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Invention, Resemblance, and Fragonard's Portraits de Fantaisie Author(s): Mary D. Sheriff Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol.

69, No. 1 (Mar., 1987), pp. 77-87 Published by: College Art Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3051084 . Accessed: 21/08/2013 10:13
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Portraitsde Fantaisie Invention, Resemblance, and Fragonard's


Mary D. Sheriff
In this essay, Fragonard's portraits de fantaisie are examined against the contemporaneous definitions of the portrait, the conventions that governed its making in eighteenth-century France, and the assumptions of the various audiences that commissioned and/or looked at works in that genre. The portraits de fantaisie emerge as paintings that subvert the primary function of the portrait; instead of adequately depicting the appearance, rank, and/or character of a sitter, these "portraits"are primarily self-representations of the artist. They are marked by a confounding of the real and the imagined, a deliberate play with portrait conventions, and a conscious display of those qualities which, for Fragonard's contemporaries, made a painting a work of genius. The fourteen works by Fragonard known as the portraits de fantaisie cannot be characterized as face paintings.' Not only are they raised above ordinary fare by superb invention and technique, but, more significantly, they are marked by a display of creative prowess so insistent that the artist's self-presentation virtually eclipses his depiction of the sitters. Farfrom being face paintings, the portraits de fantaisie seem to deviate from even the fundamental charge of portraiture, that of imitating the appearance and personality of a particular individual. But to what extent did Fragonard expect his contemporaries to accept these remarkable paintings as portraits, and how far should our consideration of them be governed by the conventions of that genre? The first question presumes that there was an accepted definition of portraiture in eighteenth-century French theory. By mid-century, portrait painting was a widely practiced specialty, one that had been analyzed by academicians and critics for more than fifty years. Roger de Piles, for example, discussed the genre at some length in his Cours de peinture of 1708, and in 1750 Louis Tocque delivered a discourse on the portrait to the Academy. Although the conventions of the genre were well established, portrait painting was also a topic current enough to provoke spirited debate. An evaluation of Fragonard'sportraits de fantaisie, then, requires a consideration of the portrait, its definition, and the theoretical questions it posed. Only within such a framework can Fragonard's achievement be interpreted. Genre conventions determine how paintings are perceived because, once established, they act as laws governing the categories (e.g., landscape, still life, portraiture)into which paintings are sorted. An artist can work with or against the conventions of a genre, but he presupposes their existence in either case. Thus, an understanding of eighteenth-century portrait conventions is preliminary to an analysis of Fragonard's portraits de fantaisie; only by knowing the rules ourselves can we determine if they have been respected or transgressed. A consideration of these singular portraits in relation to the laws of their genre will demonstrate that Fragonard disrupted the balance of resemblance and invention that traditionally held the viewer's attention divided between sitter and artist.2 This displacement of the sitter was neither an accidental effect of spontaneous creation (as the sketchlike execution suggests), nor an unconscious manifestation of Fragonard'sparticular temperament.3 Rather, it resulted from a deliberate play with the conventions of portraiture, a purposeful confounding of the imagined and the copied, and a demonstration of wit that consciously displayed itself at every turn. Resemblance, Invention, and Imagination A narrowly conceived idea of the portrait almost identical to our own was indeed present throughout eighteenthcentury theory. In the Encyclopedie a painted portrait was categorized as a work wherein the artist depicted from life

1 Fourteen paintings by Fragonard are now designated as portraits de fantaisie; the group is marked by a consistency of canvas size as well as a similarity of handling. All probably date between 1767 and 1772. As far as is known, not a single contemporary writer mentioned the portraits; they were never exhibited, and Fragonard left no record of them other than the canvases themselves. The following paintings in the Louvre form part of the group: The Young Artist, Inspiration, Diderot (Fig. 1), La musique (Fig. 3, dated 1769), Fantasy Figure in Blue (Fig. 5), Portrait of the Duc de Beuvron, La Guimard (Fig. 6), and Study. The others are: The Warrior (Williamstown, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute), Don

Quixote (Chicago, Art Institute), Lady with the Dog (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art), Portrait of the Duc d'Harcourt (private collection), The Actor (private collection), and The Singer (private collection). None of the titles dates from the 18th century.
2

For an essay that considers the problem of resemblance in the 19th century, see Steven Z. Levine, "The Crisis of Resemblance: Portraits and Paintings During the Second Empire,"Arts Magazine, LIII,1978, 90-93. 3Mary D. Sheriff, "For Love or Money? Rethinking Fragonard," Eighteenth-Century Studies, xIx, 1986, 333-54.

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the external appearance of an individual, and accurately recorded his physiognomy and natural expression.4The Encyclopedie mrthodique contained a similar statement; in making a portrait the artist imitated a specific sitter and faithfully rendered "the characteristic resemblance so that it [the painted image] can be easily recognized as the person whose features one has intended to reproduce."5And Antoine-Joseph Pernety stressed the same qualities in his Dictionnaire portatif: "Portrait, a representation in painting or drawing of a man or woman made so that one can recognize at first glance a person one already knows."6/ Resemblance was the principal quality of the portrait, and later writers paraphrased de Piles's definition of it, stressing first that resemblance required a good rapport between the painted features and those of nature, and then that the person portrayed should be readily recognizable to his familiars.7 Because resemblance was its first perfection, de Piles argued that the portrait failed when it looked like someone other than the intended sitter.s Resemblance, moreover, distinguished the portrait from both the life study (in which the model was regarded as anonymous) and the imagined figure. It also limited those who could evaluate the portrait; relative to the eye (or mind) of the beholder who recognized, resemblance allowed only those who actually knew the sitter to be called as judges. Thus the portrait's essence remained imperceptible to most who would, over time, view the painting. If resemblance were the defining feature of the portrait, it was also its principal vice. Viewed from within the hierarchy of subjects, making a resemblance required little imagination and tied the genre to a mechanical copying of the particulars given in the external appearance of nature. Although eighteenth-century theorists agreed that all painting imitated nature, in the highest genre (i.e., history painting) the object of imitation was nature generalized, nature as it might be - a concept formed from phenomenal experience, but located in the artist's imagination.9 The portraitist, on the other hand, ignored la belle nature and concerned himself with particulars. In the prefatory essay to his Salon of 1767, Diderot made the portraitist his model

