La capilla de los Huérfanos de París de Germain Boffrand (1746-1750) y la resonancia de la obra de arte pseudo-escénica

Abstract

In the history of art, the illusory play that seeks to integrate and fuse different components of construction and representation is usually associated with the devices of the Baroque ecclesiastical interior, while the redefinition of the relationship between architecture and image as a result of a virtuoso display of framing and ornamental transitions coincides in various parts of Europe, albeit in different styles, in the early and mid-eighteenth century. The now vanished orphans’ chapel designed by the important architect Germain Boffrand (1667-1754) offers an example of a singular manifestation of such a taste for pseudo-scenic ecclesiastical interiors. This article will observe that the chapel lends itself to a contextualisation that depends on a series of immersive spaces. It springs from an interplay between ways of understanding architecture, of practising spectacle and of conceptualising emotion in the face of the natural world. The main objective of this contribution will be to follow these paths that suggest the centrality of the spectator, as well as a moment of innovation and dynamisation of spectacular technology.