tienne-Louis Boulle Author(s): Emil Kaufmann Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Sep., 1939), pp.

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ETIENNE-LOUIS BOULLEE
By EMIL KAUFMANN
T *"^HE

historicalimportanceof Claude-Nicolas Ledouxlies in the fact that he intro-

duced into his architectural work a new system. After the foundations of mediaeval architecture had been laid by Anthemios of Tralles,' and those of the Renaissance and Baroque by Brunelleschi, there was inaugurated at the end of the eighteenth century a new architectural system, i.e., an entirely new principle of relationships of the parts to each other and to the whole. The rise of a new system never occurs abruptly; rather, new elements become increasingly frequent among the old until finally the new become dominant. In earlier publications2 I have discussed the appearance of opposing architectural principles at the time of the French Revolution. Of this commingling the work of Ledoux is the most conspicuous example, for it exhibits both the characteristics of the Baroque and those of the nineteenth century. In my studies I have tried to disover the reasons behind the architectural change, as I regard this quest a crucial task of art history. The rise of the new system is also apparent in the work of Etienne-Louis Boullee. In various passages of his preserved treatise on architecture3 he asserts the important, new, nineteenth century principle of the isolation of the parts. I shall, however, not discuss here the new system nor its metaphysics, for the importance of Boullee lies mainly in another direction. I shall concentrate now on the metamorphosis of the forms which was concomitant with the change of architectural system, for this metamorphosis is apparent in the works of all the leading architects of the time. Boullee is significant as marking the first conscious employment of the new forms. Change of form and change of system are intimately correlated. When a new architectural system arises it can abide for a while in the form ts predecessor, but not for long. It tends to seek its own adequate expression, its appropriate form. One of the most interesting things to watch in the development of art is this attempt at self-realization which ends finally in the disovery of new forms for the new system. Thus, the early Middle Ages struggled persistently with the forms of the antique until at last the Gothic offered almost complete freedom from them. The Renaissance utilized at first Gothic elements, producing the hall churcurches of Northern Europe, then gave great attention to ancient elements, but finally in the Baroque all detail becomes subordinate; the great principles of the systemcoordination, intensification, movement, transcendence, anthropomorphism-become dominant and recast the forms in a Baroque sense. Since the history of art has almost entirely neglected Boullee, as until recently it did Ledoux, I should like to preface to consideration of his work the available data regarding his life. He was born in Paris February 12, 1728, the son of an expertjure of the Batiments du Roi.4 His life and activity seem to have been confined to Paris and environs. That he
i.

Cf. Hans Sedlmayr in KunstwissenschaftlicheForsch1933.

ungen,II,

2. Von Ledoux bis Le Corbusier,Vienna, 1933; Die Stadt des Architekten Ledoux, in Kuntswissenschaftliche Forschungen, II, 1933.

3. Contained in the Papiers de E.-L. Boullee, Paris, Bibl. 9153, fols. 92, 97. 4. Unless otherwise indicated my data is drawn from the Memoires de l'Institut National des Sciences et Arts, Year X, Section 4, Vol. III (Notice sur la vie et les travaux d'Etienne-

Nat., fonds frangais, ms.

FIG. i-Paris,

BibliothequeNationale: Newton's Cenotaph,Drawing by Boullee

FIG. 2-Paris,

BibliothequeNationale: Temple de la Terre, Drawings by Lequeu

2I4

THE ART BULLETIN

andfrom a notice in the GazetteNationale ou le was never in Italy we know from Villar and Moniteur Universel, no. 50 (30 pluviose, an. VII). Following his own bent, he first studied painting with Lancret, Collins, and Pierre. His father then persuaded him to take up architecture, in which his teachers are reported to have been Blondel, Boffrand, Lebon, and Lejay. It would be useful to know more about the last named (who can hardly be identical with the architect of that name then active in Berlin) for he is styled the renovator of architecture in the Biography of Dewailly.5 At the early age of eighteen Boullee is reported to have begun at the Ecole des Ponts et Chausses his own career as a teacher (Bibliotheque Nationale, Papiers de Boullee, folios 38-39), which e continued with great enthusiasm. Villar writes of Boullee's effect on students: "II s'attachait a les penetrer de la chaleur qui le transportait lui-meme." In I753 Boullee was intrusted with work at St.-Roch;6 by I759 he is said to have had a certain reputation in Paris.7 In I762 he became a member, second class, of the royal academy of architecture, by which his design for the Hotel des historian the of the Conde, Monnoyes was enthusiastically accepted. In 764, according tof Gustave Magon,8 he was called in by Louis Joseph, Prince de Conde, acting on the recommendation of Soufflot, in connection with the renovation of the Palais Bourbon. In I767 he took part in a competition for the mint.9 His rebuilding of the Hotel Brunoy dates
I772,10 and the remodeling of the H6tel de Beaujon (formerly d'Evreux) I773.11 In 1780

