DOI Artikel:
Jaźwierski, Jacek: "The Judgement of Hercules": Shaftesbury at the Crossroads of Art Theory
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.56525#0032
Rocznik Historii Sztuki, tom XLV
PAN, 2020
DOI 10.24425/rhs.2020.136891
JACEK JAŻWIERSKI
JAN KOCHANOWSKI UNIVERSITY
“THE JUDGMENT OF HERCULES”.
SHAFTESBURY AT THE CROSSROADS OF ART THEORY
When in 1761 Sir Joshua Reynolds painted his Portrait of David Garrick between Tragedy and Com-
edy (1760-1761, Waddesdon Manor, Aylesbury) he commented - with irony - on the supposed hesitation of
his friend and famous actor whom he depicted at the moment of making decision in favour of the frivolous
personification of Comedy while seemingly saying to her astonished and disappointed counterpart laughing-
ly: “Sorry, Madame, I just cannot resist.” Reynolds’ painting was a travesty of the story of Hercules at the
crossroads between Virtue and Pleasure, or the choice of Hercules, known from Xenophon’s Memorabilia1
and explored in a moralizing manner by painters such as Albrecht Dürer, Annibale Carracci, Nicolas Poussin,
Peter Paul Rubens and others. But Reynolds’ lighthearted appropriation revealed also his own, more serious
artistic dilemma between two rhetorical aims of his art: pleasure and moral instruction. Tragedy was painted
in the idealistic style of the Carraccis while Comedy in the lighter, ornamental and more pleasurable style of
Correggio. As a portrait painter Reynolds was bound to ornamental and naturalistic mode of painting with
the resemblance to a model at its core but always strived for elevating this style by introducing elements of
narrative derived from history painting. Portrait of Garrick is one of the best examples of these efforts.
Half a century earlier, Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, used the story of Hercules
at a crossroads to pursue his views on painting. Shaftesbury spent last one and a half years of his life in Naples
seeking in vain to sustain declining health. There he wrote in French an art-theoretical treatise titled A Notion of
the Historical Draught or Tablature of the Judgment ofHercules2 in which he explained the principles of paint-
ing and methods of executing an exemplary historical piece on the subject of Hercules which he subsequently
commissioned from Neapolitan painter, Paolo de’ Matteis.3 The choice of the subject was deliberate. By putting
in the centre of the picture the moral choice between virtuous and pleasurable way of living, Shaftesbury was
1 Xenophon, Memorabilia (2.1.21-34), trans. E.C. Marchant, Cambridge, Mass.-London 1997, pp. 95-103.
2 The treatise was a part of larger art-theoretical project which encompassed also three other texts: A Letter Concerning Design,
The Picture of Cebes and Plastics, or The Original Progress and Power of Designatory Art. They were intended to be published as a single
book tilted Second Characters - an art-theoretical sequel to his collection of essays in moral philosophy Characteristics of Men, Manners,
Opinions, Times, London 1711. Only Hercules was published in Shaftesbury’s lifetime, first in French as Le jugement d'Hercule, “Journal
des Sęavans”, November 1712, then translated into English as A Notion of the Historical Draught or Tablature of the Judgment of Hercules,
According to Prodicus, Lib. II. Xen. de Mem. Soc., 1713 [all subsequent references will be to this edition of Shaftesbury’s treatise quoted as
Judgment of Hercules], A Letter was published in the fifth edition of Characteristics as A Letter Concerning the Art, or Science of Design,
Written from Italy, On the occasion of the Judgment of Hercules, to My Lord ****, in Characteristics, London 1732, Vol. 3, pp. 393-410. All
foui' essays were eventually published two hundreds years after Shaftesbury’s death under original title Second Characters or The Language
of Forms, ed. B. Rand, Cambridge 1914 [subsequently quoted as Second Characters],
3 On the Hercules project see M. Kirves, Das Urteil des Herkules - Shaftesburys gemalte Kunsttheorie, “Aufklärung”, 22, 2010,
pp. 173-200.
