Shiff, Representation, Copying, and The Technique of Originality

Representation, Copying, and the Technique of Originality
Author(s): Richard Shiff

Source: New Literary History, Vol. 15, No. 2, Interrelation of Interpretation and Creation
(Winter, 1984), pp. 333-363
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/468860
Accessed: 31-07-2018 17:24 UTC
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Representation, Copying, and the Technique
of Originality
Richard Shiff
AT THE PRESENT MOMENT there is much discussion of the

modern period as a distinct era, perhaps now past, a
characterized by an ideology and style of its own. For m
of the art historians who take part in this speculation on the
of modernism, the modern period begins well back in the nin
century; for some, its roots are clearly in the eighteenth cen
Accounts of the rise of modernism tell a story of conflicting
and practices: there are academics and antiacademics, pain
"idealized" history and painters of "real" nature, painters of a
and painters of the symbol. Some of the more erudite scho
reveals significant differences even among members of relativ
hesive groups-one finds, for example, that academics wr
without resolution over the proper procedure for imitat
Greeks. And if indeed the nineteenth century belongs to the
period, it may be that not all of its artists wanted to be mod
to put it another way, at the very least they did not all want t
each other. Of course, persuasive arguments have been made w
encourage considering this pervasive contrariness as an aspect
modern.
I do not wish to classify various artistic manners as modern or
antimodern, or as radical or conservative in any absolute sense. Nor
do I intend to claim that one attitude or manner displaced another
as if fluids of ever-increasing density in the mainstream of history.
In many ways I see the art of the modern period as quite homoge-
neous. Nevertheless, I will attempt to make a general distinction be-
tween the academic and the antiacademic artist in terms of modes of
representation; and to this purpose I will investigate the notion of
copying and what I call the "technique of originality." The course of
my study will pass through a number of familiar topics, including
realism, idealism, and simple naivete.
My emphasis is very much on processes of making-techniques.
Accordingly, by representation I refer to an act of depiction, both
(iconic) figuration and (symbolic) configuration. I do not use the term
representation to signify the adequation of re-presentation, that is, some
334 NEW LITERARY HISTORY
second presentation bearing the full "presence" of the

nineteenth-century sources whom I cite seem very mu
representations may at times seek to approach re-presen
not attain that end. Curiously, the reforming modernis
teenth and early twentieth centuries (associated with i
to choose one example) has sometimes seemed more
academicism that it tried to obliterate, attempting to
its codes. To many this modernist art has appeared a
(vain) struggle to re-present an origin, an original t
argue instead, however, that the contemporary histori
mirror often causes him to see modernist art reversed,
means exchanged: the historian mistakes a self-conscio
tion of "naive" or "original" vision-doubly internalized
within a historical context-for what its maker knew i
likely to be, a naive re-presentation of original "truth
external to any particular discourse. At times it is not
historian's faith in the possibility of re-presentation th
this problem of interpretation, but his assumption of
the part of the artist, a good faith that may have led to
self-deception. Indeed, through the historian's perspec
mediating factor of distance or "error," the artist's ac
often succeeds (that is, his vision is taken to be naive);
proof that the artist had been deceiving himself, had
own naivete.
To the extent that pictures communicate semiotically and can be-

come objects of interpretation, theories of pictorial representation
can be extracted from pictures of pictorial representation. Such pic-
tures both form statements of theory and exemplify practice. I begin
then with some preliminary remarks prompted by consideration of
two pictorial representations of an artist engaged in painting his
model (figs. 1 and 2).1 (The authors of both works are French-
Ingres [1814] and Matisse [1917]-and I will refer repeatedly to
French theory and criticism of their time.) In both pictures the model
that is represented in the process of being represented is a woman;
but, of course, in accord with the more generalized use of the term
in the field of the visual arts, this "live model" (modele vivant) could
be any subject in "nature," even a still life (nature morte). As long as
the model is some sort of observable thing-a source to be drawn
from as the canvas is drawn upon, and an object of vision regarded as
external to the artist-one may (rather conventionally, at least) speak
of its representation in a relatively unproblematic way.2 Yet it is to
be expected that the pictorial representation may not look exactly like
REPRESENTATION, COPYING, AND TECHNIQUE 335
the model, that there may not be perfect congruence of effects but
rather any of many types of differentiation that result from the im
aginative transference and technical transformation as the model is
shifted from an external world to its place within a pictorial ren
dering, within culture.
This rule of interpretive difference or metaphor has an obviou
exception: if the model is not a real person or a real bowl of fruit o
a real landscape but a picture of one of these things, the represen-
tation will seem likely to resemble the original all the more closely,
perhaps even quite exactly. In such a case there might still be some
imaginative or conceptual transference, but no technical transfo
mation. To paint a representation of another painting does not
present the same technical obstacles associated with painting a
woman. The question of illusion or deceiving the eye does not arise
in the same way; for both the original and its representation belong
to the same class of object, and the replication is achieved by a tech
nical procedure very much like that which produced the origina
The attempt to represent another representation created in the sam
medium can be considered as an act of copying. In theory, copie
may appear quite indistinguishable from originals so long as the ar-
tist-copyist has mastered the craft or technical procedure which gen
erated the original and will generate the copy. Nevertheless, a fa
miliar objection can be raised-namely, that perfect copies are never
made, at least not by human hands, because the stylistic identity of
the individual maker can never be entirely suppressed. If the author
of the original and the author of the copy are different people, orig-
inal and copy will differ. Now, if it is agreed that one artist cannot
copy another, can one go so far as to say that an artist can nev
succeed in copying himself, can never repeat his own artistic perfo
mance? This question should be deferred, since its context expand
considerably as my argument progresses.
Although it is often useful to indulge in regarding a given repre-
sentation as if it were the real thing-or at least a re-presentation of
its object-and to act as if its appearance(s) were the only appear
ance(s) its model could display, the histories of academic disciplines
(fields of interpretation) indicate that Western culture does not reg
ularly put such absolute trust in images, that the admonitions of Plat
have been heeded during the centuries and still are. The disciplin
of art history is no more trusting than any other. I grant that many
art histories have been written as if their authors were unaware of
the ideological content that skews the images of the past. It may be,
however, that art historians have chosen to ignore such vectors of
signification despite the fact that (to a degree) they were conscious
of them. In other words, art historians have simplified

viewing much of the art of the past as if from the in
multaneously assuming that their inside informants w
cerning their own process of representation. Whether
unknowing, this duplicity works to the scholar's advan
comes free to interpret pictures as veracious visual
cording a historical past without being overtly committ
of representational resemblance of his own. And such
course is not a hard act to follow; it facilitates either of
creditable scholarly revision: finding the "content" of
posedly unknown even to its creator; demonstrating th
state of the historian's own understanding of pictorial
historian-interpreter establishes his authority by revea
things that his method initially colludes to conceal.
A more straightforward strategy might be to assume
demic naivete--not the naturalized or recaptured nai
nience-would enable an artist to hold that a represe
cates all appearances of its model. Perhaps some comfor
in the fact that those who eventually write histories of
tieth century will have to acknowledge a certain sophist
among artists, at least on the part of theorists. E.
Nelson Goodman, and others have argued emphatical
sentation does not depend on resemblance and, more
semblance itself may depend on representation.
Goodman writes: "Representational customs, which gov
also tend to govern resemblance. That a picture loo
often means only that it looks the way nature is usual
Taking Goodman into account, I would define "reali
art which has something creditable to say about the ap
structure of the world, an art which is authorized withi
make statements about "truth-to-nature." But how does this author-
ization in the field of artistic creation come about? Who has the au-
thority? Is it better to regard the artist-creator as naive or as knowl-
edgeable? Any answers will emerge only gradually, in fragmentary
form, and must involve a fusion of the concept of the "ideal" with
the concept of the "real."
Many critics and theorists of the nineteenth century were no more

naive than Gombrich or Goodman; they, too, understood that a real-
istic art, if desired, could not depend on a replication of appearances
(unless appearance were to be given quite a sophisticated sense). Spe-
cifically, they held that the character of the maker is somehow re-
flected in any creative representation, and that artistic processes (both
materially and intellectually) are necessarily transformative or met