he was promoted to first-class membership in the academy of architecture, and submitted a project for the reconstruction of the Hotel de la Force, as well as a design for the counts of Artois.12 In this year he participated also in the competition for the remodeling of Versailles;13his project is still extant in the Cabinet des Estampes. In I784 he provided the Hotel de la Compagnie des Indes, which later became the exchange, with arcades and corner pavilions.14 In I785 appeared his Memoire sur les moyens de procurer a la Bibliodu Roi les avantagesque ce monumentexige. thelique Before 1787, the publication date of Thiery's Guide, belong the following buildings therein assigned to him: Hotel Alexandre (Colanges), Hotel Demonville, H6tel Thun, and Hotel Tourolle.15 The date I788 can be read on a drawing in the Cabinet des Estampes for the entrance of the royal library. And in I790 a model he had prepared for this library was put on exhibition.'6 On August 5, I793, Boullee, who used to attend the meetings of the academy of architecture with great regularity, was one of the nine academicians present at the final session. A complaint dating from the second year of the Republic and stemming from a group of hostile artists warns against Ledoux and Boullee, particularly against the unbridled contrivances of the latter, who is called "un espece de fou en architecture."17
On February 12,
1795,

we find Boullee a member of the new Institut de France. As works

of unknown dates may be mentioned a project for the Madeleine, and one for the rebuilding of the Chateau de Saint Germain; further, the following works are listed by Michaud (Biographie universelle): Chateau Tasse at Chaville, Chateau Chauvri at Montmorency, Chateau du Pereux at Nogent-sur-Marne. On the seventeenth of pluvoise of the year VII
Louis Boullee, par le citoyen Villar, secretaire), and from the Proces verbaux of the royal academy of architecture (ed. Lemonnier). 5. In the same volume of the Memoires de l'Institut... 6. Dumolin-Outardel, Les eiglisesde France, pp. i6i, 164. i 806. 7. Fuissli, H., Allgemeines Kuiinstlerlexikon, 8. Magon, Gustave, Les arts dans la maison Conde, 1903, p. 124. 9. Bauchal, Ch., Dictionnaire des architectesfrancais,
1887. io. Krafft-Ransonette, Plans des plus bellesmaisons ... i80oi. Ii. Thiery, L.-V., Guide des amateurs . . . a Paris, 1787,

I, p. 82. I2. Fiissli, op. cit. c er itecture, I8I8. I4. Thiery, op. cit., I, pp. 89, 90, I45, 608. i 6. Bibl. Nat., Papiers de Boullee, f. 37. 17. B6noit, F., L'artfranfais sous la Revolution et sous
F'Empire, 1897, p. 252.

