BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE

Consult in image mode

Transcribed version of the text

French

     L’art de dessiner proprement les plans, porfils, elevations geometrales, & perspectives published in 1697 at the presses of Christophe Ballard is a reiteration of a practical manual entitled L’art de laver ou nouvelle manière de peindre sur le papier that Gautier had published ten years earlier in Lyon at the presses of Thomas Amaulry. It was published in the form of a dictionary in which “everything is arranged in alphabetical order as books in the Arts should be” (preface). Henri Gautier repeated the technical definitions appearing in his preceding book and added many recommendations concerning the appropriateness of shades of color and good taste in painting. Thus, when he describes how to draw a tree, he speaks of grace, emphasizing “that if one gives no impression of roundness to a tree, there is no grace at all”. Evoking a drawing of frost, he advises drawing it “gently with India ink”. He would also like to have engineers learn to “get the knack of drawing leaves beautifully” which is the art “of drawing the leaves of trees precisely”. Windmill sails must be painted “gently” and he dwells on slight differences which might appear peripheral concerning the rendering of civil and military architectural wash drawings, such as how to put together different shades of the sky: “tranquil sky”, “cloudy sky”, and “night sky”.
Gautier’s book is interesting for more than one reason. Of course it was part of the standardization of graphic codes for engineers and architects, foreshadowing the great best-seller by Nicolas Buchotte, Les règles du dessin et du lavis published in 1722 which would have an unequaled distribution in Europe until the 19^th century. It was also a practical users’ guide for engineers, often posted in far off strongholds, unable to get hold of instruments and colors easily. But, even more, L’art de dessiner proprement les plans, which introduces the alluring virtues of painting, “that old jealous mistress”, according to Gautier (L’art de laver, préface) for the first time in a book for engineers, is exceptional. It expresses the sensitivity of a man who was living in his time and was abreast of the debates at the Royal Academy of Painting concerning the intelligence of colors, the notions of the beautiful and the true in nature, of appropriateness in design and good taste in drawing. In this sense, Gautier’s book is close to the discourse on color by Roger de Piles in the Dissertation sur les ouvrages des plus fameux peintres (1681) which was followed by the Cours de peinture par principe (1707) specifying the tones to use for each drawing. The “école du crayon” was in competition here for the first time with “l’école du pinceau”.
L’art de laver was published in Italian in Lucca at the presses of Giuseppe Rocchi under the title L’arte di acquerellare, opera del signore H*** Gautier di Nismes. This Italian version, containing supplementary side notes and additions which did not appear in the French version, existed in very many Italian collections in the 18^th century.

Émilie d’Orgeix (Université Michel de Montaigne – Bordeaux III) – 2013

Critical bibliography

A. Brunot & R. Coquand, Le Corps des Ponts et Chaussées, coll. “Histoire de l’administration française”, Paris, CNRS Éditions, 1982.

C. Bousquet-Bressolier, “De la ‘peinture géométrale’ à la carte topographique. Évolution de l’héritage classique au cours du XVIII^e siècle”, L’œil du cartographe, Paris, Éditions du Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques, 1995, pp. 93-106.

F. Ellenberger, “À l’aube de la géologie moderne: Henri Gautier (1660-1737)”, Revue d’histoire des sciences, 1980, 33, 3, p. 279.

É. d’Orgeix, “Les techniques de lavis en usage chez les ingénieurs militaires royaux”, Bulletin pour la recherche en Histoire de l’architecture au Canada, juin 1994, pp. 36-42.

É. d’Orgeix, “Éclosion et mise en place d’une littérature spécialisée enseignant la pratique du dessin à l’usage des ingénieurs militaires royaux (XVII^e-XVIII^e siècles)”, Bulletin du Centre d’Etude d’histoire de la Défense, 6, 1997, pp. 59-75.

É. d’Orgeix, “L’art de laver ou nouvelle manière de peindre”, Vauban. Bâtisseur du Roi Soleil, Paris, Somogy éditions d’art/Musée des Plans-Reliefs, 2007, notice n° 55, p. 178.