phorical. Yet within artistic circles, individuals acted much like today
academic scholars, continually accusing one another of the fallacy o
advocating an extreme "objectivity," of suppressing the ideal for th
sake of the real. It may be that no one was truly guilty. Baudelaire
claimed that those he called "positivists" wished to render the world
as if the influence of the observer were null.4 Positivists such as Comte
or Taine, however, sound much more like the type Baudelaire would
call "idealists," at least when they are allowed to speak for themselves.
Comte, for example, asserted that "art is always an ideal represen-
tation of what exists."5 Perhaps the legislators of the French Academy
of Fine Arts may serve as representative of the most typical view on
this matter. In 1867 Charles Blanc, a major academic theorist, wrote
that "the ideal and the real have one and the same essence"; the artist
must transform the one into the other without losing the sense of his
origin in reality.6 Artistic creation necessarily involved a willful ma-
nipulation that one might think of as interpretation. Creation was not
an act of finding, a spontaneous expression of feeling; to create was
to make with an intellectual as well as a physical action.
In 1823 Quatremere de Quincy, an academician who was soon to
become closely associated with Ingres,7 had produced an elaborate
and distinguished example of this type of argument. He stressed the
active role of imagination as he opposed simple finding or discovery
(trouver) to invention (inventer): "What exists can be found [but] one
invents only what does not exist."8 Artistic invention or creation en-
tailed representing "what exists as it could and ought to be"-in an
imperfect world, artistic activity would be transformative. Any rep-
resentation limited by an existing reality would resemble reality too
closely; in its extreme, it would be identical to reality, a mere copy.
But an idealized realism, on the contrary, would resemble reality with
a necessary and welcome difference. This idealization would come
about quite naturally as the artist's own technical procedures effected
the transformation from what Quatremere called "reality" to what he
called (with sophistication) "appearance." In sum, for Quatremere an
art which might resemble (imperfect) reality perfectly would be an
inhuman art; for not only did proper technique transmute the model,
so did the mark of the individual artist. Ultimately, the artist's style
accounted for the difference between a made or created art-a na-
ture transformed-and the unanimated nature that one might c
sider as the environment in which a totally passive being would f
itself.9
Thus when theorists of the nineteenth century spoke of the ideal
to be derived from the real, this ideal carried a double signification:
it was both a general cultural ideal reflected through ca

procedures (conventions) and an ideal associated with th
who had formed it, a personal ideal. Given this comple
ideal, great artists were to be distinguished from lesse
degree to which their personal or particular ideal corr
a universal or general ideal (a "perfection") that ser
others. In a healthy and stable society-such as that,
the ancient Greeks-the great artist might appear as
personality, one who represented things as others saw
would be readily recognizable as realist as well as ideali
artist might seem simply to render, with an unusual fa
saw; he would be no seer or visionary. In contrast, i
or decadent society, the great artist might appear abn
cessively idiosyncratic, since his own ideal vision of th
diverge from the general perception of his culture. As
formulation to be applied in any conceivable creative o
situation, Charles Blanc stated bluntly that nature bec
artist "what he wants it to be."" Consequently, in a soc
to have gone awry, one might expect great art to appe
alienated, those whose wants or desires were deviant from the de-
generate norm and whose (idealized) reality would seem only a
dream, fantasy, or hallucination to others. The familiar conflict be-
tween artist and society, "original" creation and interpretive conven-
tion, haunts these reflections on the representation of the real and
the ideal.12
Much has been said to dispel the myth of the innocent eye, the eye
that records external reality without interpretive comment, without
any factor of what I will now proceed to call "idealization." On this
matter one can consult both recent theorists such as Gombrich and
Goodman, and also those such as Ingres' colleague Quatremere de
Quincy and others of earlier periods. In this context of an awareness
of pictorial transformation and the conventional nature of picture
making, Ingres' Raphael and the Fornarina (fig. 1) must raise a question
(one raised also by many similar images): Why, within this complex
representation, does the woman sketched in on the canvas on th
easel resemble as much as she does the presumably real woman
resting on the man's thigh? Is this a case where real and ideal cannot
easily be distinguished, perhaps because the model is already ideally
beautiful, already like a picture, like a work of art, in her symmetrica
features and fine contours? Or is Ingres attempting to illustrate the
reciprocal notion: that the man depicted in the picture is himself, as
a painter, a master of a realistic resemblance that approaches identity
REPRESENTATION, COPYING, AND TECHNIQUE
339
Fig. 1. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Raphael and the Forrnarina. 1814. Courte

the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Grenville L. Winthrop Bequest.
Or is the resemblance there because Ingres can paint in one man

only-nature is for him (only) "what he wants it to be"-and th
fore he must paint both the image of the real model and the im
of the painted model in the same style?13
In Raphael and the Fornarina two factors may account for the c
visual or stylistic identity between Ingres' image of the painted w
and his image of the real woman. First-as Goodman's argum
about prevailing modes of representation suggests14-a body of c
ventions for realistic depiction is serving to determine resembla
Although Ingres' own manner is personalized (and hence,

a nineteenth-century sense, idealized), his representation e
linear clarity, degree of modeling and detail, and perspec
ence which combine to evoke a reliable image of tangi
disposed in space. This is not the only realist mode, but a
one. One assumes in consequence that the artist whom
resents is concerned to make a relatively realistic image of
for when Ingres renders both painted model and real
similar manner, he is asserting that the artist whom he
succeeds at realistic representation. To put it another
asserts that the real world conforms to the personal visio
artist, that this painter somehow understands the world, i
in a normative manner-his vision is true and can serve in turn as
the model for any painter for whom "truth" has become problemat
or simply obscure.
The second factor which leads to such a close identity between th
represented model and the real model in Ingres' painting is more a
matter of art history. Ingres not only represents a subject in the ex
ternal world (an artist engaged in a certain activity), he also repre
sents-or perhaps exemplifies-this artist's own style. The artist
Ingres' painting can be identified: he is Raphael.15 The model
Raphael's mistress, known as La Fornarina, the baker's daughter. H
appearance in Ingres' painting derives from another painting, R
phael's own portrait of La Fornarina.16 Since the actual model f
Ingres' representation is not a real woman but seems to be a painti
of a woman, the issue of copying should now be reconsidered. A
though Ingres must set his own representation of the Raphae
painting into perspective within his picture of Raphael's studio, he
indeed representing another representation, painting anoth
painting; it would seem then that a high degree of resemblance mig
be achieved.
Furthermore, the appearance of the model-now seen as Ra-
phael's painting of La Fornarina-already conforms to the manner
of visualization associated with the artist-Ingres-who represents
this model. The mediating factor of Raphael's style (his vision) de-
termines the relationship between what might be called the style of
the model or subject matter and that of the artist: the source image
for the figure of La Fornarina exemplifies not Ingres' style but Ra-
phael's, at least as Ingres understood it. Ingres, however, emulated
and adopted many aspects of Raphael's manner as his own. He was
to an extent Raphael's copyist. Consequently, only minimal imagin-
ative or conceptual transference is required for Ingres to render a
picture of Raphael in his studio which includes a painting in Raphael's
own style.17 This style is not alien to Ingres; it is familiar to him

