The Development of Intimacy: History of An Emotional State In Art and Literature

NOTES

• “… galant profession…” Chevalier de Bouffiers, Epitre à Voltaire, Allem, M., ed., Anthologie poétique française, XVIII^e. Siècle, Paris, 1966. p. 330.
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• See Liddell, H. G. and Scott, R., Lexicon, Oxford, 1968, s.v. ερως. The word does not necessarily refer to sexual passion but can also refer generally to desire for a thing. Of course the Greek could refer to sexual activities (αϕςοδισια) as distinct from affection (στοργη) but there is no dialectic between these concepts. For a good discussion of ερωι, see Brès, Y., La Psychologie de Platon, Paris, 1968, pp. 215–260 and (for επιϑνμία 308–319.
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• Liddell and Scott, op. cit., s.v. and also αγαπη, αγαπαω. The notion was anything but specific in antiquity: it could imply sexual love (though rarely), general affection, brotherly charity, regard rather than affection, caressing, contentedness, delight and so on. In the Septuagint, αγαπη tends to refer to spiritual love but, in the Song of Songs, it clearly describes erotic love.
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• I follow Bruno Snell's resolution of the eplstemological crisis when he sets out to describe how the early Greeks had no conception of mind or soul and therefore had no mind or soul: Die Entstehung des Geistes, 5th ed., Göttingen, 1980, p. 10.
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• See particularly Ariès, P. L'Enfant et la Vie familiale, Paris, 1960, p. 453; Snyders, G., La Pédagogie en France aux XVII^e et XVIIIe Siècles, Paris, 1964, p. 299; and Badinter, E., L'Amour en Plus, Paris, 1980, p. 39.
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• One might consider The Confidants, National Gallery, Washington (illustrated most accessibly in Ananoff, A., L'Opera Completa di Boucher, Milan, 1980, pl. xxxix, no. 386), The Graces of Country Life, Louvre, Paris (ibid., no. 148), Are They Thinking of Grapes?, Art Institute, Chicago (ibid., pl. xxix, no. 321) and a variant in the National Museum, Stockholm (ibid., no. 320), Country Scene, Archives Nationales, Paris (ibid., no. 161), Spring, Frick Collection, New York (ibid., no. 476), and the Pastoral Scene, Staatliche Kunsthalle (ibid., no. 570).
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• This painting, together with its companion-piece in Melbourne, The Mysterious Basket, has been discussed by Clark, J. and McCaughey, P., ‘Love Among the Ruins: Two Pastorals by François Boucher’, The Art Bulletin of Victoria, no. 23, pp. 5–12, and Clark, J., The Great Eighteenth Century Exhibition, Melbourne, 1983, pp. 89–93. The identification of Favart's Vendages de Tempé as a likely literary source for the painting is well grounded. As with any analogy between text and image, however, caution must be exercised lest the spirit of the text be automatically transferred to the image. Much in the Agreeable Lesson can be found in Boucher's other paintings not inspired by Favart. It could also be noted that the Agreeable Lesson has a visual source in that tender yet compromising music lesson of the late Hellenistic period, the so-called Daphnis and Pan, the best copy of which is in the Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome.
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• For the erotic symbolism of young women playing flutes, see Winternitz, E., Musical Instruments and their Symbolism in Western Art, London, 1967, pp. 37–38, 48–52; for the immorality of flutes, pp. 150–165. But the preciousness of the scene in Boucher would have been one of the most outstanding features of the painting for the eighteenth-century art lover. See the vigorously charming Diderot writing about a painting of Boucher: ‘on en sent l'absurdité… C'est un vice si agréable, c'est une extravagance si inimitable et si rare! Il y a tant d'imagination, d'effet, de magie et de facilité!’ Salons, Seznec, J. and Adhémar, J., eds, Oxford, 1975, vol. 1, p. 112, quoted by Goldfarb, H T., ‘Boucher's Pastoral Scene with Family at Rest and the image of the Pastoral in Eighteenth-Century France”, The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, March, 1984, pp. 82–89. I am grateful to Professor Plant for having brought this article to my attention.