for the simple imitator (or direct copyist),10who "portrays nature faithfully, as it is." Giving this enterprise a decidedly negative (and Platonic) cast, Diderot argued that the portraitist established himself in the third rank because he made copies of copies - things twice removed from any general idea." But what if the portraitist attempted more than approximating external appearances in a good likeness, what if he represented character?A good depiction of character might raise a portrait above the norm, but it could not elevate the genre's status because temperament was discerned and represented through its physical manifestations. In meeting the criterion of likeness, the artist was no more free to deviate from the natural signs of temperament than he was to alter the basic patterns of physiognomy.12 The expectation of resemblance not only determined the status of portraiture, but also guided how portraits were viewed by leading the observer to concentrate on the relationship between the painted image and its referent in nature. This second consequence of resemblance proved disturbing to the public eclair&,who believed that only the ignorant viewer judged a painting according to resemblance.13The connoisseur had other criteria. Looking behind the illusion, he prized the artist's ability to conceive a beautiful configuration of color and line, and to execute his composition with a facile and suggestive handling of paint. He looked for an imaginative reconstitution of types and conventions in order to read, as it were, the history of painting in the painting. Simply put, the enlightened audience judged a work of art according to the strength of its invention. Because eighteenth-century theory distinguished the process of imagining the subject from that of inventing it, the portrait could be evaluated by a criterion other than resemblance. Only in history painting did the artist imagine the subject by envisioning an event never witnessed and conceptualizing the characters according to the dictates of la belle nature. Portrait painting never required the artist to imagine his sitter; in fact, it specifically forbade him to do so. Both portraiture and history painting, however,

"Portrait,"Encyclopedie ou Dictionnaire raisonne des sciences, des arts et des metiers, 35 vols., Paris, 1751-80, xiii, 153. 5 ,,. .. La ressemblance caracteristique en sorte qu'elle puisse ^treaisement reconnue pour celle de la personne dont on s'est propose de rendre les
traits . . ."; C.H. Watelet, "Portrait," Encyclopedie methodique ou par

ordre des matieres, 5 vols., Paris, 1788, v, 145. 6 "Portrait, representation en Peinture ou en dessin seulement, ou d'un homme ou d'une femme faite de maniere apouvoir, au premier coup d'oeil, y reconnoitre la personne, quand on l'a connue auparavant"; AntoineJoseph Pernety, Dictionnaire portatif de peinture, sculpture et gravure, 2
vols., Paris, 1781, II, 205.

see Tzvetan Todorov, Theories of the Symbol, transl. Catherine Porter, Ithaca, NY, 1982, 111-28. 10The distinction between imitation and copying in French aesthetic theory has been analyzed by Richard Shiff, "The Original, the Imitation, the Copy, and the Spontaneous Classic: Theory and Painting in Nineteenth1984, 27-54. Century France," Yale French Studies, LXVI, 11Denis Diderot, "Salon de 1767," in Salons, ed. Jean Seznec and Jean Adh6mar, 4 vols., Paris, 1963, III, 59. 12De Piles, for example, mentioned that the notion of resemblance extended to the depiction of temperament (as in n. 7, 269). A similar idea was presented in the Encyclopedie entry in which the author noted that, if the person were naturally sad, the artist must not give him a gay appearance foreign to his visage (as in n. 4, 153). 13For example, in his discourse on portraiture delivered to the Academy in 1750, Tocque called resemblance the part of the portrait that most impressed those who were "peu connoisseurs" (Louis Tocque, "Rfflexions sur la peinture et particulierement sur le genre du portrait," in Bulletin de la Societe de l'Histoire de lArt Francais, Paris, 1929, 263).

7 Roger de Piles, Cours de peinture par principes (Paris, 1708) repr., Geneva, 1969, 269. Although 18th-century writers seemed untroubled by the more complex problems raised by the notion of resemblance, modern aesthetics has addressed itself to these issues. See, for example, Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art, Indianapolis, 1968, 1-5. 8 De Piles (as in n. 7), 260. 9 For a recent discussion of the notion of imitation in the 18th century,

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could require a vivid imagination (taken as the mental faculty that visualized and synthesized) in the process of invention. In eighteenth-century parlance, invention was the ability to choose the best artistic means to produce the desired pictorial effects, and included all aspects of picture making: composition, chiaroscuro, color, brushwork, the drawing of attitudes and gestures, etc.14Even the creative borrowing of motifs, poses, and expressions from earlier masters was included under the rubric of invention.15 In judging a portrait according to the strength of its invention, the viewer shifted his attention from sitter to artist and considered the work as a representation of its maker's talent. Roger de Piles proposed the model for such a transference when he wrote that every painting was a portrait of the artist who made it.16 Thus, while maintaining its position as the paradigm of servile copying, the portrait could also be considered as a particular case of the artist's selfpresentation in his works. According to this view, the most accomplished artists would be the best portrait painters. Invention became a central concern of academic portraitists anxious to increase the prestige of their genre. The painter Tocque, for example, devoted most of his discourse on portraiture to repeating the rules for making art - for inventing the composition, color, and drawing. He praised portraits by Le Brun and Largilliere not because they were good likenesses, but because they were beautiful paintings.17 The amateur Watelet lamented that portraits were often executed by specialists who knew little about artistic effects rather than by history painters who would treat them as they did their monumental subjects. He believed that if invention could be returned to the portrait, the portraitist could raise the esteem (if not the status) of his genre.18 A concern with reconciling the demands of invention and resemblance dictated the choices made by academic portrait painters when executing a reception piece, where it was necessary to demonstrate mastery of both art and genre. In almost every case they elected to depict another academician. The sitter may have been chosen to flatter that particular colleague, but the general practice developed for another reason. The viewer could judge resemblance only in relation to a specific model; presumably all the academicians knew the sitter in question and that person would probably be present when the work was evaluated. Thus, both resemblance and artistic invention could be assessed. Tocqub's portrait of Galloche (1734, Louvre), La Tour's portrait of Restout (1746, Louvre), and LabilleGuiard's portrait of van Loo (1783, Paris, Ecole des Beaux-Arts) are Amed& among those which fit this schema. Each has its particular display of invention, and this display
14These qualities were specifically part of what the 18th-century theorists called "invention pittoresque." See C.H. Watelet, L'artde peindre, Paris, 1760, 36-49, and also Michel Dandr6-Bardon, Traith de peinture (Paris, 1765), repr., Geneva, 1972, 106-26. 15Jean-Baptistedu Bos, Rbflexions critiques sur la pobsie et sur la peinture,
3 vols., Paris, 1740, II, 72.