Ingres appropriates Raphael's style, the two artists become memb
of the same society; and the passage from model (Raphael) to
resentation (Ingres) will demand neither major technical trans
mation nor appreciable imaginative transference.
When all these factors are taken into account, some additional co
clusions become evident. Ingres' emulation of Raphael renders
resemblance of La Fornarina to her image on the easel unpro
matic; and any other model depicted by Ingres might also resemb
La Fornarina because Ingres' vision registers that of Raphae
two views become quite congruent. Perhaps somewhat paradoxica
Ingres can picture La Fornarina both in terms of realism and in te
of his personal idealized style, despite the fact that the original m
on which he bases his copy is neither a real woman nor the artis
invention but a representation by another painter, by Raph
Ingres' ability to absorb Raphael made his personal style compreh
sible to most of his contemporaries even though the charge of id
syncrasy was leveled at him throughout his career; and henc
many of his admirers insisted, his style was both "realistic" and
mative.18 In other words, critics praised Ingres for both his real
and his idealism. As a result he was defined as an exemplary "
demic" artist, one whose style could represent the world as it
known and would be known-such representation both depicte
world iconically and symbolized that world all at a stroke. Ing
academic art seemed in accord with rules and principles, seemed
of a tradition, and could generate its own school. Indeed, ot
might join the tradition of Ingres as they succeeded in imitating
just as he succeeded in imitating Raphael. But the establishmen
such normative excellence was not without its drawbacks. One criti
presenting an argument against this academic or textbook aspect
Ingres' art, noted that "every one of Ingres' pupils is capable of
ulating any work whatever of his professor to the point of
mistaking it for the original."19 From this point of view, academ
might seem to generate a sequence of perfect copies; and the fac
of difference between the model and its representation (whic
academics suggested must be present in a work of art) strangely
appears from the most typical or representative of academic wor
Needless to say, Ingres did not inaugurate the tradition that
came his own; he was not the first academic. His painting, rende
in a style shared to a great extent with Raphael, could appear
realistic (individual) and idealized (in the sense now of universal),
since it accorded well with standards of academic art already estab-
lished. The argument may seem to have become suspiciously circular
or even vertiginous; for the "real" is not only the produ

vidual vision but a reality for all to behold, a universal sou
one returns; and the "ideal" (as I have stated) is both parti
generalized. Familiar questions arise. Does one become rea
strength of one's personal observations, or can reality be
only with the aid of an artistic tradition of (idealized) repr
Need an academy or pantheon of great artists exist be
represent the real, or does every great artist re-form th
For the academics, all answers lie in art itself: the path t
truth, to original nature, leads through the conventions a
art. The academic could offer a certain social and historic
cation for his reliance on the vision incorporated in ante
resentations. If modern society had become degenerate (a
nineteenth-century theorists claimed), original truths m
vealed only through an identification with those for whom
inal or "true" reality was congruent with (personal) artist
was certainly the case with the Greeks, and also, accordin
with Raphael. To attain the vision of the Greeks or of Ra
would appropriate their manner of representation; as Ing
the principle of congruence put no limit on the number o
overlapping layers that a culture might acquire. By n
teaching of proper artistic technique-indeed, its stan
would become the academic concern, simply because
served as the means of appropriation.20 Ingres himself w
struction for students in such a way that any conflict b
pil and master would be effaced from the palimpsest
"imitation":
I send you [to the Louvre] because you will learn from the ancient works to
see nature, because they are themselves nature: you must live off them,
consume them.... Do you think that in directing you to copy them, I would
make you copyists? No, I want you to partake of the sap of the plant.
Address yourselves, then, to the masters, speak with them; they will reply
to you, because they are still living. It is they who will instruct you; I myself
am only their assistant [leur repetiteur-the one who repeats the doctrine].
There is no misgiving in copying the ancients. ... [Their works] become
your own when you know how to use them: Raphael, in imitating endlessly,
was always himself.21
Along with other "modern" artists, Ingres was put at a certain dis-
advantage by the date of his birth (1780). He inherited the teaching
of David, said to have degenerated into dry convention and pedantry,
a failed academicism. At the same time he suffered from the temp-
tation of a Romantic innovation which professed sincerity but which,
according to Ingres' supporters, offered no more than novelty for

novelty's sake. Ingres' appreciative critics noted the difficulty of his
historical moment and his successful extrication from it: the painter
"steered the middle course between the icy idealism of the false
classicists and the brutal realism of the false innovators [the
Romantics].S"22
In general, critics made the following claims in reaching a positive
assessment of Ingres' art: (1) Ingres returned to the source in nature
in order to "particularize" and "individualize" his images; (2) he re-
turned to the source in classical art (the Greeks, Raphael) in order to
repeat a proper formulation; and (3) he understood that the real and
the ideal converge in great art.23 Any stylistic or figurative element
which could not readily be related to the conventions of traditional
art, any detail not to be seen in other paintings save those of the same
master (unusual features of a human figure, noncanonical propor-
tion, unusual color, etc.), signified a "realism"-at least within the con-
text of the medium of painting, for academics patently construed
meaning in terms of a medium. The presence of forms, motifs, pro-
portional or compositional relationships, and so forth, which were
proper to the tradition signified "idealism." The "ideal" and the "real"
coexisted when the particularities characterizing the artist's vision
(and signifying immersion in nature, personal experience, and a
unique point of view) figured in a style which seemed in accord with
artistic principles configured in the works of past masters. The prin-
ciples of ideal representation were not at all mysterious to those ini-
tiated into academic practice; they included such notions as compo-
sitional unity and the hierarchical organization of elements. Like
proper syntax and good diction, they gave to works of visual art an
authoritative tone. In a curious way, Ingres' Raphael and the Fornarina
seems to satisfy the demand for the confluence of the real and the
ideal automatically; for it refers to the details of the everyday life and
visions of its dual subject (the life of Raphael and the life of Ingres-
both painters of the human figure) and patently conceives that subject
only through representations belonging to the academic tradition.
The final conclusion with regard to Raphael and the Fornarina takes
a twofold, complementary form. (1) The resemblance between the
depicted model and the depicted painting of the model can be con-
sidered a factor of Ingres' academicism. He seems to manipulate ob-
jects of the external world within his personalized artistic represen-
tation without doing violence to the world that his viewers and critical
interpreters, familiar with a language of representations, would
imagine to lie before themselves. The academic enlarges the com-
munal property of the "real" by way of making representations in an
unproblematic or "transparent" style. (2) Ingres must be

conscious about the nature of representation and about th
characteristics of artistic styles; he studies the technique
he is by no means a naive artist.
If I were to say the same of Matisse as of Ingres, I w

only at the risk of seeing his art as an attempt at public
can argue that Ingres was not naive (although he may
sented the naive) and feel that he would be pleased that I
this conclusion. Academic theorists such as Charles Blanc
tremere de Quincy appreciated the fact that this artis
conscious maker who set about to create certain effects and succeeded
in achieving his ends. Creation and interpretation follow the same
logic in academic works. Matisse's art, in contrast, seems to suggest
no advance planning. Matisse did not make a point of manipulating
references to history, to the styles of other artists, or to the ironies of
artistic practice. He may have done these things, but he could not
easily admit to this type of reference. He would prefer that his art be
discussed in terms of simple, immediate expression.
In his own theoretical statements, Matisse claimed that his technical
procedure could not be preconceived; it must follow, or even flow
from, or along with, his feeling. For this reason he stated that he
could not imagine having done his early works in any different
manner. He did not wish to imply that these works were technically
perfect, but only that they had succeeded in expressing his immediate
state of being at a given time, and as such could not be tampered
with. Matisse would contend that his art is autobiography: as he lives
out his life, his art seems to evolve, not because it must improve or
progress, but because it must simply change as he himself changes.
Technique cannot be learned in an academy and then applied; it must
develop along with the expression which constitutes the art. Tech-
niques of expression become known only in acts of expression.24
If Matisse depicts a reality, it is not of the same sort as Ingres'. Yet
to consider Matisse's representation as idealization would now be mis-
leading, since I have associated idealization with the academic loss of
innocence, the willful act of interpretation. The categories "real" and
"ideal" do not seem germane to a discussion of Matisse's style, unless
perhaps one views but one side of the double-faced coin of idealism,
the side engraved by the unique style that identifies the artist. Indeed,
the terms ideal and idealize were often used during the later nine-
teenth century to refer primarily to personal stylistic expression. This
usage reflects a shift in the dominant conception of the artistic pro-
cess: external reference yields to internal expression; mediated
making yields to immediate finding. To put it another way-the i