ETIENNE-LOUIS BOULLEE

2I5

(February 6, I799) the artist, who had remained unmarried, died at his home in Montmartre, Rue des Fosses, of a painful illness.18 A notice in the Papiers de Boullee, fol. 37, directed by a certain B.19aux auteursdu 7ournal, gives his last words: "Je souffre beaucoup . . . je sens queje ne peux pas revenir, etje vois arriver la mort avec tranquillite'." On the following day he was buried. The funeral oration was pronounced by another member of the Institut, Baudin (des Ardennes).20 Besides these fixed dates of the biography of Boullee, the sources give a clear picture of his personality. From the protocols of the academy we learn that he took an eager interest in its activities, unlike the eccentric Ledoux, who used to keep away. As the member of various committees, we find Boullee continually occupied with the academy's problems, of technique, of internal organization, of public building, and of education. Villar credits him with great conscientiousness in reference to all commissions, and with neither receiving nor giving favors. An item in the GazetteNationale announces that the contract for work at the Palais Bourbon was not awarded to Boullee because he in his extreme conscientiousness declared that he could not fulfil it in less than three months. We will not pause over the various other obituary items that appeared in his praise, but, considering his life and work as a whole, we are inclined to agree with the expressions of self-appraisal in his preserved manuscript on architecture (fols. 47 and 70): "Le vrai bonheur consiste dans l'amour de ses devoirs." "Cet ouvrage a ete commence et acheve sans autre motif que celui de satisfaire au besoin de travail que j'ai contracte toute ma vie." "Domine par un amour excessif de mon art, je m'y suis entierement livre." That the love of his art was actually a passion imperieuse is proven by the drawings we possess from his hand. The obituary in the GazetteNationale mentions as his particular friend Vien, the Nestor of the arts. Another friend, Benard, was given a life interest in his manuscript and drawings, which were bequeathed to the Bibliotheque Nationale.21 As his pupils are named Chalgrin, Brongniart, J. N. L. Durand, Matharin Crucy, Perrard-Montreuil, A. M. Peyre, J. Th. Thibault, L. J. Maulgue, Gisors, Dureme aine, and Girardin.22 Before we occupy ourselves with the works of Boullee, let us give some attention to the studies of form occasioned, as we have said, by the new system. Admittedly, the products of these studies must be looked upon as expressions of evolution; to measure them by the standards of a perfected, stable style or tradition would be to misjudge their position and significance in the history of art. The results of such experiments in form are neither to be judged by any aesthetic canons of mature style, nor to be approached with any expectation of practical utility or even possibility. The quest of new forms can be followed almost step by step in the engraved works of
the Belgian Jean Frangois de Neufforge
(1714-1791).

From 1757 on for about twenty

years his engravings appeared in numerous series, most of which were received by the academy with applause. They treat the most varied architectural themes and are worth more thorough consideration than can be given them here. Characteristic of them is the way in which the elements of Renaissance and Baroque architecture are brought into more and more novel and daring combinations until we finally come to what can be called genuine revolutionary architecture. This type of imaginative and often fantastic mixing of
i8. Funerailles du Citoyen Boullee, an account in the miscellany of the British Museum, 733, d. 3/4. Perhaps this is the report mentioned in the Gazette Nationale which Baudin made to the Institut regarding the funeral. 19. B. identifies himself as the friend and pupil to whom Boullee assigned the usufruct of his works, and is, therefore, Benard, whom Villar names as such. 20. According to the account cited in note 18. 21. See preceding notes. 22. According to the academy protocols, Villar, and Bauchal.

2I6

THE ART BULLETIN

older elements was, of course, not something confined to France alone. It reached its largest audience through the etchings of Gian Battista Piranesi, who was only a few years

younger than Neufforge. As graphic art Piranesi's works occupy a much higher place.
Yet they led to no architectural consequences in Italy, whereas in France the same move-

ment resulted in an entirely new architecture.

Very numerous and characteristic examples of the forced amalgamation of hetero-

of Jean CharlesDalafosse. Many geneouselementsare to be seen in the Nouvelle iconologie

interesting designs of the sort are also among the engravings of Desprez and of Panseron. From Panseron we illustrate (Fig. 5) an early example in the development, one that at first sight does not give the eccentric and bizarre impression that the more advanced designs of the category do. In its general layout Panseron's Rendezvous de Chasse (in the Ouvrage d'architecturedes Sieurs Desprez et Panseron, I78i)23 reveals by the four masses placed in the corners of a square the beginning of the principle of the equivalence of parts. The

Salon a l'Italienne projectingin the center of the square plan is an upright, horizontally
terminated cylinder, which has the effect of a foreign element enclosed by the four fagades. Still more strikingly apparent than in this design is the hybridity of forms in the case of a tomb pyramid by G.-P.-M. Dumont, flanked by four corner columns (Fig. 6).24 Worthy of mention also in this connection is the design by Antoine for the church St.-Nicholas of Chardonnet.25 Over its fagade, with gabled porch, and attic crowned with statues, rises

a slender,lofty pyramidthat has no organicrelationto the main building.