was not lost on the critics. In the case of La Tour, for example, salonniers repeatedly claimed that his portrait was chiefly concerned with artistic effects because it had been made to please the gens d'art.19 The academic painter did not limit the depiction of artists to the official reception piece; other situations could warrant a similar display of proficiency. For example, to prepare the way for her acceptance, Labille-Guiardsent to the Academy a series of pastel portraits depicting various of its members. Among these, her portrait of Pajou (1783, Louvre) is particularly interesting because it shows the sculptor at work on the bust of his teacher Lemoyne. The painting thus embodies, represents, and comments on the tradition of academician depicting academician; it also demonstrates Labille-Guiard'sability to make a likeness of Pajou, to imitate the look of his work, and to combine all into a pleasing and harmonious composition. It is a painting that deserves more than the cursory attention it has received here. If the portrait as reception piece sacrificed neither resemblance nor invention, in other works the essential character of the genre was violated. Sometimes the best painters could not limit their imaginative activity to the process of invention; they began to treat the sitter as an idealization. Such a process might produce a beautiful work of art, but it made for an unsuccessful portrait. The problematic nature of a genre that constrained the artist's imagination had long been recognized by critics and theorists. Writing about portraiture in 1586, Armenini observed that at ". .. most times portraits made by excellent artists are found to be painted with better style and more perfection than those of others, but most often they are less of a likeness."20 The eighteenth-century criticism of portraits is riddled with the same paradox; for example, consider Jacques La Combe's comments on a Self-Portrait by Carle van Loo shown in 1753. Praising the work, but calling it an imperfect resemblance, La Combe repeated that the better painters seemed always to err in that direction.21 It is evident that his comments rely on a narrowly defined conception of the portrait. As well as considering deviation from resemblance an error, he also assumes that likeness can be judged by the viewer who knows the model. Although the critic seems presumptuous in judging the resemblance of a self-portrait, he is aware of inherited wisdom - that the "better painters" both imagine and invent their sitters. He does not, however, realize the irony of his remarks; although he suggested that Van Loo's work failed as one type of self-portrait - one that closely resembled external appearances he judged that it succeeded as another - one that ade17Tocque (as in n. 13), 267.
18 Watelet (as in n. 5), II, 206-07. 19 Lettre sur la peinture, sculpture, et architecture 'hM.xxx par une Societe

16Roger de Piles, Diverses conversations sur la peinture (Paris, 1697), repr., Geneva, 1970, 74.

des Amateurs, Paris, 1748, 92. 20 Giovanni Battista Armenini, On the True Precepts of the Art of Painting, ed. and transl. E.J. Olszewski, New York, 1971, 257-61. 21Jacques La Combe, Le Salon, Paris, 1753, 32.

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quately externalized its maker's talent. Diderot on Portraiture If the artist could tip the balance toward invention and imagination in a self-portrait, would he be forced to emphasize resemblance when there was a rich patron to please, a patron whose idea of a perfect portrait might be vastly different from that of an educated art viewer? Diderot described such a dilemma in his Salon of 1763, identifying as adversaries painters and gens du monde. The latter praised likeness as the greatest merit of the portrait, a work made to please them by calling to mind someone who was absent (and here they mean the sitter, not the artist!). The painters, on the other hand, wanted the portrait to please because it was beautifully handled. What does it matter, they asked, if a Van Dyck resembles or does not resemble its sitter: "The merits of resemblance are passing, it is those of the brush which astonish in their time and make the work immortal."22 Diderot concluded from this dispute that perhaps it was necessary for the portrait to be resembling in its time, but well painted for posterity. Diderot's final remarks, however, left no doubt as to which he believed the greater merit to be: "What is certain is that nothing is rarerthan a fine brush, nor more common than a dauber who makes a resemblance, and when the sitter is no more, we take resemblance for granted."23 The brush becomes a metonymy for the great painter whose presence in the work far outlives that of the sitter, and who is set against the dauber who can only copy appearances. Diderot also considered the value of resemblance after the sitter and those who knew him ceased to be, an issue that he took up again in the Salon of 1767, where he argued, "The resembling portrait of the dauber dies with the person, that of the skilled man lasts forever."24 Posterity, then, can only assume resemblance; although it cannot know if a work looks like the sitter, it will be convinced by the force of a beautiful painting.25 If posterity cannot judge resemblance in a portrait of
22 "Le m&ritede ressembler est passager; c'est celui du pinceau qui emerveille dans le moment et qui 6ternise l'ouvrage" (Diderot, "Salon de 1763," in Salons, as in n. 11, I, 204). "Ce qu'il y a de certain, c'est que rien n'est plus rare qu'un beau pinceau, plus commun qu'un barbouilleur qui fait ressembler et que quand l'homme n'est plus, nous supposons la ressemblance" (Diderot, "Salon de 1763," in Salons, as in n. 11, I, 204). Grimm disagreed with Diderot on this point. He argued that the attraction of the truth was invincible, and contended that the price of a Van Dyck would fall if people knew that the portrait did not resemble its sitter. "C'est que le premier m&rited'un portrait est de ressembler, quiqu'on dise, et un grand peintre n'a qu'a faire des totes de fantaisie, s'il n'a pas le talent de donner de la ressemblance" (ibid.). 24 "Leportrait ressemblant du barbouilleur meurt avec la personne, celui de l'habile homme reste a jamais" (Diderot, "Salon de 1767," in Salons, as in n. 11, III, 170). 25One is reminded of Picasso's comment to Gertrude Stein when she objected that his portrait did not resemble her. In retorting, "Itwill," Picasso recognized what Diderot had already stated. 26 "Quelle difference y a-t-il entre une tete de fantaisie et une tete rhelle?" (Diderot, "Salon de 1767," in Salons, as in n. 11, III, 168). 27 Diderot's comments on the portrait reverberated into the 19th century
23