herent intertextuality of artistic representation is suppressed, an
most extreme privileging of self-generated originality is encoura
Matisse's The Painter and His Model (fig. 2) depicts an artist alo
with both his model and her representation. The model and
painting of the model exhibit a remarkable resemblance. They sh
the same style despite the fact that one should be seen as a volume
body and the other as a flat rendering. Any analogy with Ing
Raphael and the Fornarina must end here, however, for one cann
conclude that some sense of reality has been reinforced; the figu
look like paintings but not also like (conventional representations
real things. The model and her representation are faceless abst
tions, as is the depicted painter. Matisse's distinct style marks
painting on the easel, but if the depicted painter is supposed t
Matisse himself, this identification cannot be made-Matisse shoul
have a beard and wear spectacles. In sum, this painting of an arti
in his studio offers very little specific information about appearan
Instead it displays multiple (indexical) references back to the orig
nating artist-not to the generic artist represented in the studio
to Matisse himself, with whom one identifies the idiosyncratic sty
which all the elements of the painting are rendered. The en
painting becomes a (symbolic) reference to the artist's self-express
With some irony, this painting might be called Matisse's self-port
The same would not hold in the case of Ingres' painting (at least
in the same way); for although it exhibits Ingres' style, it both dir
and indirectly portrays Raphael; its origin is patently in Raphael
well as in Ingres. And its scope is broader still-it is part of a
munal academic tradition. Raphael and the Fornarina may represe
Ingres' vision and Raphael's vision, but it also signifies (exter
"reality."
Proceeding along this line of reasoning in reverse, one might refer
to all of Matisse's paintings in their narrowness as self-portraits, traces
of the "self," self-expressions, since all exhibit pronounced stylistic
idiosyncrasy; apparently, preexisting academic principles cannot ac-
count for the moves Matisse's brush will make. One's own sense of
the real seems to diverge from Matisse's personal ideal, with the res
that his vision cannot be regarded as a source of general knowledge
The disquieting alternative is to assume that one's cultural norm re
quires some corrective reorientation. Yet when he paints, just as whe
he theorizes, Matisse is not alone: he can be recognized as a member
of a generation of modernists either by the style of his imagery or
the style of his argument. Is there then some convention in Matiss
self-expression? Is there a specific technique which generates his pro
II ·C~·IIIYr(()sPss3111PUa
:I
e i1 r e
t ..
Fig. 2. Henri Matisse. Le Peintre et son modele. 191

Centre Georges Pompidou. © ARCH. PHOT/VAGA
nounced (and desired) originality? To stat

Could Matisse's manner be taught in a
enough to be imitated, even to the point
To return to the related, more general form of the query: Can

copies be made, either by others or by the artist himself? Perhaps
not, if an ever-present factor of self-expression insures originality and
eliminates any possibility of imitation. But does the act of imitation result
in a copy (perfect or otherwise)? Phrased in this manner, the question
may seem tautological; for a distinction between imitating and
copying is not usually made today.25 This lexical practice is the legacy
of critics of the nineteenth century, who may have been the first to
conflate the two notions habitually. For some theorists of that period,
however, the division was central; and they sought to remove any
potential for confusion. Ingres' admirer Quatrem&re de Quincy of-
fered the necessary bifurcating definition: "To imitate in the fine arts,
is to produce the resemblance of a thing, but in another thing which
becomes the image of it.... [The exact identity of works of mechan-
ical reproduction] is precisely that at which the imitation of the fine
arts ought not to aim." In other words, according to Quatremere,
imitations should aim at being different from, not identical to, their
originals. This distinguishes the imitation from the copy, the artistic
representation from the mechanistic reproduction.26
One question must lead to another: What accounts for such artistic
resemblance with a difference, the difference of "imitation," which
curiously seems not to have been clearly represented in Ingres' and
Matisse's paintings of the act of artistic representation? As I have
indicated, the difference, according to Quatremere and others, de-
rives from either technical transformation or stylistic idiosyncrasy,
from either the generality of convention or the particularity of per-
sonal vision. With regard to the art of Ingres, which seems to be part
of an academic tradition in that it resembles works of other masters,
it can be assumed that technical convention would account for the
major part of any visible difference between painting and model.
Furthermore, to consider a particular case, if Ingres represents Ra-
phael and Raphael's art, his picture must differ from the appearance
of Raphael's style. That style, however, is not only the life model for
Ingres; it presents itself in conventional form and serves also as his
art model, his guide to technical procedure. The difference between
Ingres and Raphael becomes relatively slight because Ingres' model
(Raphael) offers him both the end and the means of his imitation.
In contrast, one sees a great difference between, on the one hand,
Matisse's dual image of a woman and her representation and, on the
other hand, Ingres' normative depiction of a similar dual subject.
Matisse's deviance from the Raphael-Ingres norm indicates a degree
of individualization which signifies in turn that personal vision has
looked beyond "realism" into the "self." As if the realities of personal
self and social world could not coin

of self-expression. This distinction
(Matisse) and conventionalized repre
tremere's opposition of Romantic ar
tremere, the Romantic foolishly re
conveyed by academic principles.
system or body of conventions that
Romantic forges ahead as if withou
treme irregularity remains inimita
for any followers. Quatremere concl
is overly particularized, too closely
vision; it cannot enrich culture. Usin
that one of the forms that Romantic
a mindless copying of the model in
apart from any generalized ideal.27
A large group of artists and theor
the nineteenth-century movements
and impressionism, and even with v
the twentieth century-turn Quatr
are not interested in a representati
real and ideal; their interest lies ins
A master's fixed image will not ser
if regarded as the result of mimesi
itation of an action. Instead, artistic
mological norm. The imitation of th
the means to truth-not what he see
In other words, the mimetic act-
nificant than any given mimetic rep
In order to make this point, som
century tended to give to the term
reserved previously for the term im
value of a naive act of seeing which
aspect of nature. This may be the
the "myth of the innocent eye."28 I
is presumed innocent of tradition,
But an innocent copy does not become
naive representation, antiacademic
technique, can be no more definitiv
ademic rendering. For the Romantic
the copy of nature will be character
personal expressive style of the art
demic imitation and antiacademic co
nineteenth century) can now be sum
between an "imitation" of the model and the real model will be due
primarily to technical convention and secondarily to individual style;
academic works will resemble one another because the controlled or
made element of convention dominates the uncontrolled or found
element of personal style. In contrast, the difference betwee
"copy" of the model and the real model will be due primarily
individual style and only secondarily to technical convention; in fa
technical convention should be suppressed in this "innocent" art
copying. (This distinction between the modes of imitation an
copying holds without the presumption that the real model ever a
pears the same to any two viewers or at any two moments.)
Of course, for those who regard the "innocent eye" as a myt
technical convention cannot be suppressed, as perhaps some "cop
ists" wished it could-but one can remove references to convention'
efficacy. The art of Matisse, as well as that of Manet and Cezan
and many others before them, displays conventional signs that ind
cate a lack of convention. Ultimately, such signs reveal a feign
innocence, a pretense to copy and avoid imitation; they are t
products of a technique to signify originality in the form of extrem
self-expression.
A notion as aberrant as a copying that strays from its model de-
mands the stabilizing orthodoxy of historical documentation. T
sense of "copying" appears in statements concerning the seventeent
century painter Poussin, made by a number of French critics of t
nineteenth and earlier twentieth centuries. These critics wanted to
divorce the French master from any bond of dependence to the art
of Raphael and other Italian classicists. Poussin's own classicism was
to be inherently French, a product of the painter's direct contact with
nature and with those ancient sources which were themselves inti-
mately bound to nature and as if without foreign nationality. A
clouded filters were to be removed from the clear line of his sight
including that interposed by a degenerative academic technique.
When the reevaluation of Poussin went to an extreme, this academi
master became an example of an antiacademic originality rooted
a personal experience of nature. In 1867 the painter and theoris
Thomas Couture wrote: "It is generally believed that [Poussin] inter
prets, creates a style that recalls nature somewhat, but which is ne
ertheless conventional. No, he copies."30 Copying was thus conceive
as a kind of artistic creation involving no interpretation, nothing o
the transformation that a preconceived artistic method would enta
Although a "perfect" copy might represent its original with no tran
formation whatever, Couture and others located the copy's originalit
in the inconstancy of human sensation; hence copying, while repli-
cative, escaped the danger of st

