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revolution_fr2018-02-13 10:04 pm
silverwhistle) wrote in revolution_fr2018-02-13 10:04 pm
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Technology in 18C portraiture: the Physionotrace
Well, we know about the work Hockney has done on lenses & c in Renaissance and Early Modern painting… Now, meet the 18C Physionotrace!
I love the dashing young officer illustrated lower down the page, too! This is very, very interesting, and resolves a few things with Max iconography.
There’s a reference to the Physionotrace portrait of Maximilien by the same artists (Jean-Baptiste Fouquet, engraved by Gilles-Louis Chrétien, the musician who invented the process), which is known:
Given that the engraving has reversed the image, I’m inclined to agree with Rodama that this is based on the ravishingly lovely pencil drawing: the meticulousness of which supports the use of technology, and the costume details match. So it’s by Fouquet, and dated 1792, Cloître Saint-Honoré (not far from Max's lodgings at the Duplays'), and as physionotrace, must go up in ranking canonically as a likeness.
(This was the first picture I ever saw of him when I was an adolescent about 40 years ago – before A Levels we did a tiny bit on the Revolution in junior high school, and this was when I got the Jackdaw folder with the picture included, and the awful Millingen text. I was… perplexed even at the time, Millingen going on about this dreadful dandified creature who reminded him of a vulture, and the very un-vulture-like beauty in the picture.)
There's another good article on the technique here.
(x-post from my blog)
I love the dashing young officer illustrated lower down the page, too! This is very, very interesting, and resolves a few things with Max iconography.
There’s a reference to the Physionotrace portrait of Maximilien by the same artists (Jean-Baptiste Fouquet, engraved by Gilles-Louis Chrétien, the musician who invented the process), which is known:
Given that the engraving has reversed the image, I’m inclined to agree with Rodama that this is based on the ravishingly lovely pencil drawing: the meticulousness of which supports the use of technology, and the costume details match. So it’s by Fouquet, and dated 1792, Cloître Saint-Honoré (not far from Max's lodgings at the Duplays'), and as physionotrace, must go up in ranking canonically as a likeness.
(This was the first picture I ever saw of him when I was an adolescent about 40 years ago – before A Levels we did a tiny bit on the Revolution in junior high school, and this was when I got the Jackdaw folder with the picture included, and the awful Millingen text. I was… perplexed even at the time, Millingen going on about this dreadful dandified creature who reminded him of a vulture, and the very un-vulture-like beauty in the picture.)
There's another good article on the technique here.
(x-post from my blog)