someone it has never seen, the contemporary who does not know the living sitter is in a similar position. Diderot raised this issue in the Salon of 1767, and his conception of the question illuminates the whole problematic nature of interpreting the portrait. He observed that both the uninformed viewer and the connoisseur admired portraits that had the semblance of life even if they had never known the portrayed sitter. But, he wondered, why do they judge that the works are portraits? "What difference is there between a fantasy portrait and a real portrait?"26 When resemblance cannot be determined, and Diderot clearly suggests that this is usually the case, the sitter assumes the status of an imagined figure.27 Although in considering individual portraits Diderot did not refrain from commenting on the degree of likeness (which he called truth),28 in discussing the genre of portraiture he presented himself as an enemy of resemblance, as one who expected that the artist would emphasize his invention in the work, and that the spectator would judge it as an artistic conception. Moreover, he converted the Aristotelian distinction between historian and poet into a separation of portrait maker (whom he characterized as a dauber) and artist who makes a portrait. Like the historian, the portrait maker is concerned with the accurate description of an external object; the artist who makes a portrait, on the other hand, fabricates an internally consistent work of art, an illusion of truth. To make a good portrait the artist must imagine and invent the sitter in much the same way that a history painter (who is not a historian but a poet) forms his characters, by showing nature not as it is, but as it might be. Thus the philosophe calls up Aristotle's categories of the true (vrai) and the seemingly true (vraisemblable) and differentiates the portrait as history from the portrait as poetry. Here he diverged from his prior discussion of the portrait as a copy of a copy, and shifted from a Platonic to an Aristotelian conception of art. He argued that the skilled painter made a portrait in the way Voltaire, as a poet, wrote history: "He aggrandizes, he exaggerates,
when the proliferation of resemblances angered many. For example, in 1846 Champfleury expressed similar sentiments in his tirade against the wealthy, arrogant men who commissioned portraits in order to have posterity remember their names. Have they never been to the Louvre, he asked. There they would see the portraits of (portraits de) Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Rubens. Playing on the double meaning of portrait de as either "the portrait whose sitter is" or "the portrait made by," Champfleury reminded his audience that it was the artist who was remembered in a brilliant portrait. He went on to say that a portrait is only a portrait for a specific audience; for others it has the status of any representation. "Un portrait ne peut rester qu'a la condition d'etre l'image d'un grand homme ou d'un parent, d'un ami, d'un serviteur de ce grand homme. Autrement, il perd son nom, ses qualites et ses titres, il devient I'homme au gant, la femme au singe, le bourgmestre" (Champfleury, Oeuvres posthumes de Champfleury, Salons 1846-1851, Paris, 1894, 48). 28 The most conspicuous example of this tendency is Diderot's commentary on his own portrait executed by Michel van Loo and discussed below. He began that piece by stating, "J'aimeMichel, mais j'aime mieux la verite" ("Salon de 1767," in Salons, as in n. 11, III, 66). Other examples include his discussion of Roslin's Comtesse d'Egmont in the Salon of 1763 and his comments on Greuze's portrait of M. le Dauphin in the Salon of 1761.

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he corrects the forms. Is he right or is he wrong? He is wrong for the pedant, he is right for the man of taste."29 The continuing discussion of the portrait opens an appropriate viewing space for perhaps the most remarkable group of paintings executed during the eighteenth century: Fragonard's portraits de fantaisie. And remembering Diderot's question, "What difference is there between a fantasy portrait and a real portrait?" we must approach these works and choose to be either pedants or people of taste. Fantasy Portraits Diderot's question is evoked even by the name that was given to these fourteen paintings by Georges Wildenstein, who first isolated them as a group in 1960. However, when modern writers have called Fragonard's inventions portraits de fantaisie, they have violated the eighteenth-century meaning of the term. An Enlightenment critic used either tate de fantaisie or portrait de fantaisie to signify an imagined figure not made from a specific model, as is evident from Diderot's opposition of the fantasy portrait (tete de fantaisie) to the real portrait (tete reele).30 This opposition implies that the fantasy portrait is no portrait at all. When Wildenstein used the term, however, he defined portraits de fantaisie as "works in which the expression of the face is not stressed," and contradicted its eighteenth-century meaning by contending that Fragonard's paintings portrayed his friends and patrons.31All subsequent commentators have followed suit. It is curiously appropriate, however, that a misuse of the critical vocabulary should lead us again to Diderot's question. Surely these portraits de fantaisie speak to those problems eloquently summarized by the philosophe who is said to be depicted on one of the canvases (Fig. 1). Fragonard's assertions are hardly subtle as they proclaim the artist's privileged position in the portrait and defy posterity to identify the sitters. Although the particular nature of Fragonard's achievement will be discussed below, the obvious needs to be stated at this point: the dazzling brushwork alone makes it evident that the portraits de fantaisie stress the artist's fabrication, and the costumed figures with exaggerated poses, gestures, and expressions make no pretense of being exact resemblances. It seems almost misguided, then, that much scholarly investigation has been focused on naming these sitters, and
29 "I1aggrandit, il exagbre, il corrige les formes. A-t-il raison? a-t-il tort?