copyist would be that of similar
styles of copy. The copy did not
blance to the model in common
tion that Quatremere had assi
pearance" rather than "reality.
representation to model might b
terms of some repetitive convent
vention would produce a leveling
As if to deny his own activity a
Couture put great emphasis on t
"self," a discovery inherent in th
of representation-no model exi
of seeing; every true vision (and
academic theorists (although the
of vision) established the fiction
dizes in every banal detail the
but undesirable) model; they clai
ence of photography had reali
when Charles Blanc discussed Pou
did), he stressed the painter's wi
nature. The end result of Poussin's art for both Couture and Blanc
may be the same-nature becomes "what the artist wants it to b
But Blanc argued against the passive copying of nature's effects an
advocated instead a preconceived artistic choice: "True, it is the sun
that illuminates the painter's canvas; but it is the painter himself w
illuminates his picture. In representing at will the effects of light a
shadow he has chosen, he makes the light-ray of his intellect fa
there."32 Blanc's artist makes what he wants; Couture's artistfinds it
Critics interpret artists, and artists can return the compliment b

interpreting the critic-as-model. When artist and critic both advocat
copying of the passive sort, the resultant interpretations paradoxica
draw "creation" away from "interpretation" itself-the created im
ages become more expressive than referential. To be specific, in 186
Emile Zola published a laudatory essay on Manet, and in turn th
artist painted the critic's portrait early in 1868 (fig. 3). Subsequently
Zola described the creation of this portrait as an act of copying, an
he repeatedly noted that Manet's style was characterized by a natur
and unreflective idiosyncrasy; the painter did not employ the usua
conventional devices for rendering nature and for organizing picto
rial composition. All of this led not so much to a more objective vi
of nature, one potentially corresponding to that of others,33 but t
Fig. 3. Edouard Manet. Portrait d'Emile Zola. 1868. Louvre, Galerie du Jeu de P
an image of Manet himself, what might be titled, as in the case

Matisse, the artist's self-portrait. The Portrait of Zola, in other wo
becomes Manet's self-expression, his own vision and his own portr
According to Zola, Manet professed a kind of visual innocen
supposedly he admitted to his critic: "I can do nothing without n
ture. I do not know how to invent. As long as I wanted to p
according to the instruction I had received, I produced nothin
merit."34 And, as Zola observed Manet at work on h

stressed the same passive absorption in nature whic
claimed for Poussin: "[Manet] had forgotten me, he no
that I was there, he was copying me (il me copiait) as
copied any human animal whatever, with an attentiven
awareness that I have never seen elsewhere."35 The pai
concentrate on the surface appearance. He is copying a
ditionally, portraits had indeed been called "copies"
associated with a direct or "realistic" representation. Bu
significance to Zola's choice of the term copy in his de
net's copying characterizes his style or technical proced
to his act of vision, not the simple genre of his subject
would today be called the subject matter of this portr
quite complexly presented; Manet depicts Zola surroun
tifiable works of visual art and literature, signs of the m
and the relationship of the two men. There are even
some sources of artistic inspiration, as there are in
and the Fornarina. Zola, however, chose not to discuss s
focused instead on Manet's attempt to remain apart fr
nical tradition; the painter's representation does not b
quence of canonical imitative works as does Ingres' p
phael. The only sources to which Manet can openly
which Zola, speaking for him, admits-are the model
that which cannot be separated from it, the artist's ow
expression of his "self."
Can the "self" be revealed in, or even influence, a co
speak of copying and could reintroduce notions of
translation, and expression and make these all seem
terms. Copying would assure strict adherence to na
eliminate the influence of other artists by obviatin
works of art that might serve the more academic pain
for his own image of reality. Nevertheless, in the "cop
tremere's competing sense of the "imitation") there w
a difference; this difference, this individual identity,
found in the appearance of things but in a man. Zo
artist places himself before nature ... he copies it in in
... he is no more or less realistic in his own eyes; in
mission is to render objects for us as he sees them (te
relying on such detail, creating anew.... A work, for m
Zola's description of artistic activity has two broad imp
the modern artist becomes the absolute origin of his wo
never openly advocated by academicians; had they
would have been undermining their academic funct
their transmission of technical and philosophical principles tran

scending individual artistic expression. Second, as a result of the iden
tification of the quality of the work with the quality of the man, th
modern critic, to an unprecedented degree, must yield normativ
standards of technical evaluation to some vague sense of artistic in-
tegrity or sincerity.37
The academic accepts life in a mediated world; he attains the naive

and the original only by way of acquired technique. Old classic mas-
ters serve as the authority behind new academic works, and conven-
tional technical procedure assures that the presence of this authorit
continues. In the return to original antique sources (accomplished, it
was said, by Raphael, Poussin, and Ingres), one regained the los
originality of a naive vision that saw the real and the ideal as one an
the same. Nineteenth-century academic theorists gave instruction in
how to represent naivete, as if assuming that no artist, as a master o
technical mediation and metaphor, could have naivete.38
Antiacademics were no less conscious of naivete and sincerity a
postures; in moments of candidness, they spoke of these effects as
products of specific technical means. In 1868 Jules Antoine Castag-
nary advised "naturalist" painters (such as Manet) that they migh
manipulate their compositions so long as the representation appeare
in the end to be a simple, direct copy; for anything that seemed an
unmediated copy would seem "sincere."39 The antiacademic art o
self-expression, with its cultivation of naivete or the "innocent eye
sought to project its originality, its independence from the past and
from a culture which offered inadequate behavioral models. The act
of naive vision, the process of knowing one's "self" in one's immediat
response to a surrounding environment, became the exemplary a
of the artist. His created image would not necessarily serve as a mode
for others, as Raphael's had for Ingres, or as Ingres' had for his ow
academic followers; rather, his way of seeing would be emulated. Bu
without reference to a tradition of representations, how could th
painter be recognized as an authority?
To attain the painter's aim of projecting original, independent vi-
sion required a (conventional) technique, a "technique of originality.
Zola once observed that Manet used no "composition" whatever, in-
dicating that no one would discover the expected in this painter
pictorial organization.40 In general, the technique of originalit
showed itself in a manner that approached the normative, but from
the direction of opposition; it was revealed as the antithesis of con-
ventional practice. If the academic appeared willful and deliberat
the antiacademic appeared spontaneous; if the one was orderly an
Fig. 4. Claude Monet. The Beach at Sainte-Adresse. 1867. The Metr

of Art, Bequest of William Church Osborn, 1951.
systematic, the other seemed haphazard; if the one see

the other seemed to find.
The technique of originality can be described with great detail, but
I will confine my remarks to three observations. (1) The systematic
character of academic technique depended on composition, the hi-
erarchical ordering of discernible parts of an image into a unified
whole; the antithesis of this hierarchical unity was uniformity, a same-
ness as opposed to a difference.41 Such uniformity characterizes
paintings such as Monet's Beach at Sainte-Adresse of 1867 (fig. 4),
dating from the earliest years of the impressionist movement, and
Cezanne's Mont Sainte-Victoire of around 1900 (fig. 5), produced to-
ward the end of that movement. These works exhibit an unprece-
dented unity of effect, which approaches a uniformity of color and
illumination. This is perhaps evident only when one understands that
in these paintings color (the quality of hue) performs in the place
normally assigned to chiaroscuro (the quality of light and dark)-and
this color is, so to speak, an inadequate substitute for chiaroscuro; it
cannot create the same illusion.42 Impressionist paintings of this type
seemed to lack the differentiated space (or perspective) traditionally
indicated by a progressive gradation of chiaroscuro values from high
Fig. 5. Paul Cezanne. La Montagne Sainte-Victoire. ca. 1900. The Cleveland Mus
of Art, Bequest of Leonard C. Hanna, Jr.
contrast in the foreground to low contrast in the background. Th