PAN, 2020
DOI 10.24425/rhs.2020.136891
JACEK JAŻWIERSKI
JAN KOCHANOWSKI UNIVERSITY
“THE JUDGMENT OF HERCULES”.
SHAFTESBURY AT THE CROSSROADS OF ART THEORY
When in 1761 Sir Joshua Reynolds painted his Portrait of David Garrick between Tragedy and Com-
edy (1760-1761, Waddesdon Manor, Aylesbury) he commented - with irony - on the supposed hesitation of
his friend and famous actor whom he depicted at the moment of making decision in favour of the frivolous
personification of Comedy while seemingly saying to her astonished and disappointed counterpart laughing-
ly: “Sorry, Madame, I just cannot resist.” Reynolds’ painting was a travesty of the story of Hercules at the
crossroads between Virtue and Pleasure, or the choice of Hercules, known from Xenophon’s Memorabilia1
and explored in a moralizing manner by painters such as Albrecht Dürer, Annibale Carracci, Nicolas Poussin,
Peter Paul Rubens and others. But Reynolds’ lighthearted appropriation revealed also his own, more serious
artistic dilemma between two rhetorical aims of his art: pleasure and moral instruction. Tragedy was painted
in the idealistic style of the Carraccis while Comedy in the lighter, ornamental and more pleasurable style of
Correggio. As a portrait painter Reynolds was bound to ornamental and naturalistic mode of painting with
the resemblance to a model at its core but always strived for elevating this style by introducing elements of
narrative derived from history painting. Portrait of Garrick is one of the best examples of these efforts.
Half a century earlier, Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, used the story of Hercules
at a crossroads to pursue his views on painting. Shaftesbury spent last one and a half years of his life in Naples
seeking in vain to sustain declining health. There he wrote in French an art-theoretical treatise titled A Notion of
the Historical Draught or Tablature of the Judgment ofHercules2 in which he explained the principles of paint-
ing and methods of executing an exemplary historical piece on the subject of Hercules which he subsequently
commissioned from Neapolitan painter, Paolo de’ Matteis.3 The choice of the subject was deliberate. By putting
in the centre of the picture the moral choice between virtuous and pleasurable way of living, Shaftesbury was
1 Xenophon, Memorabilia (2.1.21-34), trans. E.C. Marchant, Cambridge, Mass.-London 1997, pp. 95-103.
2 The treatise was a part of larger art-theoretical project which encompassed also three other texts: A Letter Concerning Design,
The Picture of Cebes and Plastics, or The Original Progress and Power of Designatory Art. They were intended to be published as a single
book tilted Second Characters - an art-theoretical sequel to his collection of essays in moral philosophy Characteristics of Men, Manners,
Opinions, Times, London 1711. Only Hercules was published in Shaftesbury’s lifetime, first in French as Le jugement d'Hercule, “Journal
des Sęavans”, November 1712, then translated into English as A Notion of the Historical Draught or Tablature of the Judgment of Hercules,
According to Prodicus, Lib. II. Xen. de Mem. Soc., 1713 [all subsequent references will be to this edition of Shaftesbury’s treatise quoted as
Judgment of Hercules], A Letter was published in the fifth edition of Characteristics as A Letter Concerning the Art, or Science of Design,
Written from Italy, On the occasion of the Judgment of Hercules, to My Lord ****, in Characteristics, London 1732, Vol. 3, pp. 393-410. All
foui' essays were eventually published two hundreds years after Shaftesbury’s death under original title Second Characters or The Language
of Forms, ed. B. Rand, Cambridge 1914 [subsequently quoted as Second Characters],
3 On the Hercules project see M. Kirves, Das Urteil des Herkules - Shaftesburys gemalte Kunsttheorie, “Aufklärung”, 22, 2010,
pp. 173-200.