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Quatremère de Quincy

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Quatremère de Quincy,stipple engravingby François Bonneville

Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy(21 October 1755 – 28 December 1849) was a French armchairarchaeologistandarchitectural theorist,aFreemason,and an effective arts administrator and influential writer on art.[1]

Life[edit]

Born inParis,Quatremère de Quincy trained for the law, then followed courses in art and history at theCollège Louis-le-Grandand apprenticed for a time in the atelier ofGuillaume Coustou the YoungerandPierre Julien,getting some practical experience in the art of sculpture. A trip to Naples in the company ofJacques-Louis Davidsparked his interest in Greek and Roman architecture.

He was involved in the troubles of theFrench Revolution.He was a royalist in theNational Legislative Assemblyof 1791–1792, and his politics were monarchist and Catholic. As a member of the Revolutionary Committee of Public Instruction his set of threeConsiderations on the arts of design in Francewas offered before theAssemblée Nationaleat a time (1791) when the continuation of the former academies was under question; he offered a program for their reform. in part by opening up theParis salons.[2]In 1791–1792 he orchestrated the conversion of the Church of Ste-Geneviève in Paris (under the direction ofJean-Baptiste Rondelet) into thePanthéon,infilling the windows to give it the character of a mausoleum.[3]In 1795 he was accused of taking part in the preparations for the royalist insurrection of13 Vendémiaireand condemned to death, but subsequently acquitted.

In July 1796, he wrote a pseudo-epistolary treatise against the French plans to seize works of art from Rome, arguing that European powers should instead contribute a sum to the papacy for protecting art and knowledge.[4]Quatremère was hiding when he wrote the Letters because he was sentenced to death for his role in the royalist uprising of 13 Vendémiaire. He argued that ‘displacing the monuments of Italy’ and ‘dismantling its schools and museums’ would destroy ‘civilization’ [Gilks 2022: 489, 492]. He wrote to show that ‘it would be in the interests of the arts to insist that we do not export from Italy different masterpieces’ and to render ‘the justice to the pontifical government in merits from the zeal and care it has constantly demonstrated toward research into the arts and their conservation’ [Gilks 2022: 491]. According to Gilks, Quatremère wrote in a contrived manner that he intended to appeal to republican readers: he therefore aped Condorcet’s Sketch and its notion of civilization that was then dear to the Directorial regime and cited writers approved by the Directory [Gilks 2022: 497].

Shortly afterward, he was behind a petition signed by forty-seven Parisian artists includingJacques-Louis Davidwhich questioned the benefits of displacing art from Rome; although prudently worded, there was a vituperative official response.[5]

In 1797, he was elected to theCouncil of Five Hundredfor theSeine department,then went into hiding after the Fructidor coup. In exile in Germany, he readImmanuel KantandGotthold Lessing,whose philosophy informed his own theories ofaesthetics.In 1800, back in Paris, he was appointed secretary general of the Seine council. From 1816 until 1839 he was perpetual secretary to theAcadémie des Beaux-Arts,which gave him great influence upon official architecture, and in 1818 he became a professor of archaeology at theBibliothèque Nationale.He briefly returned to politics in 1820. In 1826 he became an associated member of theRoyal Institute of the Netherlands.[6]

Quatremère de Quincy was the author of numerous articles and books. From 1788 to 1825, he wrote the three Architecture volumes of theEncyclopédie Méthodique.HisDictionnaire historique de l'Architecturewas published in 1832–1833.[7]He wrote biographies of several artists:Antonio Canova(1823),Raphael(1824) andMichelangelo(1835).

He transformed the simple metaphor of architecture as language into a framework for reconceptualizing the structure of architecture; modern writers describing "vernacular" architecture, or the Baroque "idiom" or the "vocabulary" ofClassicismowe a debt to Quatremère de Quincy.[8]

His essayDe l'Architecture Égyptienne,written for a competition posed by theAcadémie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettresin 1785 and published in 1803, just as theDescription de l'Egyptewas in preparation, nevertheless was an important influence on the Egyptian Revival phase ofNeoclassical architecture,for its theoretical observations concerning the origins of architecture rather than for its historical naiveté.[9]He was among the first to point out the use of polychromy in Greek sculpture and architecture.[10]Though he insisted thatlandscape gardeningcould not be admitted among thefine arts,he was a key figure in the establishment of the first landscaped cemeteries, and his essay, translated into English asThe Nature, the End and the Means of Imitation in the Fine ArtsinfluencedJ. C. Loudon.[11]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^"Dictionary of Art Historians:Quatremère de Quincy, Antoine Chrysôthome ".Archived fromthe originalon 2010-11-27.Retrieved2009-03-25.
  2. ^Lavin 1992, "The Republic of the arts", esp. pp. 158–75.
  3. ^James Stevens Curl,A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture,s.v."Quatremère de Quincy".
  4. ^Translated asLetters to Miranda and Canova on the Abduction of Antiquities from Rome and Athens(Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2012).
  5. ^SeeGilks, David (2012). "Art and politics during the 'First' Directory: artists' petitions and the quarrel over the confiscation of works of art from Italy in 1796".French History.26:53–78.doi:10.1093/fh/crr098.
  6. ^"Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy (1755–1849)".Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.Retrieved4 May2020.
  7. ^Some passages translated and edited with an introduction by Samir Younés,The True, the Fictive and the Real: The Historical Dictionary of Architecture of Quatremère de Quincy(Papadakis) 1999.
  8. ^Lavin 1992.
  9. ^Lavin, Sylvia (1991). "In the names of history: Quatremère de Quincy and the literature of Egyptian architecture".Journal of Architectural Education.44(3): 131–137.while the name of history was increasingly invoked to lend an impersonal and hence authoritative voice to studies of the past, the individual voices continued to speak in the ideologically motivated language of the present "
  10. ^Le Jupiter olympien,1814.
  11. ^Garden Visits: Quatremère de Quincy.

Sources[edit]

  • Lavin, Sylvia (1992).Quatremère de Quincy and the Invention of a Modern Language of Architecture.MIT Press.

Gilks, David (2022) “Civilization and Its Discontents: Quatremère de Quincy and Directorial Political Culture,” French Historical Studies 45.3.

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