paintings displayed instead an atmospheric brightness that was al
a flatness, an undifferentiated expanse, a surface plane of sight.
was as if an immediate and naive vision had been presented jus
seen, without any compositional (re)structuring. Such immediacy c
veyed a sense of independence, sincerity, and self-expression.
(2) Academic artists followed a hierarchy of technical procedur
which ranged from those involving the most highly intellectuali
and orderly elements to the least orderly; they concerned themsel
first with the general composition, then with chiaroscuro, and las
with color and brushstroke.43 The antiacademic artists seem to have
reversed these priorities and relied primarily on color and brush-
stroke as expressive devices. These elements evoked speed of exe-
cution and, once again, the quality of immediate, naive vision.
(3) Additionally, the technique of originality called upon the artist
to avoid reference to any other artist, even one who seemed to have
developed a technique of originality himself. With the extreme con-
cern for originality, the styles of various authoritative classic masters
were reinterpreted to appear naive rather than learned and self-con-
Fig. 6. Nicolas Poussin. St. John on Patmos. 1645-50. Courtesy of T

of Chicago, A. A. Munger Collection.
scious. So when Cezanne's admirers described him, around 1900, as

the new Poussin, they did not intend to suggest that his work had
been influenced by some study of the style of this master of the
classical tradition. Instead, they saw Cezanne as rediscovering in his
own naive manner universal truths evident also in Poussin's classic
art. Cezanne, too, became a classic, and an original one-he drew h
classicism forth from his "self"; his classicism, according to his ad-
mirers, was a form of self-expression. Somewhat later, when th
British critic Roger Fry noted striking similarities between Cezanne'
style and Poussin's (fig. 6), he added without hesitation that Cezann
must have been led to this manner of representation unknowingly,
even unconsciously.44 Cezanne's critics might be willing to say that h
sought to copy nature, but never that he had imitated another artist
The authority he derived from Poussin did not inhere in the con
ventions of Poussin's art; rather, Cezanne was said to reiterate Pous-
sin's mode of representation-he drew only from a very special kind
of model, an "original" source. In his case the source was not Poussi
or any classical art, but nature itself, experienced directly; indeed, h
source was experience, "sensation."
The various strands of my exposition of the early modernist d

courses of the real and the ideal, the naive and the knowledgeable,
original and the copy, and the found and the made have been int
twined; yet a certain singularity of interpretive direction has be
indicated in the weave: in each case, (I have allowed) the oppo
concepts (to) exhibit a tendency to converge. It is only the collec
effort of the parties to the general discourse (the performing th
rists, critics, and artists) which forces an interpretive wedge betw
these polarities and pushes them back apart. Artistic discourse pr
vents these antithetical couples from reaching any final concept
union, as if in fear of the breed of perfect beings that might re
(perhaps bringing an end to the discourse). Despite the attractive
of perfect synthesis, each pair remains as separable elements avail
to represent the differences by which both artistic meanings and
ical stances become determinable. For example, even though
modern artist's "naivete" is normally quite self-conscious, artistic
course has found it useful (even self-sustaining) to label some art
genuinely naive and others knowledgeable or academic; and this d
tinction continues to generate polemical debate.
A similarity-as opposed to either an extreme opposition or
absolute sameness-is a likeness not strong enough to avoid b
also a kind of difference. When a modern master (Cezanne) is
to resemble a predecessor (Poussin), the perceived relationship
tween the two figures can determine some meaning or artistic "
tent." Deciding whether this similarity constitutes more samene
difference can be quite problematic for those who study (or "app
ciate") modern art. Given my own theoretical construction, I wo
be inclined to argue that Roger Fry created (made) in his interpre
commentary whatever resemblance he discerned in the style
Poussin and Cezanne; but perhaps he merely discovered (found) t
resemblance. Whichever the case may be, as a modern critic Fry
some subsequent explaining to do-he invented a Cezanne
created his Poussinesque compositions "unconsciously."
Just as Fry and other critics of his time were in the habit of n
stylistic similarities, so, on the basis of resemblance, and for the
pose of defining meaning, the modern art historian identifies p
rial and literary sources for the works of art which seem mo
after them. But just as Fry resisted charging his hero Cezanne w
any lack of originality (despite the apparent link between his ar
that of others-a similarity, even a sameness), so the academic
cipline of art history schizophrenically elevates an artist to the st
of master when it discovers in his work some core of innovative or
idiosyncratic originality-a difference. "Sources" or pictorial refer-
ences (likenesses) are sought out to aid in the interpreta

ings, but the ultimate value often lies in those aspects
inal in the most radical sense-not merely rediscov
truths but originating exclusively in the artist, in the
of unique difference. After having pursued all deciphe
the historian delights in a residue of incomprehensibili
remarkable examples of such "critical" interpretatio
jeuner sur l'herbe is said to engage the past in an "unre
yet is praised for being "intrinsically expressive"; a pa
dinsky is regarded favorably as having "density and v
radiant freshness of feeling that impresses us even
uncertain what exactly the artist has expressed."45
Not all terms of modern (or modernist) criticism ha
the tension that arises from continuous attraction and withdrawal:
creativity and originality appear quite habitually and freely united. But
they do not couple in artistic discourse as equals; originality domi-
nates to the detriment of creativity's factor of conscious making. In
other words, ultimate artistic meaning is conceived as original self-
expression, as something found rather than made. In his deceptively
straightforward manner, R. G. Collingwood once wrote that "expres-
sion is an activity of which there can be no technique"-the artist
finds his meaning only in the act of expressing it; it is new to artist
as well as to viewer.46 Under such a condition, critical evaluation
cannot master its own concept of originality; it cannot discriminate.
Any "found" expression is original, even if it has been found many
times before; for a find is not made (or composed) from antecedent
elements; it appears spontaneously, immediately. An emphasis on the
presentation of an originality that is found rather than made can lead
to an innocence of a second order-not the innocence of the eye but
of the artistic act. Lacking technique, the artist becomes a child in
society, naive and untutored in the academy. A knowledgeable maker
must bear responsibility for his creation; but a finder, like a child, is
always innocent.
Yet the child acquires language (an especially important issue for
Collingwood) and becomes an adult member of society. The modern
critical discourse distinguishes between the use of language as dis-
covery of the "self" and the use of language as manipulation of
others: the one is "art" (finding expression); the other, "craft"
(making reference, with rhetoric).47 Common sense suggests the va-
lidity of E. H. Gombrich's view of the limited power of craft or skill:
"Skill consists in the most rapid and subtle interaction between im-
pulse and guidance, but not even the most skillful artist should claim
to be able to plan a single stroke with the pen in all its details."48 Yet
a question arises: Might the most skillful artist, whose craft extends
beyond the reach of all others, appear justified in claiming full c

trol? His claim could be challenged only by those willing to invok
theory sanctioned by an ideology of (found) originality. In such
evaluative face-off, relative mastery would suffice; an artist's sk
need only surpass that of others. Picasso, proud and arrogant, sp
of the artist's need to "know the manner whereby to convince o
of the truthfulness of his lies."49 Despite his personal liberation f
academic technique, Picasso's authority may rest (ironically) in
excellence of his craft, not in his sincerity. I would conclude tha
masterful ability to make distinguishes artistic representation from
authoritative, less convincing configurations. As a result, artistic
tery is not absolute but competitive, and can be challenged m
effectively by the "craftsman" than by the theorist. Of course, mo
artists often challenge themselves; they reject their own prev
styles as if to prove that their originality not only lives but grow
To return finally to the question already asked twice: Can the ar
copy his own art? Is his technical skill sufficient for the repetitio
his own (perfected) performance? The ideology of originality rep
in the negative: it disassociates art and repetition. Certainly, Mat
Monet, Cezanne, and other modern painters of originality w
have bristled at the thought; their living art of self-expression d
manded continual change. But if they had valued the made m
than the found and had divorced the two concepts that married
easily of all-creativity and originality-they might have entertain
the notion of an art in which a success or a perfection once achi
could be attained repeatedly by means of the technique-not
originality-from which it had been generated.
In fact, the great modern artists did repeat their successes. Ceza
serves again as an obvious example: although the inherited cri
tradition values his art for its incompletion, its sense of artistic se
one is told that this painter created many "masterpieces." Per
Cezanne, despite his own disclaimers, was able to produce mul
valid examples of his art simply because he possessed a valid arti
technique-in his case, a "technique of originality." He may in
have struggled to eliminate technical mediation. But if the focus
criticism is shifted away from internal expression toward extern
reference (a reference more symbolic than iconic), the meanin
Cezanne's paintings need not be sought in an unveiling of his hid
"self"; meaning can be seen right on the surface of his canvases.
artist will succeed merely by representing originality.50
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA

