PIRANESI BETWEEN CLASSICAL AND SUBLIME
Journal Name:
- Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Mimarlık Fakültesi Dergisi
Key Words:
Keywords (Original Language):
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Abstract (2. Language):
The eighteenth century saw an increasing number of debates and polemics
in aesthetical theory. One of these concerned the difference between the
beautiful and the sublime, which influenced especially philosophical
approaches to art and design in poetry, music, painting, as well as
in architecture (2). Two philosophers contributing to the discussion,
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and Edmund Burke (1729-1797), held diverse
views on the concepts of the beautiful and the sublime: while agreeing
that they were essential to appreciating human creativity, the philosophers
sustained rather opposite positions concerning their respective origins and
whether or not they were inherent to human nature. Moreover, architects
and artists utilized the notions of beautiful and sublime in their work
both conceptually in their writings and visually in design. In this lively
environment flourishing around the two concepts, Giovanni Battista
Piranesi (1720-1778) etched in 1765 the fragment of a statement on the
sublime by Julien-David Le Roy (1724-1803). The fragment came from Le
Roy’s 1758 Les Ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Grèce and Piranesi
placed the words on the inscription plate at the center of the façade,
directly above the entrance of the building he was depicting. The etching
was published in Plate VIII of his dialogue Parere su l’architetture (Figure
1): “Pour ne pas faire de cet art sublime un vil métier où l’on ne feroit que copier
sans choix”: ‘In order not to render this sublime art a vile craft where one
would only copy without discretion’ (Parere, 139, 152-153 n.139). The wider
context of Le Roy’s words in Les Ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Grèce
had called for discretion on the architect’s part in situating himself between
blind compliance with classical norm and ‘accepting no rules whatsoever’
(“n’addmettre aucunes règles”) in the design of monuments (Le Roy, 1758, 1).
Le Roy had further warned that,
A fair appreciation of these principles should help us avoid two very
dangerous improprieties in architecture: that of accepting no rules
whatsoever and taking caprice as the only guide in the composition of
PIRANESI BETWEEN CLASSICAL AND SUBLIME (1)
Fatma İpek EK and Deniz ŞENGEL
Received: 08.06.2006; Final Text: 18.05.2007
Keywords: Giovanni Battista Piranesi;
Immanuel Kant; Edmund Burke; Roman
architecture, eighteenth-century aesthetical
discussions; beautiful; sublime.
1. An early version of this article comprises
Chapter 6 of the master thesis “The
Archaeological Sublime: History and
Architecture in Piranesi’s Drawings,”
presented to the İzmir Institute of
Technology (Ek, 2006). This article was made
possible by a Scientific Research Grant from
the Institute, 2005 İYTE 11.
2. For an overview of the emergence of
the concepts of the sublime and beautiful,
identified as ‘picturesque’, in the British
context, see Mallgrave, 2005, 51-55.Monuments; and that of accepting too many [rules]; constraining thereby
Architects’ imagination and making of this sublime Art a species of craft in
which each only copies, without discretion, that which has been done by
some ancient Architects (1758, 1).
Le Roy was using the term sublime to describe the architecture of
monuments. Piranesi had used Le Roy’s statement as the central inscription
of precisely a monument, identifying sublime architecture with architecture
of monuments (Figure 2). Piranesi had changed by one word Le Roy’s
statement in order to render it more emphatic, substituting “un vil métier”
(a vile craft) for Le Roy’s more neutral “un espèce de métier” (a species of
craft). Le Roy too, however, had conceived of dogged compliance with
classical norm as something lowly -a kind of ‘craft’ rather than Art. Both
Piranesi and Le Roy were obviously within the bounds of eighteenthcentury
European culture in their view of a hierarchic distinction between
art (art) and craft (métier) (3). While the profession of architecture had since
Vitruvius been considered to be equally art and craft (De arch. Book I: II-III
C), the eighteenth century was increasingly separating the two domains
and establishing a hierarchical relationship between them in which art
superseded craft. The result was discussion in architectural environments
as to the implications of this new division for the discipline. Le Roy, as we
saw, was alerting his reader that the artist-architect could commit faults
that would degrade the work into craft. Piranesi’s paraphrase of Le Roy
with vil métier went further and described craft as ‘vile’ or ‘lowly’, identified
mimetic architecture with craft, and made the difference between sublime
architecture and classical imitation even more trenchant. By identifying
architecture of monuments with a particular, elevated style, however, both
Piranesi and Le Roy participated in a hierarchic genre theory that remained
Aristotelian and thus, classical.The eighteenth-century debate on the beautiful and sublime concerned
architecture in a particular way: it engaged the distinction between
‘beautiful architecture’ and ‘sublime architecture’ with a view on the
degree of presence of classical rules as opposed to freedom from these
rules and identified their difference as the gap between ‘Art’ and ‘craft’.