The revolutionary architects of France did not remain long at this primitive stage of combining traditional elements. They set about inventing the new forms for which their

period thirsted. It seems quite natural that it should be one of the younger architects who was particularlyconspicuousin so radical solution of the problem, namely, JeanJacques Lequeu, born at Rouen in 1758. His carefully finished drawings, which he donated to the Bibliotheque Royale and which were done about 1790, are full of the most unusual

and here ideas.26I have illustratedtwo of them in my book Von Ledouxbis Le Corbusier,
offer a Pompe a Feu (Fig. 3), which is very eccentric in form and an eloquent testimony of

the spasmodicdesirefor originality.

Meanwhile the older men among the revolutionary architects discovered that this impetuous invention of new forms was not the right way; Boullee and Ledoux found that a serious, new architecture was not to be attained by the use of the most capricious but by the use of the most natural forms, that the simplest shapes of elementary geometry were

better calculatedto solve the great architecturalproblemsof the future. In the works of Ledoux appear, therefore,along with much that is bizarre,like his Maison du Cerclier,27
many clear, simplified designs. Boullee, too, won through to clarity from the confusion of all vagaries.

Boulleecarriedout to constructionvery few buildings,and these few can hardlybe said to stand out above the average. Villar apologizesfor him, saying that the architect left no monumentalwork worthy of him, but that only lack of opportunitywas at fault. Yet
the obitutary in the GazetteNationale shows us that the artist was nevertheless duly appreciated during his lifetime: "Sans avoir execute aucun monument, il s'etait acquis une grande

the unnamedauthor of the obituary knew in what the real sigcelebrite." Furthermore, nificanceof Boullee consisted: "Ne dans un temps, ou l'architectureetait retombeedans
23. Paris, Bibl. Nat., Cabinet des Estampes, ms. 39. 24. Ibid., ms. 35. 25. Ibid., ms. I88. 26. Ibid., ms. 80. Forschungen,II, 27. Illustrated in Kunstwissenschaftliche pl. xvii.

FIG. 3-Pompe

a Feu, Drawing by Lequeu

FIG. 4-Memorial,

Drawing

by Boulle

e4 fI I

M_

JK^r-;

FIG. 5-Rendezvous de Chasse, Engraving

FIG. 6-Tomb Pyramid, Sketch by Dumont

by Panseron Paris, BibliothequeNationale

FIG. 7-Chapelle des Morts

FIG. 8-Cirque

FIG. 9-City

Gate

Paris, BibliothequeNationale: Drawings, by Boullee

ETIENNE-LOUIS BOULLEE

219

1'enfance, il eut a vaincre le gout regnant, et a purger son art des formes ridicules et tourmentees que l'ignorance avait mises en usage." Consequently, we do not need to detain ourselves long with the few of his buildings that have come down to us. The Hotel Alexandre had a porch with four Ionic columns giving into the vestibule, and a balcony in front of the attic of the fagade. The Hotel Demonville28 was a similar simple building of the style Louis Seize, but with rich interior decoration. Its Salon a la Turque was designed to simulate a pavilion with a view into an oriental garden. Even the H6tel Brunoy,29 though highly praised by contemporaries and represented on the first plate of the engravings of Krafft-Ransonette, had no very individual character. The greatness and uniqueness of Boullee are to be seen rather in the drawings, mostly of large dimensions, that he bequeathed to the Bibliotheque Nationale, where they are now preserved in the Cabinet des Estampes,30 and in the manuscript of his Architecture, for which they were to serve as illustrations, and which he willed to the same library. This is not the place to discuss these drawings in detail. It is important to observe, however, the critical point they represent in the history of architecture, the moment when after many experiments and false starts the new formal aims were consciously and lucidly striven for. Consequently, let us take them as the starting point and then see how Boullee's ideas, shared, of course, by others of his time, found expression in his and his followers' works. We shall discover that an important though hitherto overlooked current in the subsequent classicizing architecture springs from this source; indeed, nineteenth century architecture in general derives from the French of the late eighteenth century. Boullee's manuscript Architectureforms only a part of the "Papiers de Boullee" of the Bibliotheque Nationale. There are one hundred and fifty folios numbered by the notary Doulcet who was in charge of the bequest; a number of them concern the death and estate of Boullee; others are obituaries, or drafts for such; still others miscellaneous notices. On folio 40 begin the first, hastily thrown together notations, on little cards, regarding the layout of the work on architecture. It was evidently his intention at that time to deal in the traditional way with the types of buildings, notably the dwelling house. On folio 46 begins the first systematic draft of the Architecture, as external evidence of which is Boullee's beginning to use foolscap. In addition to the text this draft contains some sketches by way of illustration of the architectural points discussed. The pages are full of cancellations and alterations. With folio 52 there begins a second draft, neatly written and seemingly intended as final. Yet its pages too are written like the foregoing with the left half blank to be used by the architect for corrections. The pages of folios 52-59 are numbered i-i6 but the pages of the following folios which are a continuation down to folio 65 are unnumbered. Folio 67 has the notation that the following manuscript was all written by the deceased. This final version then begins on folio 69 with the title and subtitle: Architecture. Essai sur l'art, and with the quotation: "Ed io anche son Pittore." The text actually begins on folio 70. It is very clearly and neatly written, without the wide margin for corrections, and carefully lined. There are but scant clues for dating the manuscript and the drawings, some of which are signed. On folio 104 Boullee remarks that the sketch for a Palais d'un Souverain was made long before there was any thought of the French Revolution, and adds that the design could be used in some other country or for some other purpose. In connection with
the drawing of a Palais Municipal on folio 109 he notes his age, 64, and thus dates it
28. For the two residences see the dossiers of the Musee Carnavalet, 135 G, and I35 F; both are described by Thiery, op. cit., I, pp. 89-9o.
30. Cabinet des Estampes, mss. 55, 55a, 57.