AT CHAPEL HILL
NOTES
1 I concentrate on the relation of depicted model to depicted representati

exclusion of related fields of meaning to which attention might be directed:
ample, views within views-the representation of windows, mirrors, painting
forth.
2 Alternatively, if the model were considered first as an object of desire

priation rather than as a thing observed, its specific identity as a woman wo
numerous issues of psychological and sociological import. With regard to Ing
known painting, many of the matters of interest which I neglect have been
on by others (but not to my knowledge discussed exhaustively). See especi
N. Van Liere, "Ingres' 'Raphael and the Fornarina': Reverence and Testimon
56 (Dec. 1981), 108-15.
3 Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art (Indianapolis, 1976), p. 39. See also pp. 31-33.
Cf. E. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion (Princeton, 1969), pp. 87, 296-300, 305, 324, 328.
4 Charles Baudelaire, "Salon de 1859," tcrits sur l'art, ed. Yves Florenne (Paris, 1971),
II, 36-37.
5 Auguste Comte, Discours sur l'ensemble du positivisme (Paris, 1848), p. 276. Transla-
tions are mine unless otherwise indicated.
6 Charles Blanc, Grammaire des arts du dessin (1867; rpt. Paris, 1880), p. 21.
7 As an opponent of Romanticism, Quatremere took delight in Ingres' entry to the
Salon of 1824, Le Voeu de Louis XIII, a painting which paid direct tribute to Raphael's
style (to the point, for some critics, of plagiarism). Ingres' monumental work stood as
an example of the classical manner and implicitly condemned the Romantic desire for
novelty. Quatremere published a biography and critical appraisal of Raphael at the
same moment (Histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de Raphael [Paris, 1824]). From this time
on, Quatremere and Ingres were engaged in mutual admiration. On their relationship,
see Rene Schneider, Quatremere de Quincy et son intervention dans les arts (1788-1830)
(Paris, 1910), pp. 408-17.
8 Antoine Chrysostome Quatremere de Quincy, Essai sur la nature, le but et les moyens
de l'imitation dans les beaux-arts (Paris, 1823), p. 178. Quatremere's discussion of the
active making in invention is prompted by a passage from Plautus. Unlike many of his
Renaissance predecessors, Quatremere considered imitation as an intellectual construc-
tion analogous to invention.
9 Quatremere de Quincy, Essai sur ... l'imitation, pp. 11-14, 23-24, 182, 189-90,
238.
10 For the view that the vision of the great artist would appear most typical or
"normal," see Hippolyte Taine's introduction to the second edition of his Essais de
critique et d'histoire (Paris, 1866). See also Gustave Planche, "L'Art grec et la sculpture
realiste," Revue des deux mondes, 2nd per., 5 (1 Oct. 1856), 533.
11 Blanc, Grammaire, p. 532.
12 On the definition of the "ideal," see Hippolyte Taine, Philosophie de l'art (1865-
69; rpt. Paris, 1921), II, 258; and Richard Shiff, "The End of Impressionism: A Study
in Theories of Artistic Expression," Art Quarterly, NS 1 (Autumn 1978), 365-74. Taine
strove to relate an artist's work to its social and environmental context and stressed
the fact that an artist "n'est pas isole" (Philosophie de l'art, I, 3). In disputing Taine, t
symbolist Albert Aurier chose to call the great modern artists "les isoles," and discuss
Van Gogh as an alienated individual living in a hostile environment: "Les Isole
Vincent Van Gogh" (1890-92), in Oeuvres posthumes (Paris, 1893), pp. 257-63.
13 The several versions of Raphael and the Fornarina provoked relatively little ex
tended commentary from Ingres' early critics and biographers; usually this work w
REPRESEN'TATION, COPYING, AND TECHNIQUE 361
mentioned only briefly, along with other historical genre scenes of the "troubadour"
type. Charles Blanc frankly admitted that Ingres' rendering of this subject did not
appeal to him. He saw it as an image of amorousness rather than of pictorial repre-
sentation; as such, it was disappointingly "cold" and "formal," with the figures ap-
pearing to have been "posed ... to be seen" ("Ingres, sa vie et ses ouvrages," Gazette
des beaux-arts, 23 [1 Sept. 1867], 194). Blanc might have been more comfortable with
his observations had he shifted the painting's field of meaning from emotional inter-
action to pictorial transformation. The two fields, of course, occupy some common
territory.
14 Goodman, pp. 34-39.
15 The image is derived from a work Ingres believed to be a Raphael self-portrait,
now known as Raphael's Portrait of Bindo Altoviti (National Gallery, Washington).
16 Raphael, La Fornarina (Galleria Nazionale, Rome). This painting is sometimes
attributed to Giulio Romano; see Cecil Gould, "Raphael versus Giulio Romano: the
swing back," Burlington Magazine, 124 (Aug. 1982), 484-85. One might imagine a
dispute between Ingres and Hippolyte Taine over the beauty of "La Fornarina," both
the painting and the real woman. Taine chose Raphael's La Fornarina as an example
of derivative lifelike portraiture in order to demonstrate that the Renaissance master,
in greater works, would idealize such banal reality. The portrait, according to Taine,
showed a woman with stooped shoulders, unattractive arms, and a dull expression; if
La Fornarina became the model for Raphael's acknowledged masterpiece, the Galatea,
she was depicted there "entirely transformed" (Philosophie de l'art, I, 43-44).
17 To be more precise, Ingres' painting represents two paintings by Raphael. The
background reveals Raphael's Madonna della Sedia (Palazzo Pitti, Florence), for which,
according to legend, La Fornarina had posed. It is generally regarded as an alternative
source for the appearance of La Fornarina in Ingres' painting.
18 See, e.g., Charles Blanc, "Du Style et de M. Ingres," Gazette des beaux-arts, 14 (1
Jan. 1863), 13; E. Amaury-Duval, L'Atelier d'lngres (1878; rpt. Paris, 1924), p. 189.
19 Ernest Chesneau, Les Chefs d'cole (Paris, 1862), p. 269.
20 Academics commonly argued that the imitation of works of "original" genius
would not inhibit originality in any sense. They stressed the perfection of received
"original" ideas through a technical mastery of representation and discounted inno-
vation as an indication of a willful and insincere individuation. See, e.g., E. J. Delecluze,
"Salon de 1827,"Journal des debats, 2 Jan. 1828, p. 2; E. J. Delecluze, Les Beaux-arts dans
les deux mondes en 1855 (Paris, 1856), pp. 303-5; and Jacques Nicolas Paillot de Mon-
tabert, Traite complet de la peinture (Paris, 1829-51), IV, 272. For David's views, see E. J.
Delecluze, Louis David, son ecole et son temps (1855; rpt. Paris, 1863), pp. 61-62.
21 From notes of ca. 1813-27, rpt. in Henri Delaborde, Ingres, sa vie, ses travaux, sa
doctrine (Paris, 1870), pp. 139-40. See also Delaborde, pp. 116, 146-48; and Ingres
d'apres une correspondance inedite, ed. Boyer d'Agen (Paris, 1909), pp. 91-92.
22 Charles Blanc, "Ingres, sa vie et ses ouvrages," Gazette des beaux-arts, 25 (1 Sept.
1868), 244.
23 See, e.g., Blanc, "Du Style et de M. Ingres," p. 23. Correspondingly, Ingres' de-
tractors argued that he carried either his realism or his idealism to excess, or they
claimed that he failed to integrate the two; see, e.g., Theophile Silvestre, Histoire des
artistes vivants (Paris, 1856), pp. 32-33.
24 See Henri Matisse, "Notes d'un peintre" (1908), in tcrits et propos sur l'art, ed.
Dominique Fourcade (Paris, 1972), pp. 39-53.
25 See, e.g., Goodman, pp. 9-10, 31. Cf. entries for "Copy, To" and "Imitate, To"
in Jules Adeline, The Adeline Art Dictionary, ed. Hugo G. Beigel (1884; rpt. New York,
1966), where the terms are regarded as synonymous.
26 Quatremere de Quincy, Essai sur

