Boullée, Etienne-Louis( 1728 – 1799 )
Cenotaph, in the shape of a pyramid, 1780 – 1790 , Bibliothèque Nationale de France,
Ha 57 FT 6, 4/237IM. 281 Plate 24 , 39 61. 3 cm, Ink and washWith a similar penchant for drawing illusion as Piranesi, Etienne-Louis Boullée built little but as an
educator, theoretician and illustrator, he was a dominant figure in neoclassical visionary/revolutionary
architecture.
Boullée’s father was the Parisian architect, Louis-Claude Boullée, who encouraged his son’s educa-
tion in architecture and drawing. Continuing his education in 1746 , he studied with Boffrand, Lebon,
and Le Geay, where he learned the architecture of the French classical tradition. Over the next several
years ( 1768 to 1779 ) he designed numerous houses such as Pernon, Thun, Brunoy, and Alexandre, and
he built or rebuilt Château Tassé at Chaville, Château Chauvri at Montmorency, and Château de
Péreux at Nogent-sur-Marne, all in the proximity of Paris. Later in life, Boullée became a member of
the Institut de France and was nominated a Professor of the Ecole Centrales (Kaufmann, 1955 ).
As discussed in the introduction, Boullée, along with Ledoux and Lequeu, have been united under
the title of visionary/revolutionary architects. They were attracted to theoretical arguments, which
they displayed in their fantastic and monumental illustrations utilizing geometric shape and symbolism.
Boullée’s fantasy images demonstrate massive, dynamic forms, substantially larger and more impressive
than the monuments of Greece and Rome (Kaufmann, 1955 ).
This drawing (Figure 3.3) portrays a starkly simple pyramid with two unadorned columns, all
bathed in stormy modeled light. Although all architectural illustration envisions the future, Boullée’s
fantasy consciously moves beyond the realm of possibility into a simplicity and scale unrelated to
function or technology. Fantasy as a concept evokes the magical and suggests an extended associative
capacity, whimsical invention, divination, and the expansive qualities of pure possibility (Casey,
2000 ). The art historian David Summers writes that during the Renaissance, fantasiawas related in
meaning to invenzione. Although similar to the term ‘invention,’ its original meaning derives from a
technical term from rhetoric. Invenzionewas primary in the five-part division of rhetoric, and con-
sisted of ‘ ... the finding out or selection of topics to be treated, or arguments to be used’ (Gordon,
1975 , p. 82 ). Although viewed from a later period, Boullée represents an interesting connec-
tion between creative inspiration and the development of argument.
The fantasies were intended for his architectural treatise Architecture, Essai sur l’art, begun in 1780.
In this essay, he wrote about what funerary monuments or cenotaphs meant to him: ‘I cannot con-
ceive of anything more melancholy than a monument consisting of a flat surface, bare and unadorned,
made of a light-absorbent material, absolutely stripped of detail, its decorations consisting of a play of
shadows, outlined by still deeper shadows’ (Rosenau, 1976 , p. 106 ).
Boullée employed the atmospheric qualities of the wash to create dramatic lighting effects, giving
grandeur to the otherwise simple pyramid. He may have been attempting to persuade viewers of his
beliefs, subconsciously convincing them of the sketch’s possibilities, and of the argument as a theoret-
ical position for architecture. Concerning the use of pyramids as a conscious choice for a theoretical
discussion, he said ‘I have given the Pyramid the proportions of an equilateral triangle because it is
perfect regularity that gives form its beauty’ (Rosenau, 1976 , p. 106 ). The choice of the mystical
shape of the pyramid for his cenotaph obviously connects it to the great society of the Egyptians,
encouraging a comparison to the monumentality of his architectural ideals. The character of the
atmospheric effect also ‘proves’ his theory by means of emotional seduction, and positions this sketch
as a powerful instrument of persuasion.H5719-Ch03.qxd 7/18/05 10:17 AM Page 79