1792.

29. Thiery, op. cit., I, p. 82.

220

THE ART BULLETIN

On the drawing of the entrance to the royal library (Fig. io) the date 1788 can be read in an inscription that is otherwise, probably intentionally, illegible. The first draft of the Architecturemust date early in the 1790's. On folio 47 is a reference to the tragic events of the time: "attendant le moment fatal qui pouvoit me joindre au sort des malheureuses victimes deja immolees je me suis livree a ce que j'appelle ici mes delassements." Boullee appears, just like Ledoux, to have taken up work on his text in the disturbed days of the Revolution. The second and third drafts, however, are certainly no earlier than the last two years of the architect's life, for on folio 54 he refers to an expedition of Napoleon, which can only be the Egyptian Campaign: "Je prends pour exemple l'expedition de Bonaparte. Ce grand general et les scavans qui l'ont suivi apprendront au monde entier l'art de former un grand etablissement." The Architectureof Boullee is mature in its calm reserve; it is the summation of his experience; it presents what he regarded as the essential and permanently significant in the forceful designs of his best years. With him as with Ledoux the written word is not conceived as program antecedent to work but as confession subsequent. The difference between the writings of the two architects is that Boullee expresses his artistic convictions in a dry, dogmatic idiom, while Ledoux's words are the personal outpouring of his own passionate temperament. Boullee's text begins with a pedantic discussion of a difference of opinion between Perrault and Blondel-whether architecture should be a free creation of the imagination or should derive its fundamental principles from nature. It was inevitable at Boullee's time that he would decide in favor of the closest relation to nature. But we do not need to linger over this somewhat scholastic disquisition. For he soon gets on to the main theme that concerns him. What this is is revealed by the brief chapter headings: "De l'essence des corps-De leurs proprietes-De leur analogie avec notre organisation." The appearance of the architectural masses is the important thing for him, in other words, the architectonic form. How to arrive at this was for him not something to be determined by reflection but directly by intuition. Although his statement that regular forms are most concordant with our human constitution (folio 78) can be regarded as pure theorizing, the immediately following praise of the form of the exact sphere for its magnificent beauty (magnifique beaute) is an evident case of an artist's subjectivity. This expresses itself here just as simply and unequivocally as when Ledoux boasts of the ellipse of his town plan that "la forme est pure."3' Boullee never gets tired of emphasizing the majesty of the sphere, the grace of its outline, the regularity of its gradations from light to dark (folio 79). Accordingly for a theme that interested him particularly, Newton's cenotaph, Boullee chose the sphere as the most appropriate form (Fig. i). The inside was to be completely empty; nothing was to distract the eye; the curvature alone, without beginning, without end, was to dominate. The lighting was to be effected through tiny openings, stars that were to be grouped into constellations. With evident pride Boullee added that this was all his own invention (folios 126-I28). But it must for the present remain an open question whether his cenotaph or the huge sphere of the ceremonial hall of the cemetery of Chaux has priority. Very similar also to Boullee's design is the Temple de la Terre by Lequeu, which I illustrate (Fig. 2). It lacks the grandeur of the cenotaph but cuts a very impressive figure. The lighting is by stars again; the outside of the sphere presents the globe of earth. Boullee was less fond of prisms and cubes than Ledoux. Still it was not with the sphere alone that he tried to satisfy his demand for elementary forms. We find further a low tomb
3I. Ledoux, Architecture,p. 77.