that museum labels record the various possible identifications for a public eagerly asking whom the portraits represent.32But in the total absence of written documentation, how are we and posterity to be certain whom the portrait resembles? At best we can say that the portrait resembles other portraits or literary descriptions, but these are not reliable guides to exact likeness. For, even if eighteenthcentury theorists believed that a precise transcription was possible, every portrait deviates from its model. Without the confirmation of contemporary records, could anyone be sure, for example, that Boucher's portrait of Mme. de Pompadour now in the Wallace Collection represents the same woman as Drouais' painting in the National Gallery, London, or that Nattier's depiction of Mme. Henriette (Florence, Uffizi) and his portrait of Manon Belletti (London, National Gallery) are not depictions of the same individual? Although useful facts are unearthed in researching the identity of Fragonard's sitters, the paintings beg to be read generally as works of art and specifically as portraits that comment on the genre of portraiture. What difference is there between a fantasy portrait and a real portrait? Fragonard posed this problem as surely as Diderot asked the question. Anyone who has attempted to name individual sitters (and I put myself into this category) must decide if these are portraits at all. Although it is commonplace to assume that at least some of these works represent Fragonard'sfriends and patrons, only the two d'Harcourt portraits and that said to be Diderot have been identified with any reasonable degree of probability.33The d'Harcourt paintings were owned by the family continuously from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, but the two works never hung in their portrait gallery during that time.34Even if these were recognized as depicting two members of that illustrious lineage, they were treated differently from the ordinary face paintings. Do these paintings depict "real"sitters or do they render imagined visages? The question is problematic only if we try to answer it rather than seeing it as the answer. In Fragonard'sportraits de fantaisie, the distinction between the true and the true-seeming is so obviously blurred that the blurring itself becomes a distinct feature of these portraits. This principle of indeterminacy is established by the primary referents, which, as works of art, are themselves illusions. Some of the portraits de fantaisie are reinventions of wellbe based on the criterion of resemblance. This is also true whenever a specific sign can be associated with a specific individual. 33Rosenberg and Compin make a convincing case for the d'Harcourt portraits and a slightly less convincing one for the Diderot. Comparing Fragonard's work to other known portraits of the philosophe, they try to assess the agreement in depiction of physiognomy. Although in this context they mention the portrait of Diderot exhibited by Michel van Loo in 1767, they only note the difference between the color of the eyes, which are blue in Fragonard's painting and brown in Van Loo's portrait. They do not mention, however, the striking similarities between the two compositions. Rosenberg and Compin also try to identify a fourth work with the dancer La Guimard: however, this case is not so convincing as the others; see n. 42 below. 34This information came from the d'Harcourt family.

Il a tort pour le pedant, il a raison pour l'homme de goit. Tort ou raison, c'est la figure qu'il a peinte qui restera dans la m6moire des hommes a venir" (Diderot, "Salon de 1767," in Salons, as in n. 11, I1I, 170).
30 In the Encyclopedie under the entry for fantaisie, the usage was defined,

"Un peintre fait un portrait de fantaisie, qui n'est d'apres moddle." (A painter makes a fantasy portrait that is after no model whatsoever.) See Voltaire, "Fantaisie,"Encyclopedie (as in n. 4), Iv, 403. 31 Georges Wildenstein, The Paintings of Fragonard, New York, 1960, 14. 32 The best attempt to identify the sitters is that of Pierre Rosenberg and Isabelle Compin, "Quatre nouveaux Fragonard au Louvre," Revue du Louvre, xxxiv, 1974, 183-92. Obviously, in the case of sitters where the attributes clearly define the individuals (i.e., the kings of France or other men and women of historical import), the identification does not have to

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1 J.H. Fragonard, Portraitof Diderot. Paris,Museedu Louvre (photo: Reuniondes MushesNationaux)

2 Michelvan Loo, Portraitof Diderot, 1767. Paris,Mus&e du Louvre(photo: Reuniondes MushesNationaux)

known portraits, most play on standard types within the genre, and all refer to other works of art. The piece called Diderot (Fig. 1; ca. 1769, Louvre), for example, is a reinvention of the portrait by Michel van Loo (Fig. 2; 1767, Louvre), which the philosophe criticized for faulty resemblance. He chastised Van Loo for depicting him as too young, too affected, too pretty. The sumptuous dress, he protested, was not appropriate for a philosopher, and the expression was altogether wrong. Evocatively describing how he imagined himself, Diderot wanted to be shown in a moment of reverie, his eyes looking afar, his mouth slightly open.35If the philosophe displayed the suggestive force of his literary portrait against the precisely detailed, but uninspired, depiction by Van Loo, Fragonard reinvented his predecessor's work and demonstrated his own superior achievement. To emphasize the intellectual capabilities, Fragonard increased the size of the forehead, exaggerating the philosopher type. He adjusted the inspired

writer pose used in the earlier work to form a more continuous spiral movement that directs the energies inward and suggests the self-absorption of philosophical reflection.36The expression is indeed one of reverie, with eyes looking afar and mouth slightly open; and the elimination of costly objects and rich materials focuses attention on the individual. But to what extent can Fragonard'spainting be called a portrait of Diderot? It is more precisely a portrait of Van Loo's portrait of Diderot, and clearly an inventive one at that. The obvious reference is to another work of art, especially since there is no evidence that Fragonard sketched Diderot from life.37 A similar problem is presented by the piece called La musique (Fig. 3; 1769, Louvre). On the lining of its canvas an inscription identifies the figure as M. de la Breteche, the brother of Fragonard'spatron Saint-Non. Although the inscription is a later addition, scholars have searched in vain for a known portrait of La Bret&che that could be compared

