Resemblance as a Passing Quality: Liotard, La Tour, and the Question of Le Faire in Eighteenth-Century Portraiture

Abstract

Abstract According to Diderot, ressemblance was a central quality in eighteenth-century portraiture – and yet it was ultimately less important than the particular manner of execution, le faire. Bold brushstrokes, art critics agreed in Paris around 1750, not only enliven the subject, but also testify to the artistic enthousiasme, the genius of a painter. While Maurice-Quentin de La Tour perfectly served this ideal with his bravura pastel portraits, his greatest rival at the time, Jean-Étienne Liotard, decidedly turned against this ideal. Concentrating on Liotard’s programmatic painting The Breakfast (exhibited in the Académie de Saint-Luc’s Salon of 1752), this article compares the different pictorial concepts of Liotard and La Tour, illuminates the contemporary discussion on execution, and ultimately asks about the strategies Liotard devised in order not to be overlooked as the author of his paintings despite his smooth finish.