FIG. Io-Library

Facade

FIG. I -Library

Interior

Paris, BibliothequeNationale: Drawings, by Boullee

FIG. I12-Theater Interior; Section

FIG. I3-Theater

Exterior

Paris, BibliothequeNationale: Drawings, by Boullee

ETIENNE-LOUIS BOULLEE

223

pyramid (Fig. 7), and a lofty memorialcomposedof superposedtruncatedcones towering above a podiumof massive masonry (Fig. 4). The austere form of the latter is enlivened only by the flamehoveringat the top. The dominantmotive of the projectfor the reading
room of the national library is the mighty cylinder of the vault (Fig. ii). The design of a theater shows a cylindricalbuildingwith a domical vault (Fig. I3); there are also two

of cenotaphsin the formof truncatedpyramidsamongBoullee'sdrawings. In confirmation what we have said about the aims of Boullee let us cite two passages. One is from the Architecture (folio 78): "Fatigue de l'image muette et sterile des corps irreguliers je suis The folio an accompasse a l'examendes corps regun 33ers." Papiers; panying note attests it is his handwriting,and the hand correspondswith that of the Architecture. Probablyit is the draft for a letter to a publisheror for a prefaceto his book,
and it reads: "Le Citoyen Boullee, professeur d'architecture aux Ecoles Centrales, conduit

par l'amourde son art a passe sa vie entiere a faire des recherchessur ce qui pourroiten acclerer les progres. I a acquispar l'etudede la natureune nouvelletheoriedes corps. .." Elementary geometry as the basis of architecturaldesign was championedclearly by Ledoux,as follows:"Toutesles formesque l'on decritd'unseul trait de compassont avouees par le gout. Le cercle, le carre, voila les lettres alphabetiquesque les auteurs emploient
dans la texture des meilleurs ouvrages."32

It would not be doingjustice to the architectsof the Revolution if one believed that
they were occupied only with experimentation or with doctrines. The task of a Boullee was not merely to search out new forms but also and primarily to discover their artistic

effect. "Je devois faire des recherchessur la theorie des corps, les analyser, cherchera reconnaitre leurs proprietes, leurspuissancesur nos sens .. " (folio 70). The meanswhich he regarded as especially appropriatewere distribution of masses, illumination,monumental dimensions,and emphasison the characterof the building. With these means he thought to attain the goal that he thought thetextbooks neglected, "l'art proprement
dit" (folio 72). He agreed absolutely with Ledoux that the most important thing in architecture was "l'effet des masses" (folio 42). He demands of buildings "que leurs masses aient un mouvement noble, majesteux" (folio 86), just as the master of Dormens writes "le jeu des masses . . . c'est le seul effet que l'on puisse tirer d'un plan qui a pour base la stricte economie."33 But how is movement to be brought into the masses when the buildings no longer have the richness of the Baroque but only the austerity of stereometric forms? Villar tells us the means which Boullee chiefly emphasized: "l'architecture des ombres dont il se declare l'inventeur. II appelle ainsi l'art de disposer les masses des edifices de telle maniere que leurs saillies et le contraste de leurs formes produisent les effets de lumiere les plus propres a charmer la vue." The passage in the Architecturewhere Boullee takes credit for his achievement runs: "Ce genre d'architecture forme par des ombres est une decouverte d'art qui m'appartient. C'est une carriere nouvelle que j'ai ouverte" (folio 87). We can also cite something from Ledoux to the same effect: "Les saillies produisent des ombres piquantes; c'est un moyen de substituer des forces a la faiblesse produite par l'eloignement."34 How Boullee translated theory into practice is illustrated by the drawing of a massive gate of a city (Fig. 9). The shadows cast by the four wall-towers give life and movement to the flat surfaces, which are enframed by right angles. The shadows are what make the deep solemnity of the fortification architecture telling. Boullee regarded such employment of
32. Ibid., p. 135. In a copy of the Prospectus, in the Soane Museum, for his Architecture Ledoux remarks that the circle is suitable "pour les hautes conceptions."