Refraining from entering into a discussion of the art/craft distinction as
this has been excellently conducted elsewhere (4), this article investigates
Piranesi’s drawings of sublime architecture against the background of
the contemporary philosophical debate on the beautiful and sublime,
and situates the eighteenth-century notion of sublime architecture in
terms of the culture’s revisionary, but ambiguous, attitude to classicism.
The example of Piranesi should prove particularly significant in the said
context as this prolific architect of the sublime was at once firmly rooted in
classicism as, among others, Plate VIII of the Parere evinced.
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Abstract (Original Language):
On sekizinci yüzyılda, estetik biliminin olduğu kadar mimarlık tarihinin de
doğuşu bağlamında ivme kazanan tartışmalar, mimarlık disiplinini doğal
olarak etkilemişti. Estetik tartışmaların temeli mimarilerin tarihsel köken
tartışmalarına bağlanıyor ve ‘güzel’ ile ‘yüce’ olmak üzere iki etki üzerine
odaklanıyordu: ‘Güzel’i temsil ettiği düşünülen Yunan tarzı, ‘yüce’yle
özdeşleştirilen Roma ve Mısır tarzlarının karşısına yerleştirilmekteydi.
Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) gibi mimar ve düşünürlerin görsel
ve yazınsal çalışmalarında söz konusu estetik ve tarihsel savlar takip
edilebiliyordu. Piranesi, Roma mimarlık ve uygarlığının kökenini ‘güzel’
Yunan’a dayandıran Winckelmann gibi çağdaşlarının aksine, Roma mimarî
estetiğinin ‘yüce’ unsurlar barındırdığını, dolayısıyla Mısır medeniyetinden
türediğini savunuyordu. Tüm çizimlerinde antik Roma’nın ‘yüce’
mimarisini resmeden Piranesi, böylece estetik tartışmaların ‘yüce’
cephesinde yerini alıyordu.
On sekizinci yüzyılın iki önemli filozofu Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) ile
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) estetiğin bileşenleri ‘güzel’ ve ‘yüce’ üzerine
çalışmalarıyla tartışmaları hızlandırmıştı. Bu iki kavram on sekizinci yüzyıl
felsefe ve tasarım kuramlarını aynı ölçüde etkilemekle birlikte, makale
temel olarak Kant ile Burke’ün ‘yüce’ tanımları üzerinden Piranesi’nin
görsel ve metinsel çalışmalarının karşılaştırmalı okumasını yapmaktadır.
Kant ve Burke’ün ‘yüce’ açıklamalarında küçük ayrılıklar görülmekle
birlikte ikisi de temelde aynı şeyi söylemişlerdir. Özellikle Kant’ın
Güzellik ve Yücelik Duygusu Üzerine Gözlemler (1764) ve Burke’ün Yücelik ve
Güzellik Fikirlerimizin Kaynağı Hakkında Felsefî bir Araştırma (1757) başlıklı
çalışmalarındaki ifadeler Piranesi’nin çizimlerinde takip edilebilmektedir.
Piranesi, Kant’ın ve Burke’ün anlattığı ‘yüce’yi mimarî çizim diliyle
aktarmıştı. Piranesi, on sekizinci yüzyıla egemen olan ‘yüce’ etkiyi
Venedikli bir mimarın gözüyle yeniden yorumluyordu.
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