The Influence of Lavater and Girodet'sExpression Des Sentiments De L'Ame

Abstract

IN his review of the Salon of 1824, Stendhal vehemently cries out: “Je demande une âme à la peinture,”2 and he criticizes the school of David, because this school “ne peut peindre que les corps; elle est décidément inhabile à peindre les âmes.”3 This criticism, written the very year of David's death, must have had a particularly bitter taste for the aging but faithful disciples of the painter of the Horaces. Facing what Chaussard called “une invasion gothique”4 of Romantic emotionalism, these die-hard classicists were still thinking of themselves as real champions of “l'expression des sentiments de l';âme.”5 The frustrated striving of the Davidians to become “painters of the soul”6 is one of the most frequently forgotten phases of art history. Yet it has a deep significance because it corresponds to one of the essential aspects of Pre-Romanticism. The aim of the present article is to examine one episode of this particular phase of Neo-Classical development: the influence of Lavater's physiognomical theories on the art and the writings of Girodet-Trioson, a well-known pupil of David.

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