33. Ibid., p. 183. 34. Ibid., loc. cit.

224

THE ART BULLETIN

light and shade as a genuinely architectural device: "L'art de nous emouvoir par les effets de la lumiere appartient a l'architecture" (folio 53). The idea of architecturedes ombres occurred to him during a walk in the moonlight (folio I25). Another appropriate way to give simple geometrical forms impressive effect is through colossal dimensions, which endow them with "un caractere de grandeur et de majeste" (folio 8I). "L'image du grand nous plait, sous tous les rapports, parceque notre ame, avide d'8tendre les jouissances, voudroit embrasser l'univers" (folio 79). Boullee was so thoroughly imbued with this idea that he even carried out his drawings on a huge scale. Yet it was not always necessary that the absolute measurements should be exceptionally large, as they had been for instance in the case of the library reading room, that "Immense Basilique."35 The appearance of great size was enough, "paroitre grand" (folio 90). To give this are used, for example, the passageway of another city gate warlike figures which make the height of the building perceptible.36 Extreme frugality of ornament contributes also to the impression of size. Thus Boullee preferred quite smooth wall surfaces, such as we see on the fagade of the library in the drawing of 1788 (Fig. io), and frequently elsewhere. In this matter he was in complete agreement with Ledoux, who explains: "Tout detail est inutile, je dis plus, nuisible, quand il divise les surfaces par des additions mesquines ou mensongeres," and again: " . . . tout ce qui n'est pas indispensable fatigue les yeux, nuit a la pensee, et n'ajoute rien a l'ensemble."37 The combination of plane surfaces and effective lighting is beautifully illustrated in a design of Lequeu, Entree a la Demeure de Pluton (Fig. I6). But we shall understand this architectural sketch of the Revolution fully only when we have considered the last main point in Boullee's doctrine-character-a requirement that was later to be at the forefront of the program of Romanticism. At first sight it seems in contradiction to the strict doctrine of pure gometric units. But it was just the mixture of diverse currents that gave the architecture of the Revolution its stamp. For the historian of art it is very interesting to see how first one then another of these currents were subsequently to get the upper hand. Boullee insisted that buildings should show character and should impress the onlooker thereby. "J'appelle caractere l'effet qui resulte de cet objet, et cause en nous une impression quelconque" (folio 84). Various passages of Ledoux convey the same: "la decoration d'un edifice doit emaner de l'inspiration du sujet."-"il faut encore que le caractere de l'edifice ne soit point equivoque."-"Si les artistes vouloient suivre le systeme symbolique. . . il n'y auroit pas une pierre qui, dans leurs ouvrages, ne parlat aux yeux des passants."38 Boullee did not stop with merely requiring a city gate to be "l'image de la force" (folio I29). He sets as the goal of architecture the "tableau expressif" (folio io8), and believes that the building should be full of "poesie enchanteresse" (folio 70). Thus, although he elsewhere cavils at their abundance of detail as triviality, he anticipates Romanticism in praising the Gothic artists: "Ils ont introduits la magie de 'art" (folio 93). A good example of his notion of achieving "poesie de l'architecture" is his program for funerary architecture: heavy proportions, buildings half sunk in the ground-"architecture ensevelie" (folio 123),
"proportions basses et affaissees et enfouies dans la terre .
.

. le noire tableau de l'architec-

ture des ombres dessine par l'effet d'ombres encore plus noires" (folio 87). Here again the agreement between Boullee and Ledoux is evident, for Ledoux' spherical hall for the cemetery of Chaux was half above and half under ground.39 Lequeu conceived as wholly hewn out of the rock a decastyle building, a "monument des braves citoyens morts
35. From the Memoire of I785. 36. Illustrated in my book Von Ledoux bis Le Corbusier, p. 28. 37. Ledoux, Architecture,pp. 9I, 169. 38. Ibid., pp. I69, ii8, 115. 39. Illustrated in KunstwissenschaftlicheForschungen,II, pl. xx.