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• The two-volume monograph by Ananoff, A., François Boucher, Lausanne-Paris, 1976, gives valuable information on Boucher's patronage. The documentation from Boucher's first royal commission in 1735 to the artist's death in 1770 is an aspect of the study which was not criticized in the generally caustic reviews by Posner, D., Art Bulletin, LX, 1978, pp. 560–62, and Slatkin, R. S., ‘A New Boucher Catalogue’, Burlington Magazine, CXXI, 1979, pp. 117–123.
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• See Aries: ‘Le premier sentiment de l'enfance—le mignotage—était apparu dans le milieu familial, dans la compagnie des petits enfants…” op. cit., p. 141.
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• Galatians, 4: 3. Considered among other writers in antiquity, St Paul is not particularly hostile to children. The tradition of despising children is Peripatetically unemotional: cf Aristotle stating that a child, like an ox or a horse, can not legitimately be called happy because he or she lacks the final virtue and complete life, Nicomachean Ethics, 1099b32-1100a5.
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• Snyders cites Augustine, City of God, XII: 22, with reference to the ‘péché de l'enfance’, op. cit., p. 181; but this locus is erroneous (a mistake duplicated by Badinter, op. cit., p. 43) as children are not even mentioned in that chapter. Elsewhere, however, Augustine does associate original sin with an infantile state of dullness and weakness (ad infantilem hebetudinem et infirmitatem), XIII: 3; and these features point to a beast-like life (bestialem vitam), loc. cit.
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• On Vainglory and the Upbringing of Children, 73, Wiles, M. and Santer, M., Document in Early Christian Thought, Cambridge, 1975, p. 219.
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• The lion is described as magnanimous (μεγαλςϕνξςι) in Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomies, 809b35, 811a16, 30, 33, and so on. This text had been available in French since Lebon, I., La Physionomie, Paris, 1556. Clark and McCaughey rightly note that the lion was associated with fortitude in Ripa's Iconologia though I am unfamiliar with the tradition in which the lion is ‘one of Apollo's own personal beasts’, op. cit., p. 11.
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• The lion is described as gentle (πρανι, which the earliest and most popular Latin translator, Bartholomeus of Messina, renders as mansuetus) in the Physiognomies, 809b35. The quality is generally accorded to the strong, well fleshed, well proportioned and prone or ‘open’ in expression (νπτιςι τω σξηματι), 808a25-27. For Peripatetic gentleness in general, see Nikolaidis, A. G., ‘Aristotle's treatment of the concept of πραςτηι’, Hermes, CX, 1982, pp. 414–422. The sweet-tempered aspect of the fierce beast is given a delightful and touching representation in Boucher's Agreeable Lesson as the lion serenely crosses his paws and thus disposes himself for benign peace rather than bloody action. See the gentle lion crossing his paws in Henkel. A. and Schöne, A., Emblemata, Stuttgart, 1967, pp. 370–371.
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• Goats are represented as lustful throughout the bestiarial literature. See the Physiognomies, 812b13, where they are λαγνςι. As for sheep, Aristotle declares that they are sleepy, simple, senseless, unresponding and most cowardly, History of Animals, 536b29, 610b22-24, Problems, 893a13. In the Physiognomies, sheep are also cowardly, 806b8, but are gentle too, 813b4.
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• Henkel and Schöne, op. cit., pp. 108–109. Boucher's preoccupation with fountains is persistent; cf his designs for Huquier's Livre de Fontaines of 1736 and Aveline's Second Livre de Fontaines of 1738. See also the Fountain of Venus in the Cleveland Museum of Art, discussed in the Museum's Catalogue, Cleveland, 1982, vol. 3, pp. 53–57.
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• Gedanken (1756), Stuttgart, 1977, p. 4.
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• ‘… την των σνμΦωνιων πηγην’, Nicomachus, Excerpta, 7, Jan. K., Musici Scriptores Graeci, Leipzig, 1895, p. 279.
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• A fine detail of the vase, Stamnos A 717, appears in Boardman, et al., Art and Architecture of Ancient Greece, London, 1967, fig. 131a; text, p. 184.
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• See the places in Liddell and Scott, op. cit., s.v. and also νιγγανω and χαταρρ∈ζω. Expressions for delicate human contact are plentiful in Greek literature. See, for instance, the line in Musaeus which describes Leander's initial approach to Hero, pressing her rosy fingers gently (ηρ∈μα δ∈ νλιβων ρςδς∈ιδ∈α δαχτνλα), Hero and Leander, 114.
