Du Salon à la cuisine : l’insolite discours culinaire de Diderot dans sa critique d'art
From the Salon to the kitchen: the unusual culinary discourse of Diderot in his art criticism

Summary/Abstract: The painting is an art of color made for the pleasure of the eyes. Nevertheless, in his essays on the art, Diderot uses the vocabulary of the food and sometimes associates the painting with the pleasure of eating. We suggest to study the role of this culinary speech which allows Diderot to formulate some aesthetic judgments. Whenhe uses this speech to describe Chardin's style of life, the culinary metaphors have a laudatory function: they underline the truth of Chardin's paintings. But the culinary metaphors have a pejorative function when Diderot uses them to describe paintings of other painters : He blames then defects the composition or the color.

• Details
• Contents