The Drawings of Raymond Lafage PDF
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The Drawings f of Raymond Lafage Self-Portrait, Louvre. Nathan T. Whitman THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN I ANN ARBOR I MICHIGAN The Drawings of Raymond Lafage ~KOMT~ ~~.4···-· ~~ ..JI ~ <3:' -f ~ M·N ~ SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V. 1963 ISBN 978-94-015-0368-6 ISBN 978-94-015-0941-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-0941-1 Copyright 1963 6y Springer Science+<Business :MeaUJ. (])onfreclit Origina{{y pu6Cislied 6y :Martinus %jlioff, Tlie Jfague, Tlie :Netlierfand.s in 1963 Sojtcover reprint of tlie liardcover 1st edition 1963 Ali right reserved, including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form. To Jakob RosenberB teacher and friend Foreword ix List of Illustrations xiii The Life I The Style 19 Contents The Drawings 40 Appraisal and Evaluation 64 Bibliography 79 Notes 82 Index 90 Illustrations vii The French seventeenth century remains at the present moment one of the few areas in the history of later western art which still needs intensive study. Even the work of Pous sin, its most outstanding painter and the object of a continu ous stream of encomiums stretching back to his own life time, has only recently begun to be explored with the full scholarly apparatus of contemporary art history, and a definitive monograph is probably still some years in the future. La Tour and the Le Nain brothers have been intro Foreword duced into the company of great artists only within the past quarter century, and with significant discoyeries still being made complete evaluations are as yet not even to be contem plated. After numerous casual encounters with the frequent ly handsome if astonishingly varied canvases of Bourdon, one becomes suspicious of the ever repeated dismissal of his work as merely eclectic and longs for a revealing analysis of his purposes and patronage. The harsh Latinity of Valentin, the sumptuous strangeness ofVignon, the audacious languor of Antoine Coypel, these are some of the many topics that still await careful investigation and evaluation. Only then, on the basis of these needed studies, will some future synthe sist be able at long last to arrive at a truly judicious, compre hensive, and penetrating view of this complex period. It is within the context of this broadly envisioned pattern that I present this monograph on an even less recognized artist of the age of Louis XIV. In the eighteenth century no introduction or justification would have been necessary, for ix the drawings of Raymond Lafage graced the cabinets of large mass of his drawings, assuredly the major portion of connoisseurs from London to Vienna and he was favorably, his production, which is stored in some of the world's great I fear extravagantly, compared to the great Michelangelo. repositories of graphic art - the Albertina, the Cabinet des Apparently the first French artist to work entirely as a Dessins in the Louvre, the Royal Library at Windsor, the draughtsman, Lafage in 1683, a year before his premature British Museum, the National Museum in Stockholm. From death, sold some drawings to the young Crozat and thereby these drawings I have with great care and no little debate helped to inaugurate the age of the amateurs, that glittering culled for publication a selection which I believe both repre elite of which Crozat was such a preeminent founding sents the varying aspects of his style and also exhibits member. Not only historically but also stylistically Lafage something of his range and quality. At all times I have has his importance: while many of his drawings remain sought to maintain a balance between historical and cultural stolidly academic, others - and they are usually the best documentation on the one hand and stylistic and qualitative exhibit a dawning spontaneity that presages the rococo and analysis on the other, thereby endeavoring to avoid the links him to the sensualist current in French art. dangers of methodological partisanship and to present La I do not pretend in this study to have solved all the fage's work and development within as manifold a context problems which the work of Lafage presents. The tenuous as possible. but perceptible influence of the School of Fontainebleau on If I have achieved any success in these aims it is in large some of his drawings will need future elucidation and expla part due to the inspiring training and guidance which I have nation, most suitably perhaps within the context of a detailed received from Dr. Jakob Rosenberg. His meticulous sensi analysis of the stimulus which courtly mannerism exerted tivity to problems of style and quality has served as a conti on the formation of the entire French rococo style. The nuous stimulus to my efforts, and his encouragement and sketchbook at Dusseldorf, an important document that so comments have been invaluable not only to the completion far seems to have remained almost totally unknown, de of this book but to my professional career in general. Of serves a specialized investigation of its considerable stylistic hardly less importance has been the close and vigorous and iconographic enigmas. Similarly I have not attempted friendship which I have been privileged to maintain over the to track down every drawing attributed to Lafage, of which years with my colleague, Dr. Marvin J. Eisenberg; the fruits there are many widely dispersed in private collections as well of our animated discussions, our agreements and divergences, as in the smaller museums. Rather, my aims have been more are interwoven into the fabric of this study in many more modest and, I believe, more fundamental, namely, to formu ways than we ourselves could now recognize. Suggestions late precisely and rigorously the exact characteristics of his and observations from other colleagues have likewise been style in its several aspects and thus to provide a more solid gratefully received and incorporated into the text in one basis than has been heretofore available for the study of indi way or another: from Dr. Harold E. Wethey, Dr. Cornelius vidual examples of his work. In order to accomplish this C. Vermeule, Miss Agnes Mongan, and Mr. George H. For purpose I have studied exhaustively over some years that syth. I also owe a very large debt of gratitude to Mr. Donald X Billiar whose particular training and unflagging patience without solicitation, supplied me with photographs, exhi proved of inestimable value in the final revision of the manu bition catalogues, and very valuable information. M. le com script. He infused me with an appreciation of the subtleties te Henri Begouen, the distinguished anthropologist whose of English grammar and its underlying logic which consider avocation was the study of the work ofLafage, sent me a copy ably exceeded my previous experience. of his article, which to my knowledge does not exist in any The authorities of the various museums which possess American library, and a kind letter of encouragement to my drawings by Lafage have been most helpful in supplying labors. A conversation with Mlle. Arvengas of Lisle-sur-Tarn photographs and information. Mr. Nils Lindhagen of the gave me several initial leads to valuable sources of drawings National Museum in Stockholm and Miss A. Helen Scott and information. For aid in obtaining archival material in Elliot of the Royal Library at Windsor both showed extreme Italy I am greatly indebted to my friends, Dr. Antonas Melni courtesy in this regard; the latter lady even allowed an inno kas and Dr. Bernard T oscani. cent American to work in the Library on Ascot Day when My final thanks must go to the guardians of the Rackham the rooms are regularly closed to visitors because of the Research Fund of the University of Michigan. The greater presence of the Sovereign. Dr. J. Q. van Regteren Altena of part of my research was carried out by means of a travel grant the Rijksmuseum and M. Jean Claparede of the Musee Fabre from this Fund for the year 1956, and the manuscript was in Montpellier responded to my inquiries with alacrity and completed in the summer of 1959 with the assistance of an warm interest. The British Museum and the Albertina sent other grant from the same source. The supporting funds for me detailed lists of their holdings which have been of great the publication of this book are likewise derived from this value in my researches. Above all M. Robert Mesuret of the admirable endowment. Musee Paul-Dupuy in Toulouse has generously, and often xi
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