A sound and thorough Sense of Beauty, Greatness, and Order in Nature, in Life, or in the fine Arts, will
... be best form’d, by such a Course of Instruction and Education, as exercise the Mind in passing from
Nature to Imitations, and reciprocally from Imitations to Nature; and in observing that the Beauty and
Perfection of Arts, of Life, and of Nature, is the same.
(cited in Solkin, 1993, 220)A concern with “Nature” underlay widespread aversion to affectation of all kinds (Porter, 2000, 295).
The advances of civilization should not develop at the expense of the natural world or of reasoned,
moderate behavior. Art should improve on, rather than deny or destroy, natural forms (Michel, 2007, 283–
284). Truthfulness of the affections should predominate over more superficial forms of gallantry, artifice
or affectation, as demonstrated by a developing preference for the conventions of comic or “bourgeois”
forms of theater over highblown serious opera or stage tragedies (Wrigley, 1993, 255; Pointon, 2001,
123).
The question of nudity in art was a testing ground for such values – a respect for the aesthetic attributes of
antique nudes or for the “natural” body on which these were based often being weighed against the need
for the decency provided by clothing; for example, in the “high style” of art where classical drapery was
often used. David’s history paintings and Canova’s nude sculptures provoked such debates in the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Contemporary fashions in dress also fueled anxieties. Clothing
in the form of extreme or unnatural fashions might distort the body and undermine any suggestion of moral
innocence. Those who saw art as a source of moral probity generally disapproved of the overtly erotic
(Ledbury, 2007, 201). It has been pointed out, however, that in the eighteenth century the term “erotic”
itself signified an association with the affairs of love and the heart; the terms grivois (“saucy”) and
“obscene” being associated more closely with indecency (Michel, 2007, 278). The traditional mythology
of antique art could blur the distinction between acceptable and unacceptable nudity through its
representations of divine beauty, but the issue was of concern to many critics aware of the potential
invasion of moral subjects by distracting sensual detail. Many artists based in Rome painted bacchanalian
subjects or motifs: these were popular with Grand Tourists as representations of a culturally endorsed
sexuality. Some connoisseurs, especially those associated with the Society of Dilettanti (see Chapter 1),
including the connoisseurs Richard Payne Knight (1750–1824), William Hamilton, Charles Townley and
PierreFrançois Hugues d’Hancarville (1719–1805), reveled in the more licentious aspects of antique
art representing fertility rites and primitive religions such as the cult of Priapus (Brewer, 1997, 270–276;
Craske, 1997, 241–242; Porter, 2000, 273–274).
While such developments resonated with the more libertarian ideals fostered by Enlightenment thinkers,
there was in the 1780s and 1790s a more conservative reaction in social and artistic institutions to such
“licence” (Crow, 1985, 105–109). There was concern in the 1780s in France about the fashion for
licentious prints (Smentek, 2007, 229). We have already seen in Chapters 2 and 3 how the French state
sought to commission history paintings of a more edifying nature. Commentators in Britain and members
of the Royal Academy also objected to the “perverted” values of licentious taste. In 1781, the Academy
was forced to place plaster fig leaves on exhibited casts and copies of nude sculptures (Brewer, 1997,
242, 275–276), and in the 1790s the decision to place on public display in the Tuileries similar examples
of antique statuary led to moral objections (Berger, 1999, 274–279). There were also concerns in Britain
about the exposure of female viewers to antique nude exhibition pieces (Kriz, 2001, 58), and artists who
refused to seek their female models in brothels were singled out for praise – Reynolds and Gainsborough
being among reputable examples.
A classic example of this renewed moralism was the reception of Houdon’s sculpture Winter (paired with
another work, Summer) (Figure 5.1) intended for display at the 1785 Salon in Paris. The sculpture