35 Diderot, "Salon de 1767," in Salons (as in n. 11), iii, 66-70.

36 For an iconographic study of this pose in the 18th century, see James Rubin, "Lepokte inspire: Le portrait du Lebrun-Pindarepar Jean-Bernard Restout," Revue du Louvre, XL,1980, 77-79. 37Consider the implication, however, of treating Fragonard'spainting as a real portrait. To the 18th-century mind, making a portrait from a portrait might have lessened the prestige of the second work, for the distance

between it and any general ideal was necessarily increased. Although from our 20th-century vantage we cannot say how much these portraits resemble their sitter, we have formed our image of the great man after the great work. Of the two Diderots that now hang in the Louvre, it was Fragonard's portrait that publicly represented the philosopher in the recent exhibition dedicated to his art criticism. Not only did it appear in the gallery, but it could also be seen in the streets as the poster advertising the exhibition.

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3 J.H. Fragonard, La musique,1769. Paris,Mus&e du Louvre (photo: Reuniondes MushesNationaux) 4 J.B. Greuze,Portraitof M. La Live de Jully,1759. Washington, D.C., NationalGalleryof Art (photo: NationalGalleryof Art Photographic Services) fantaisie quote poses frequently used in portrait-making. Some refer to the typical seventeenth-century formula for depicting men of rank or talent, where the figure is positioned so that its form presents marked diagonal oppositions, often with the head turned in strong contrast to the body. Examples of this type include the Fantasy Figure in Blue (Fig. 5; 1769, Louvre) and The Actor (private collection). Others, such as The Young Artist (Louvre), use the pose reserved for inspired writers and creative geniuses. But perhaps most important, seven of the figures are placed at a ledge, a traditional trompe-l'oeil motif used to suggest that the sitter is physically present.39Indeed, one of the best-known stories of mistaking image for reality that circulated in the eighteenth century referred to such a halflength portrait by Rembrandt that, when hung in a window, fooled passers-by with its illusionism.40 To play with
believed to be a copy of Rembrandt's Young Girl Leaning on a Windowsill, 1645, London, Dulwich College Gallery), which inspired such notable confusion. For a discussion of this and other aspects of Rembrandt's reputation in 18th-century France, see Jean Cailleux, "Lesartistes franCaisdu dix-huitieme siecle et Rembrandt," in Etudes d'art frangais offertes a' Charles Sterling, Paris, 1975, 287ff. Fragonard copied a half-length portrait like La Crasseuse, Rembrandt's The Girl with a Broom (Leningrad, Hermitage), when it was in the collection of Crozat de Thiers (Wildenstein, as in n. 31, 191).

to it. In pursuing the presumed sitter, a more obvious model, Greuze's portrait of La Live de Jully (Fig. 4; 1769, Washington, National Gallery of Art) has been overlooked. When the two paintings are placed side by side, the resemblance is striking. I would not venture to say, however, that Fragonard'sportrait is intended to represent the famous amateur, but rather would argue that he reinvents a well-known model in order to display his own virtuosity. If Greuze's lively portrait of La Live de Jully engages the viewer directly, Fragonard makes his figure seem even more immediate by increasing the torsion of the pose, intensifying the light effects, and exaggerating the apparently spontaneous brushwork. Theorists such as Dandr&Bardon, professor at the Ecole Royale, suggested to young artists the practice of competing with recognized works. By surpassing them, the challenger demonstrated his imaginative powers and proclaimed his own prodigious genius.38 If Diderot and La musique are Fragonard's most conspicuous reinventions of specific models, other portraits de
38The idea of competing with, rather than copying, a model has its roots in the ancient concept of aemulatio. See Quintilian, The Institutes of Oratory, transl. J. Selby Wilson, 2 vols., London, 1903, i, 279. 39 For an interesting discussion of this motif, see Sixten Ringb6m, Icon to Narrative. The Rise of the Dramatic Close-up in Fifteenth-Century Devotional Painting, Abo, 1965, esp. 4-5. 40 The story was recorded by Roger de Piles in his Abrege de la vie des peintres. He claimed to have owed the very painting, La Crasseuse (now

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du Lou5 J.H. Fragonard, FantasyFigurein Blue. Paris,Mus&e vre (photo: Reuniondes MushesNationaux) such a convention was to underscore the conflation of real portrait and fantasy portrait. For, if Rembrandt's lesson was that art could effect a confusion between the thing and its image, Fragonard demonstrated the difficulty of distinguishing what had been copied from what had been imagined. Through the consistent use of other portraits or portrait conventions, Fragonard played on the expectations that an audience would bring to a work in that genre. The presence of attributes that signaled an occupation or rank for each figure further encouraged the viewer to see these paintings as portrayals of real and identifiable individuals. But other clues signify make-believe: all the figures are costumed and their garb does not copy contemporary, theatrical, or historical dress, but is composed of picturesque elements culled from other paintings and imaginatively synthesized. Are these real sitters in fantasy dress, or imagined characters dressed in the conventions of real portraits? Or are both possibilities contained within the same group? While pondering this masquerade, however, we recognize the artist as the real hero of these portraits. This realization clarifies the persistent questions because we understand that their posing is part of Fragonard's invention, his ability to play

