Diderot’s synaesthesias: the omnipresence of the hearing in Diderot’s pictorial criticism

Abstract

To respond to an order from his friend Grimm who publishes the Correspondance littéraire, Diderot writes, between 1759 and 1781, nine accounts of the painting and sculpture exhibitions taking place at the Louvre. In his art critic, Diderot often uses the vocabulary of music and noise. Sometimes he evokes the hubbub of colors, sometimes he evokes their harmony. Then, he questions the definition of painting as “silent poetry”. The use of this vocabulary is not only metaphorical. Diderot’s sensualist aesthetics and philosophy encourage him to use the vocabulary of the auditory to establish correspondences between the visual and auditory sensations. So, he developes synaesthesias that announce those of Baudelaire.