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• Illustrated in Bieber, M., The Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age, New York, 1960 ed., fig. 638. Bieber locates the work among ‘rococo trends’, p. 150.
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• Some of these words are mentioned in Sittl, Die Gebärden der Griechen und Römer, Leipzig, 1890, p. 31–37.
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• Other examples could be considered, such as the Stele of Timarista and Krito in the National Museum. Rhodes, illustrated in Panofsky, Tomb Sculpture, London, 1964, fig. 33, see text, pp. 20–21; also the monographs: Conze, A., Die attischen Grabreliefs, Berlin, 1922, Diepolder, H., Die attischen Grabreliefs des 5. und 4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr., Berlin, 1931, Johansen, F., Attic Grave Reliefs, 1951.
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• Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 7, 69, line 5. I found this inscription in Lattimore, R., Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs, Urbana, 1962, p. 128, who gives it a date of the first century A.D. The Greek did not expect death to go unwept (see ibid., p. 179) and crying can even be commanded by the monument in the imperative (δαχρνσατω), p. 180, referring to the Sammelbuch Griechischer Urkunden aus Aegypten, 366, 373 and 391, all from Alexandria; cf. the instruction: ‘wail’ (xXauaa7[e]), Lattimore, op. cit., p. 185, referring to the Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1, 567, 16, from Karanes, Egypt, third century B.C.
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• Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, 34, 184a, Lattimore, op. cit., p. 164, where the date of second century A.D. is given.
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• An inscription from Rome poses the question of whether there is perception among the dead (∈ι γ∈ν φνιμ∈νςισι τιοαισνσιο), Kaibel, Epigrammata Graeca, Berlin, 1878, 700, 4, Lattimore, op. cit., pp, 56 and 67; and it is interesting to note that the Greek word for insensitive (αναισνητςο) refers to a lack of sense-perception rather than a psychological deficiency in the emotional sphere. See also Epigrammata Graeca, 513. 2, Lattimore, op. cit., p. 76.
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• Kaibel, op. cit., 747a, p. xiii, line 5, thinks that it comes from the period of Aurelius: see Lattimore, op. cit., p. 78. The lack of sight is emphasized in the popular conception of death as nothing but darkness: see Ancient Greek inscriptions in the British Museum, 4, 1113, Lattimore, op. cit., p. 76.
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• Inscriptiones orae-septentrionalis Ponti Euxini, 4, 136, line 9, Lattimore, op. cit., p. 77.
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• A late Hellenistic inscription from Astypalea states that the dead have nothing to do with the living ζωντων δςνδ∈ν∈χςνσι ν∈χρςι), Geffcken. J., Griechische Epigramme, Heidelberg, 1916, 209, Lattimore, op. cit., p. 129.
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• γςων … ∈ρ∈σσ∈τ… πςμπιμςν ξ∈ρςιν πιτνλςν’, Seven Against Thebes, 855.
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• Also called Orestes and Pylades in the Louvre, Paris; see Bieber, op. cit., fig. 786, pp. 183–84, where the work is considered alongside other works which could have been used in this paper: the so-called Orestes and Electra, National Museum, Naples, ibid., figs 784–85, and the work of the same doubtful name in the National Museum, Rome, figs 787–88.
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• In the same dialogue, however, note the opposition between the alien (αλλςτριςτηο) and the proper or fitting (ςιχ∈ιτηο), 197d. cf. Timaeus, 26e (together with πρ∈πςν), and Republic, 402a (implying habit), ibid., 537c; but there is a place in the Phaedrus which describes the friendship from the lover (η παρ ∈ραστςν φιλια) as opposed to the familiarity of the non-lover (η δ∈ απς τςν μη ∈ρωντςο ςιχ∈ιςτηο), 256e.
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• ‘Or le second de ces mots correspond, taht pour l'étymologie que pour le sens, à cette Heimlichkeit dont Freud fera l'essence même de l'impression amoureuse en ajoutant que son contraire (die Unheimlichkeit, das Unheimliche, l'inquiétante, l'angoissante étrangeté) est le résultat d'une inversion de signe.’ op. cit., p. 296.