cleverly with traditions, conventions, and definitions of genre. It is only by seeing the series in this light that we can appreciate how the almost grotesquely comic Lady with a Dog (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art) belongs to the same species as the brilliantly executed Fantasy Figure in Blue (Fig. 5). By varying the variations, that is, by reinventing contemporary portraits, revitalizing standard types, mixing real sitters with fictive ones, Fragonard refuses to confine his imaginative play to a predictable pattern. Read as portraits that question the nature of portraiture, Fragonard's works invite a rethinking of the genre. While refusing to distinguish the copied from the imagined, they engage other paintings in a perpetual dialogue and transform the portrait into a display piece of the artist's invention. Consummate invention was a sign of artistic genius for an eighteenth-century audience, and in the portraits de fantaisie the obvious display of invention inverts the portrait's primary function: that of representing a sitter. Considerations of these works as demonstrations of Fragonard's art, however, have focused exclusively on his handling of paint, which is read as a natural sign for spontaneous creation. In privileging this "natural" sign, interpreters have overlooked other aspects of invention that show the portraits de fantaisie to be highly calculated and artificed productions.41 Although it is true that an eighteenth-century artist was able to express his genius through virtuoso handling, he could do so only because a certain kind of brushwork had become a sign that the artist could willfully make and that the viewer could easily recognize. An unfinished execution with visible touches made any work seem spontaneously invented and executed, thrown off in the heat of inspiration when genius was at its hottest point. Facility, or the appearance of speed and ease of execution, was admired, and, as Watelet noted, "The artist to whom heaven has given a genius for painting applies his colors with the lightness of a facile brush and the traits that he forms are animated and full of fire."42 A viewer who sees only brushwork, however, sees only one aspect of the artist's achievement; he blinds himself both to the carefully calculated references and to the consciously planned designs that invoke traditional academic rules of pictorial invention. According to these rules, a figure should reveal a balance and variety in its parts, and a fluid enchaniement of its contours. Although artists were instructed to observe the principle of contrast (i.e., the conscious juxtaposition of features, lights, touches), they were cautioned to make the oppositions seem natural, as if effected by chance. The notion of convenance demanded correct drawing suited to the object depicted and accurate rendering of a distinctive personality or spirit. In the principles

41 Such is the case, for example, in the essay by Charles Sterling, Portrait of a Man (The Warrior) by Jean-Honork Fragonard, Williamstown, MA, 1964. 42 "L'artiste que le ciel a doue du genie de la peinture distribue ses couleurs

et avec la legerete d'un pinceau facile: les traits qu'il forme sont animus as in n. 5, I, 284). This argument is pleins de feu" (Watelet, "Facilit&," fully developed in my article, "On Fragonard's Enthusiasm," The Eighteenth-Century: Theory and Interpretation, xxvIII, 1987.

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of color, convenance again assumed great importance, and the true genius did not simply devise a pleasing color harmony and handling of paint, but invented them according to the nature of his subjects.43 Consider the figure called La Guimard (Fig. 6; ca. 1769, Louvre), which reinvents the central pelerine of Watteau's L'embarquementpour Cythere (1717, Louvre). By applying the principles of invention, Fragonard not only made a beautiful composition but also transformed a figure imagined by Watteau into a distinctly individual character who may or may not portray a specific woman.44As conceived by Fragonard, the composition has a basic stability, with the figure's hands and head marking the three points of a triangle. Within this frame, the torso is articulated by a serpentine axis; because its contours flow easily, neither the woman's attitude nor her gesture seem overly mannered. Fragonard followed the principle of contrast scrupulously, however, by adding varied effects to the figure without disrupting the compositional balance. He juxtaposed the long, straight line that marks one side of her neck to the active ruff composed of small curvilinear strokes. As the upswept hair opposes the downcast gaze, the fully rounded left cheek balances the sharp profile of the right. In varying the handling of paint, Fragonard rendered the face with delicate touches that are distinct from the bold, loose brushwork defining the costume. The principle of convenance also operates in this work. Both the undulating S-curve of the torso and the soft, pliant hands are appropriate for this slender young woman. If the curvilinear contours of La Guimard suggest her femininity, the opposing lines, jagged profile, and clenched fist of the Fantasy Figure in Blue (Fig. 5) reveal a masculine character. Here Fragonard opposed the red-orange of the cape to the dominant blue of the costume and used touches of yellow to enliven the whole. The intense color contrast coupled with the decisive brushwork reinforces the vigor expressed in the direct diagonal opposition of the lines. The unblended facial tones describe a firm and ruddy complexion, where touches of pure red emphasize the coursing blood. La Guimard, on the other hand, is based on a more subdued red/green contrast in order to convey the less aggressive character, which also is carried in her downcast gaze, restrained pose, and tentative gesture. Whereas the limbs and drapery of the Fantasy Figure in Blue move out to dominate the surrounding space, in La Guimard the gesture is contained so that only one finger protrudes, ever so slightly, over the ledge.

6 J.H. Fragonard, La Guimard.Paris,Mus6edu Louvre (photo: Reuniondes MushesNationaux)

Taste and Genius If the portraits de fantaisie can be considered portraits that both question the nature of the genre and proclaim the artist's genius through a display of invention and brushwork, for what audience were they intended? Clearly, they were not designed for the gens du monde who wanted to be admired in a good likeness. We might say that they were painted with an eye to that most demanding of judges, posterity, but this answer does not acknowledge that these works are best read as part of a discourse about the portrait that emerged within a specific cultural context. Although we do not know the exact patrons who owned Fragonard's portraits de fantaisie, we do know that he usually worked for a specific kind of clientele - the amateurs. Like the Abbe de Saint-Non, they were men well versed in the history of art, well read in aesthetic theory, and thoroughly familiar with the academic conventions of picture-making.

43Dandr6-Bardon (as in n. 14), 172-215. 44 La Guimard was a famous dancer for whom Fragonard worked, and Rosenberg and Compin (as in n. 32) argue that this portrait de fantaisie depicts her. There are problems, however, with this identification because it is totally based on "resemblance"to selected aspects of the woman present in literary portraits (some by 19th-century authors) and a portrait bust. Other characteristics of the woman Fragonard depicts do not cor-

respond to what we know of La Guimard. For example, Fragonard'sfigure has the attributes of a miniaturist, and expresses a shyness perhaps inappropriate for a woman who (history has it) consistently treated him in an imperious manner. Also undermining this identification is the tendency for commentators to attach the names of Fragonard's patrons indiscriminately to his portraits. At least two other depictions of young women have been identified as portraits of Mlle. Guimard, even though the presumed Guimards differ notably from one another in physiognomic type.

