Depiction of Home Interiors in Illustrations of Molière’s Works in French 18th-Century Editions

Abstract

This article examines the problem of depicting a home interior as a setting with reference to the French literary illustration of the eighteenth century. Referring to the interior scenes from two different series of illustrations to the same literary texts, the author considers the role of the texts in the formation of visual images of a home interior; the methods of depicting a home interior by different artists; the visual prototypes of the image of the interior. The main sources of the research are illustrations of two French editions of Molière’s Works: a series of engravings based on drawings by F. Boucher (1734) and ones by J.-M. Moreau (Moreau le Jeune) (1773). The texts of some comedies are compared with illustrations from two different editions. The comparison demonstrates that the interior, schematically described by Molière, was arbitrarily depicted by the artists as the apartments of a noble house. They used typology, dйcor, and furnishings that are relevant to their time. Boucher chose the Rococo style (1730s), while Moreau preferred the Transition style (1760–1770s). The comparison of the illustrations with each other proves that the artists copied the details of similar illustrations by P. Brissart (1682). Also, Moreau used Boucher’s compositions as prototypes. The comparison of the illustrations with architectural engravings proves that the interior projects were also prototypes for the artists. As a result, the author notes the patterns of depicting a home interior as a setting: the image of visual interiors did not literally depend on the text; the interior model was determined by the illustrator’s creative credo and followed the fashionable design style; the artists created the image of the interior using analogous illustrations and projects of architects and decorators.