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• The first use of this term by Kugler in 1837 and Burckhardt's reservations about its dissemination are documented in a fine article by Rona Goffen, ‘Nostra Conversatio in Caelis Est. Observation in the sacra conversazione in the Trecento’, Art Bulletin, LXI, 1976, pp. 198–222. However, because she does not trace the etymology of the Latin and its concordance with the Greek, Goffen does not observe the visual image which is enshrined in the word. It would also be interesting to correlate the change in meaning which Goffen observes in conversazione with the fact that the adjective changes from sancta to sacra.
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• The Latin sancta conversation is not pre-eminently mystical, despite its appearance in 2 Peter, 3: 11: cf. Philippians, 3: 20, James, 3: 13, and I Peter, 1: 15. The word conversatio can certainly be translated as ‘interchange’ but it refers to a habit of interchange and can usually even be rendered as ‘life-style’ in the modern jargon. The safest translation would be ‘discipline befitting holy people’; but one would be reluctant to dismiss the possibility that the term enshrined divine mystery. See ‘conversation spirituelle’ in Viller, M., et al., Dictionnaire de Spiritualité Paris, 1940, vol. 26, pp. 2212–218. The Greek αγια αναστρςφη is harder to trace although, of course, it appears in the plural in 2 Peter, 3: il. I found the term in St John of Damascus in a few places in Barlaam and Ioasaph, e.g. VIII, 66.
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• See Blunt, A., Art and Architecture in France, 1500–1700, Harmondsworth, 1977, p. 108, who reproduces the work and notes the inspiration by Raphael.
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• See Euripides, Electra, 402, Or Sophocles, Antigone, 88; and see also the typically hot desire (ϑ∈ρμςο πςνςο), Philodemus, Greek Anthology, V, 115.
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• Egan, P., ‘Poesia and the Fête Champêtre’, Art Bulletin, XLI, 1959, p. 307. See also Winternitz, op. at., pp. 4–50.
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• Egan, P. 1448al; cf. the same distinction in the Nicomachean Ethics, 1151a28 and the Categories, 4a16.
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• This phrase represents the credo of passion in the sixteenth-century novella, cf. the heroine in Bandello: ‘né generata fui di pietra ma fui donna di carne, comme l'altre’, Novelliere, II: 21.
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• It has been noted that the landscape in Watteau attenuates the virility of the figures in a sublime complementation: ‘la gravité érotique du corps humain est detournée au profit du monde’, Schefer, J-L., ‘Visible et thématique chez Watteau’, Médiations, no. 5, 1963, quoted by Tomlinson, R., La Fête Galante: Watteau et Marivaux, Geneva-Paris, 1981, p. 88, in an interesting discussion of this painting. Tomlinson notes the general absence of movement in the painting and is therefore particularly intrigued by the group of seated and semi-recumbent figures on the right in which an amorous action takes place.
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• cf. the rigidity of Masaccio's Maestà, National Gallery, London, with nuzzling of noses in Donatello's Pazzi Madonna, Dahlem Staatliche Museum, Berlin.
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• Les Chanteurs, III, 4, Dimoff, P., ed., Oeuvres Complètes de André Chénier, Paris, 1966, vol. 1, p. 82.
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• Ataserse, I: 6.
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• Desforges-Maillard, A Monsieur Titon du Tiilet, ed. cit. of Allem, Anthologie poétique française: XVIII^e Siècle, Paris, 1966, p. 150. In eighteenth-century French, the word ‘léthargique’ would possibly have carried closer suggestions of the Greek root which refers to Lethe as a place of forgetfulness.
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• Gasparo Gozzi, Gronda. G., ed., Poesia italiana: il Settecento, Milan, 1978, p. 153.
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• Elegie, Allem, op. cit., p. 34.
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• ibid., p. 35.
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• loc. cit.
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• loc. cit.
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• Inverno, Gronda, op. cit., p. 79.
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• Eglogue, Allem, op. cit., p. 39.
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• Mevel, J-P., ed., Lexis, Paris, 1975, gives the first instance of the word as 1684, s.v. But it ought to be stressed that the appearance of the abstract noun does not automatically betoken a change in meaning. That would be an error of logic. The abstract form is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the development of the concept.
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• ‘lascivetti desiri…’ Felici, L., ed., Poesia italiana: il Seicento, Milan, 1978, pp. 10–14.
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• L'Adone, canto 20, ibid., p. 45.
