Quatremre de Quincy's Moral Considerations on the Place and Purpose of Works of Art: Introduction and Translation

(Hardback)

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Antoine Chrysostome Quatremre de Quincy (1755-1849) was the most important Neoclassical

art historian in the generation after Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768). It is difficult

now to appreciate his importance, due in part to the lack of translations of his 21 published

books: three were rendered into English in the 19th century, and one in the 21st. The Moral

Considerations has long been considered the most shattering polemic against public museums

ever written. But I will show that Quatremres polemic was aimed, not against museums per se,

but rather against the imperialist and secularist curatorial purposes of Parisian museums in the

age of Revolution. His Neoclassical commitments maintained the centrality of religion, and of

incarnation, to any proper understanding of the place and purpose of the fine arts.

Reviews

In 1815, while Napoleon was bringing art to Paris for the people to enjoy, Quatremre de Quincy completed a biting critique of the removal of ancient art to modern museums. To "gather together the disparate fragments, methodically classify the debris, and render out of such a reunion a practical course in modern chronology: this is for a living nation to become a dead nation; this is for its living members to preside at its funeral; this is to kill Art to make history... or rather, not so much history, as an epitaph." Quatremre argued that "the true love of antiquity requires you to separate as little as possible these venerable fragments from their places, their circumstances, and all the accessory elements with which they stand in relation." The beauty of ancient art "finds its . . . realm in the faith of the viewer." Modern critical reason is no substitute for removing a sculpture from a temple, because displaced objects lose "their real value by losing their proper use!"

In only the second English translation since 1821, Ruprecht sets the scene politically and philosophically, making abundantly clear the relevance of this polemic to contemporary cultural debate. His excellent commentary illuminates the great divide between Quatremre's insistence on classical perfection and his rejection of revolutionary secularism.

--Carol C. Mattusch, George Mason University

Ruprecht makes a significant contribution to Comparative Religion and Museum studies with his translation of Quatremre's Moral Considerations. This translation with an introduction addresses the complex relationship between religion, secularism, art, and the imperial politics of post-revolutionary France. Ruprecht's timely work encourages reflection on the need for art as a public good and source of inspiration, which is in tension with the "culture of display" that characterized the early history of the modern museum and, in a related way, haunts our contemporary context.

--Shannon Dunn, Gonzaga University

Whatever its value to other disciplines, this essay is particularly rewarding for philosophical aesthetics, and deserves to be on all our reading lists; that it has not yet featured there prominently is a tragic accident of history.

-- "The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism"

Author Bio

Louis A. Ruprecht Jr. is the William M. Suttles Professor of Religious Studies in the

Department of Anthropology at Georgia State University.