related problematics of artistic origin
detail in my essay, "The Original, th
Classic," Yale French Studies, No. 66 (1
27 Antoine Chrysostome Quatremere de
pratiques aux oeuvres de l'imitation propr
sur ... l'imitation, pp. 79-81. Cf. Delecluz
p. 305.
28 At least as it developed in France. In England the notion of the innocent eye can
be associated with John Ruskin; see his Elements of Drawing (London, 1857), pp. 27-
28n.
29 Theophile Thore and Paul Mantz set this issue into clear relief around the middle
of the century. On the one hand, Thore argued that Poussin's French genius had been
corrupted by his dependency upon Italian stylistic conventions. On the other hand,
Mantz insisted that Poussin had avoided the problem of stylistic interpretation by
copying only the ancients, the "origins." Poussin thus absorbed classical style directly,
independent of mediating conventions. See Theophile Thore, "De l'Ecole francaise a
Rome," L'Artiste, 4th ser., 11 (6 Feb. 1848), 216; and Paul Mantz, "Un Nouveau Livre
sur le Poussin," L'Artiste, NS 4 (23 May 1858), 41.
30 Thomas Couture, Methodes et entretiens d'atelier (Paris, 1867), p. 247. Couture con-
trasts Poussin to his follower Le Sueur, who renders the world "as it ought to be and
not as it is" (p. 250).
31 Thomas Couture, Paysage, entretiens d'atelier (Paris, 1869), pp. 51-54.
32 Blanc, Grammaire, pp. 20-21, 546.
33 Nevertheless, those who claimed that common people possessed a vision distorted
by convention also often claimed that the idiosyncratic forms of artistic representation
were closer to nature.
34 Emile Zola, "Mon Salon" (1868), in Mon Salon, Manet, Ecrits sur l'art, ed. Antoinette
Ehrard (Paris, 1970), p. 142.
35 Zola, "Mon Salon," p. 141.
36 Emile Zola, "M. H. Taine, artiste" (1866), in Mes Haines (Paris, 1879), pp. 229,
225.
37 Cf. Richard Shiff, "Miscreation," Studies in Visual Communication, 7 (Spring 1981),
57-71.
38 See, e.g., Jacques Nicolas Paillot de Montabert, Theorie du geste dans l'art de la
peinture (Paris, 1813), pp. 114-28.
39 Jules Antoine Castagnary, "Salon de 1868," in Salons (Paris, 1892), I, 291-92.
40 tmile Zola, "tdouard Manet" (1867), in Mon Salon, Manet, Ecrits sur l'art, p. 102.
41 See, e.g., Blanc, Grammaire, pp. 500, 555. During the nineteenth century the term
composition usually referred to both the arrangement of depicted figures and the or-
ganization of specifically visual elements-linear motifs, areas of light, color, and so
forth.
42 Cf. Cezanne's letter to Pissarro, 2 July 1876, in Paul Cezanne, correspondance, ed.
John Rewald (Paris, 1937), p. 127; and Richard Shiff, "Seeing Cezanne," Critical Inquiry,
4 (Summer 1978), 798-807.
43 See, e.g., Jacques Nicolas Paillot de Montabert, L'Artistaire, livre des principales ini-
tiations aux beaux-arts (Paris, 1855), pp. 119-20.
44 Roger Fry, Cezanne, A Study of His Development (1927; rpt. New York, 1958), pp.
53-54.
45 James Ackerman, "On Judging Art without Absolutes," Critical Inquiry, 5 (Sp
1979), 459 (his emphasis); H. W. Janson, History of Art (1962; rpt. Englewood Cli
N.J., 1977), p. 651.
46 R. G. Collingwood, The Principles of Art (Oxford, 1938), pp.

wood's theory, perhaps the most sophisticated argument for art as e
"Miscreation," pp. 57-59.
47 From the modernist perspective I have been observing, the
language considers a third formulation: language as the manipul
(generic) "Other." Under this condition, does one find oneself o
seems that one finds oneself-or rather, one is found, is a foun
Although I have altered the terms, the question is suggested
Felman, "The Originality of Jacques Lacan," Poetics Today, 2 (1980
concentrates on decentering the concept of the self so that one ca
of one's own mastery of self-conscious discourse. Ironically, her con
the sense given to originality in theories of artistic finding (or sel
inality is what comes as a surprise: a surprise not only to the othe
self" (p. 56). Despite the power that discourse may exercise to f
consciousness, is it not agreed that Lacan's own "mastery" of dis
Freud's, his) was sufficient to have established a psychoanalytic te
academy? The "originality of a return" to "renew contact with . .
perhaps even a "dialogic" originality (Felman's phrases), can cha
Lacan's return to Freud but also Ingres' return to Raphael and t
formulations would serve to define artistic classicism if Freud's, La
ernican revolution (again, Felman's image) were performed, that
of artistic representation itself replaced the great artist as the cen
am not certain that such has not always been the case, but Copern
like that-one cannot always see the difference, especially from i
48 Gombrich, p. 357.
49 Statement to Marius de Zayas, 1923, rpt. in Dore Ashton, Picasso
of Views (New York, 1977), p. 3 (emphasis added).
50 Research for this paper was supported by a grant from the U
Council, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Shiff, Representation, Copying, and The Technique of Originality

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Representation, Copying, and the Technique of Originality

Author(s): Richard Shiff

AT THE PRESENT MOMENT there is much discussion of the

second presentation bearing the full "presence" of the

To the extent that pictures communicate semiotically and can be-

of them. In other words, art historians have simplified

Many critics and theorists of the nineteenth century were no more

materially and intellectually) are necessarily transformative or met

it was both a general cultural ideal reflected through ca

Fig. 1. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Raphael and the Forrnarina. 1814. Courte

Or is the resemblance there because Ingres can paint in one man

Although Ingres' own manner is personalized (and hence,

own style.17 This style is not alien to Ingres; it is familiar to him

or even vertiginous; for the "real" is not only the produ

according to Ingres' supporters, offered no more than novelty for

unproblematic or "transparent" style. (2) Ingres must be

If I were to say the same of Matisse as of Ingres, I w

making yields to immediate finding. To put it another way-the i

Fig. 2. Henri Matisse. Le Peintre et son modele. 191

nounced (and desired) originality? To stat

To return to the related, more general form of the query: Can

self and social world could not coin

cative, escaped the danger of st

Critics interpret artists, and artists can return the compliment b

an image of Manet himself, what might be titled, as in the case

merit."34 And, as Zola observed Manet at work on h

their transmission of technical and philosophical principles tran

The academic accepts life in a mediated world; he attains the naive

Fig. 4. Claude Monet. The Beach at Sainte-Adresse. 1867. The Metr

systematic, the other seemed haphazard; if the one see

contrast in the foreground to low contrast in the background. Th

Fig. 6. Nicolas Poussin. St. John on Patmos. 1645-50. Courtesy of T

scious. So when Cezanne's admirers described him, around 1900, as

The various strands of my exposition of the early modernist d

ences (likenesses) are sought out to aid in the interpreta

beyond the reach of all others, appear justified in claiming full c

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA

1 I concentrate on the relation of depicted model to depicted representati

2 Alternatively, if the model were considered first as an object of desire

26 Quatremere de Quincy, Essai sur

46 R. G. Collingwood, The Principles of Art (Oxford, 1938), pp.

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