The Smile of Reason: Evolution of Portrait Painting in Enlightenment France. 6

The Smile of Reason¹ and La Tour.

After the grandeur of Rigaud’s Louis XIV portrait, the genre relaxes becoming more informal, interested in the connection between the inner and outer person. Such a psychological attitude to the genre is found mostly in Maurice Quentin de La Tour (1704-88) whose subjects were found primarily amongst the professional classes. And this transformation is marked by the decrease in the size of the portrait to three quarter length studies; then with La Tour, concentration on the face itself which might be compared to a mask since there are things both concealed and shown in his portraits which eliminate background objects leaving the viewer’s portrait purely on the face, as in the case of Madame Fels (above).² The appearance of the middle-class portrait brings a form of naturalism which might be associated with the rise of the enlightened person who sought clarity and reason in his or her dealings with society. A good example is La Tour’s portrait of Rousseau who had just published Discours sur les Sciences et les Art in 1750. Out of all the portrait painters like Nattier, Aved, and Louis Tocqué 1696-1772), La Tour produced the art that was most connected with the philosophers who began and shaped the enlightenment. In the words of Wakefield, La Tour shared the philosophers’ concern for reason, tolerance and humanity.” This chimed in with La Tour’s philanthropy; in 1782, the portraitist founded the Ecole Royale Gratuite de Dessin and other charitable institutions in his home city.³ What really marks out La Tour is his use of the medium of pastel which was brought into France by the Venetian artist Rosalba Carriera (1675-1734) which though visually appealing tends to lose depth in terms of the psychological. Two of La Tour’s greatest admirers were the next century’s Goncourt twins who described La Tour’s art as almost raising “the art of pastel to the level of Rembrandt in the format of a Chardin,” high praise indeed.

1The title of one of Kenneth Clark’s chapters in Civilisation, (Book Club Associates, 1969), 171-268.

2Wakefield, French Eighteenth-Century Portraiture, 58.

3Ibid, 67.