Metodo

International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Book | Chapter

195063

Musing, painting, and writing

walking as an art in Diderot's promenade vernet (salon de 1767)

Juliette Fabre

pp. 15-28

Abstract

This chapter seeks to reconsider the promenade motif in a well-known section of the Salon de 1767 by Diderot, dedicated to the landscape painter Horace Vernet. Indeed, the narrative of a walk corresponds here to the depiction of Vernet's paintings and constitutes a surprising "art of walking," where the limits between nature and art, reality and fiction vanish. This chapter questions the links between art and walking in literature and tries to underline the leading role of the promenade motif, understood not only as a concrete activity but also as a heuristic mode of writing, used to formulate and weave together the philosophical and aesthetic ideas of Diderot.

Publication details

Published in:

Benesch Klaus, Specq François (2016) Walking and the aesthetics of modernity: pedestrian mobility in literature and the arts. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

Pages: 15-28

DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-60364-7_2

Full citation:

Fabre Juliette (2016) „Musing, painting, and writing: walking as an art in Diderot's promenade vernet (salon de 1767)“, In: K. Benesch & F. Specq (eds.), Walking and the aesthetics of modernity, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 15–28.