Figure 3.11 Sir Joshua Reynolds: Portrait of Omai, oil on canvas, 236 × 145.5 cm, c. 1776. Private
collection.
Source: Courtesy of Sotheby’s Picture Library.Representations of South Seas life combined an Enlightenment desire for new knowledge with
transgressive aspects of a European fascination with “nonwestern” cultures. Diderot’s Supplement to
Bougainville’s “Voyage” (Supplément au “Voyage” de Bougainville) was first published in 1772, in
Friedrich Melchior Baron von Grimm’s (1723–1807) Correspondance Littéraire (Literary
Correspondence, 1753–1790), in response to the 1771 Voyage autour du monde (Journey around the
world) by the explorer LouisAntoine de Bougainville (1729–1811), who had “claimed” Tahiti and other
Pacific islands for France. As with the visual sources discussed above, Diderot’s text demonstrates
conflicting aspects of western perceptions of “other” cultures. The author marvels at the new knowledge
gained of local customs while delighting in positive references to the sexual permissiveness of native
peoples, including the offering of local girls to Bougainville’s crew, which challenged a conventional
Catholic and Parisian bourgeois morality. Less commonly, Diderot also offers, through the fictional
farewell speech of a wise native old man, a critique directed at Bougainville of the corrupting influence,
both morally and in terms of physical disease, of European powers. Such reservations were relatively
rare at the time.
The exoticization or idealization of landscapes and peoples was “antimodern” in the sense that, like the
picturesque, it froze visual representations within a past golden age inspired by the bucolic tradition of
antiquity. Deployed in hierarchic cultural relationships and for the benefit of an imperial public, it
hindered the kind of liberal values and cultural equality essential to presentday notions of modernity. To
the eighteenthcentury public it served as a vehicle for familiarization with dramatically new lands,
peoples and customs, but this manifestation of a forwardlooking quest for new knowledge was heavily
mediated by the discourses of empire and fashion.
Questions of Modernity
The term “modernity” is often applied to eighteenthcentury art because this is the period that witnessed
the introduction of a thriving market for art, both within and across nations, that was for the first time able
to challenge the previously overriding authority of governments and institutions in forming taste and
artistic practice. In previous eras political and social rituals and celebrations and the patronage of
dominant elites had provided the greatest opportunities to view art. Now changes in the social order,
created by a new emphasis on commerce and consumerism, as well as a new discursive formation, a
“public” for art, brought a much wider section of society into a closer acquaintance with the work of
artists and blurred some of the older hierarchies of rank and taste, especially between the highest and
middling orders of society.
This public began to refine their aesthetic judgments and selfconsciously cultivated the attribute of good
taste. There were more opportunities than ever before to view art, both in formal academy settings and in
more popular venues. While many private collections remained dominated by an established discourse of
“the old masterpiece” (Link, 2013, 115), “modern” (in the sense of contemporary) art became more
widely valued and the latest French tastes in particular created excitement throughout continental Europe.
An educated public, empowered by the critical spirit at the heart of the Enlightenment, was able to
challenge some of the dominant structures of traditional thought, particularly the hierarchy of genres,
which began to dissolve under the pressure of commercial demand and the views of artists and critics.