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FIG. 14-Group of Buildings, Engraving by Gondoin

FIG. I <-Sainte

Cite, Drawing by Lequeu

FIG. I6-Entree a la Demeure de Pluton,

FIG. I7-Temple au Dieu Inconnu,

Drawing by Lequeu Paris, BibliothequeNationale

Drawing by Lequeu

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FIG. I9-Bolognese Palace, E

FIG. I8-Roman

Campagna Building,

Engraving by Seheult

FIG. 20-Tomb Monument, Drawing by Lequeu

FIG. 2I--Abattoir, D Belanger

Paris, BibliothequeNationale

ETIENNE-LOUIS BOULLEE

227

pour la patrie" dedicated "au Dieu Inconu." A gabled portico of ten columnsis placed
before the mouth of a cave housing a sphere from which an eternal flame rises (Fig. 17).

To illustrate the artistic programof the time still better, we have furtherthe group of the Ecole de Chirurgiewith adjacent church, and prisonopposite, by Gondoin (Fig. I4); a portionof the text to accompanythe publicationof his buildings,in I780, may be quoted:
"Par un effet tout oppose dans le projet des Prisons, en ne laissant que tres peu d'ouvertures,

j'ai voulu donnerun caracterede solidite, et annoncerla surete publique. La fagade de

l'eglise devant produire un effet principal sur la place, je l'ai decoree avec l'ordre que j'ai juge le plus majestueux, et j'ai place le frontispice du portique sur un fond intermediaire, pour adoucir le passage de la rudesse des prisons a la richesse indispensable d'un temple." This passage is noteworthy because it sets forth clearly the new fundamental principle of

isolating units, the pavilion system, as I have suggested it be called. Furthermorein groupingthe buildingsthe individual characterof each was to be strictly preserved. In
contrast to Baroque architecture, no part was to sacrifice its character for the sake of the

whole.
Boullee saw the possibility of achieving the "tableau expressif" in the highest degree when he could include surrounding nature in his composition. Thus he set about designing a building for the celebration of Corpus Christi on the heights of Mont Valerien or Montmartre, high above the city. Scented gardens were to enframe it; tree-bordered roads were

to lead off into fruitfulfields (folio 82). In a similarway he conceiveda Monumentde la

Reconnoissance Publique set in beautiful natural surroundings which would enhance the architecture: "Oui, je ne saurois trop le repeter, l'architecte doit etre le metteur en oeuvre

de la nature" (folio 84). Newton's cenotaphwas to be set in the midst of flowerbeds and
cypresses (folio 126). The program of co-operating with nature is known to us from Ledoux'

project of the Oikema.40As two examplesof this programI illustrate a Sainte Cite (Fig.
iS)

and a Sepulture des plus Illustres et des plus Savants Hommes pres Voorhout (Fig.

20),

both by Lequeu. The Sainte Cite is thoughtof as on an open height, with an aqueduct

bringing it the water of purest springs, and with terraces, up which climbs the Chenim

Republicain,plantedwith evergreentrees and aromaticshrubs. The characterof the towering, stepped Sepulturedes plus Illustreset des plus SavantsHommes(whichseems to have
remained only a sketch) is determined by the cypresses or poplars Lequeu proposed.

Much neareractuality than these fantasies are some of Boullee'smonumentalprojects

that really did point to the future. One such is the massive Cirque (Fig. 8), another the sketch for the interior of a theater (Fig. 12). Since Boullee does mention the Roman i i Coliseum (folio i), we may assume that he derived the idea of this mighty pile from Italy. A much younger architect, F.-L. Seheult, devoted particular attention to the arched and
heavy architecture of Italy on a study tour between 1791 and 1793 (Figs. i8 and 19). His

engraved work did not appear, however, until 1821. In the Grands Prix of the early nineteenth century the arch of massive freestone plays an increasing role; outstanding examples are to be found in the drawings of F.-J. Belanger (Fig. 2I)41 and J. N.-L. Durand, and in the engravings of Karl Friedrich Schaffer.42 This last type has not received the attention it deserves in the study of classical revival in Europe. We can merely instance here such excellent buildings as the Wiirzburg reformatory of Peter Speeth and the Weimar hippodrome of Gentz, but a fuller discussion would be out of place. For the present let us be content with this supplement to earlier studies on the architecture of the French Revolution and with having shown what fruitful germs lay in it.
40.

Illustrated, ibid., pl. xix. 41. Cabinet des Estampes, ms. 58 b.

42.

Leipzig, 1802.