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7 J.H. Fragonard, The Swing, 1767. London,WallaceCollection (by permissionthe Trusteesof the WallaceCollection) They formed a sophisticated audience interested in the fashionable issues of art and fully capable of appreciating the cleverness of a painting that commented upon itself. Above all else, they were men of taste. If the amateur looked at a portrait to see the artist who invented it, he did so because taste enabled him to appreciate the workings of imagination in the finished painting.45 As defined in the eighteenth century, taste was based in sensibilit&,a sixth sense that was guided by judgment and had for its object the work of art. Although taste itself was a gift of nature, it had to be developed by studying art and theory. Perfect taste allowed the viewer to sense the difference between the excellent and the mediocre distinctly, without confounding them or mistaking one for the other.46 As the genius for recognizing genius, the amateur's taste shared some basic characteristics with its counterpart in the artist. Both were gifts of nature cultivated through mastering the principles of art, both operated best with judgment as a guide, and both worked with rapidity and force

in an inspired moment. This dual emphasis on genius and taste placed a particular importance on both the creative process and the aesthetic experience, for the interaction between the imagination of the artist and the sensibilite of the observer was predicated upon these two concepts. The taste of the viewer instinctively responded to the presence of genius, and the painting was the physical medium through which this presence was transmitted. For the man of taste, interest in the object represented was superseded by a fascination with the conceiving mind. The Duc d'Harcourt, who was probably a patron - if not a sitter - of the portraits de fantaisie, fits the profile of the amateur and man of taste. He had a substantial reputation as a writer, published a treatise on gardening, and in 1789. He is said was elected to the Academie Fran;aise to have drawn and carved, and to have amused himself by A acting in and writing plays for the thebatre d'Harcourt.47 six of his holds that tradition Fragonardpainted porfamily traits de fantaisie after disguised guests who attended a fete held in the pavilion de fantaisie that decorated the gardens of the d'Harcourt chateau. Although there is no reason to accept this explanation for Fragonard's series, an appreciation for a costumed portrait that blurs the distinctions between fantasy and reality seems consistent with the interests of an amateur who performed in his own theater and regularly gave masquerade balls. And indeed the tradition might well have begun when one of his descendants noted that the portrait and the costumed fetes represented similar interests. It does not seem totally improbable that a "real,"but costumed portrait executed for the Duc d'Harcourt stimulated the whole series of works, but it is equally likely that d'Harcourt, knowing Fragonard's portraits de fantaisie, sought an example for his own collection. Fragonard's approach to the portraits de fantaisie is entirely consistent with his treatment of the portrait elsewhere, for example, in The Swing (Fig. 7; London, Wallace Collection) executed for the amateur, the Baron Saint-Julien in 1767.48 Like the portraits de fantaisie, this work demonstrates the painter's genius in its witty play with the conventions of art as well as in its brilliant brushwork and imaginative invention. The Swing also stretches the boundaries of the portrait by transforming it into a scene whose narrative components conceal its identification with that genre. Indeed, even though we know that Saint-Juliencommissioned the work as a depiction of his mistress, The Swing is never investigated as a portrait.49 In discussing the paintcommentators have not interested themselves in idening, or mistress tifying Saint-Julien's discussing the degree of resemblance that marks the portrait of the baron placed in

4s Marc-Antoine Laugier, Manibre de bien juger des ouvrages de peinture (Paris, 1771), repr., Geneva, 1972, 47-49. ' 46 Charles Batteux, Les beaux-arts rbduit un meme principe, Paris, 1746, 53-59. 47For more information about the duke's life, see the introduction to the edition of 1919 of his treatise written from records of the d'Harcourt family (Mgr. le Duc d'Harcourt, Traits de la decoration des dehors, des jardins,

et des parcs, intro. Ernest de Ganay, Paris, 1919). 48This work dates from the same time as the portraits de fantaisie, and its dimensions match those of the painting in that group. 49For the cirumstances of the commission, see Charles Coll&,Journal et memoirs, 3 vols., Paris, 1868, III, 165. Donald Posner has recently interpreted the painting in "The Swinging Women of Watteau and Fragonard," Art Bulletin, LXIV, 1982, 75-88.

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the grass below. It is the total absence of portrait conventions that deters us from applying the standard methods: The Swing simply does not look like a portrait, and that takes precedence, it would seem, over the documentary evidence that places it within the genre. But in the case of the portrait de fantaisie where their status as real portraits is in doubt, the obvious use of portrait conventions has led many viewers to assume the duties appropriate for that genre: identifying the sitter and judging the resemblance. In The Swing, on the other hand, Fragonard has obviously intended another role for the audience. The viewer imaginatively participates in the depicted event by helping to dupe the naive cleric who does not see that, by pushing the swing, he is exposing the young lady to her lover's gaze. A representation of Falconet's Menacing Cupid is included in the garden setting to insure the viewer's compliance.

Placing finger to lips, this cupid asks the onlooker not to alert the intended victim, who here should fear the barb of ridicule rather than the gold-tipped arrow. If in The Swing Cupid makes the observer an accomplice to the ruse, in the portraits de fantaisie, no cupid, menacing or otherwise, alerts the unsuspecting to Fragonard'strickery. The joke is at the expense of the naive viewer who, in pursuing the elusive sitter, allows the artist to escape him. Mary Sheriff wrote her doctoral dissertation on Fragonard (University of Delaware, 1981), on whom she has published other articles and now is preparing a book. Her research is supported by a Getty Postdoctoral Fellowship. [The Department of Art, University of North Carolina, Hanes Art Center 079A, Chapel Hill, NC 27514]

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