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• ibid., p. 263; but cf. Chiabrera's ‘dolci miei sospiri’, ibid., p. 233
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• See the astonishingly cold phrase of Gilles Menage: ‘les larmes ne me coûtent rien’. Allem ed., Anthologie poétique française: XVII^e Siècle, Paris, 1966, vol. 2, p. 118.
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• ‘Faut-il vous dire tout? Votre esprit est discret; / Je veux vous confier un imponant secret…’ ibid., p. 67.
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• See the ‘désirs impétueux’ of de Bruc de Montplaisir, ibid., p. 75.
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• See a drinking song of Charles Beys, Sur l'Amour, ‘Imitons ce tyran des âmes; / Le vin seul lui fournit des flammes;’ ibid., p. 70.
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• ibid., p. 96.
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• See the marvellous study of Trahard, P., Les Maîtres de la Sensibilité française au XVIII^e Siècle, Paris, 1931, Geneva reprint, 1967.
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• Idiliu 1, Gronda, op. cit., p. 342. cf. Chamfort: ‘Qui t'inspirait? le sentiment.’ Allem, XVIII^e Siècle, p. 356, and, with a congruent interest in metaphorical breathing, Barthe: ‘Tout respire ici l'abondance, / La parure, le doux loisir’, ibid., p. 310.
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• By way of contrast, see how the seventeenth-century poet Jean de Bussières had described a zephyr and how ‘les fleurs… en prennent du sentiment’. Allem, XVIIe Siècle, vol. 2, p. 60, that is, the flowers take on the sentiment of the zephyr as distinct from the sentiment of some other natural phenomenon. This idea of sentiment is not as absolute or abstract as that of the eighteenth century.
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• Quoted by Trahard, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 41, who, however, does not analyse the novelty of the phrase.
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• Bouffiers, Allem, XVIII^e Siècle, p. 331; and see also Houdart de la Motte, ‘Le coeur dit tout ce qui lui vient, / Jamais le choix ne l'embarrasse, / Ht c'est à lui seul qu'appartient / Et l'enthousiasme et la grâce’, ibid., p. 68.
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• Spoken by Dorante in Le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard, II: 12.
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• Panard, Allem, XVIII^e Siècle, p. 124; and see also the conceit of Barthe: ‘il lit au coeur de l'homme’, ibid., p. 313.
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• Gronda, op. cit., p. 343.
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• Quoted by Trahard, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 56.
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• Pesselier, Allem, XVIII^e Siècle, p. 199.
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• Les Serments Indiscrets, V: 1.
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• Quoted by Trahard, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 39.
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• Quoted ibid., p. 45.
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• Badinter quotes Vivés, a sixteenth-century Spanish priest who retained great popularity in seventeenth-century France, railing against the tenderness of mothers toward their children, op. cit., pp. 45–47.
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• Allem, XVIII^e Siècle, p. 59.
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• ibid., p. 93.
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• Quoted by Trahard, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 29.
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• Allem, XVIII^e Siècle, p. 150.
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• ‘J'aurais consacré l'un au dieu de la tendresse, / J'aurais consacré l'autre au dieu de l'amitié’, ibid., p. 354.
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• ibid., p. 129.
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• ibid., p. 339.
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• ibid., p. 339. Roucher is a slightly older poet than most of the others quoted above (his dates being 1745–1794) and is more contemporary with La Harpe (1739–1803) whose ‘naíve tendresse’ compares well, ibid., p. 351.
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• ibid., p. 222.
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• Snell does not deny certain Urphänomene and insists that the onus tests on the scholar's ability to indicate the precise sense in which any phenomenon is absent: ‘Wenn im Folgenden etwa behauptet wird, die homerischen Menschen Hätten keinen Geist, keine Seele und infolgedessen auch sehr viel anderes noch nicht gekannt, ist also nicht gemeint, die homerischen Menschen hätten sich noch nicht freuen oder nicht an etwas denken können und so fort, was absurd wäre; nur wird dergleichen eben nicht als Aktion des Geistes oder Seele interpretiert: in dem Sinn ‘gab es noch keinen Geist und keine Seele.’ op. cit., p. 10. But Snell also recognizes that any process of representing or translating foreign concepts is essentially apophatic: ‘Nur dies negative Verfahren kann die Grenzen des Fremden festlegen.’ loc. cit.
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