, so much so that it was adopted by Ms Perini Folesani for the Discours), then it must indeed be said that, beyond discussions within the Academy, Malvasia’s text was never translated. It seems to me, in short, that a meditated judgment on (certainly historically overvalued) Bellori and (just as surely underestimated) Malvasia should not be based on events that only testify the marginalization of Italian culture with respect to the (above all political and economic) force of Sun King's France.