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By the sword and the plow: Theodore Chasseriau's Cour des Comptes murals and Algeria
Art Bulletin, The, Dec, 2004 by Peter Benson Miller
Architectural Space, Light, and Temporal Narrative
Any interpretation of the meanings conveyed by each mural individually and their dialogue must also account for the space between them and its meaning. Fletcher asserts that symmetry and ritual occasionally work together to generate meaning in allegorical narrative. (115) We can borrow this mechanism to characterize the experience of the viewer in the late 1840s suspended bodily between the confrontation of War and Peace. The architectural context governed the meaning in that it required those viewers to swivel 180 degrees to take in the entirety of the visual experience created by the contrast of the two horizontal friezes. In performing the physical act of turning from one vast panel to the next, the viewer felt the moment of pause between the two antithetical extremes represented. This sense of transition bred of the movement from one mural to the next may have been one of Chasseriau's deliberate effects. Gautier underlined the murals' address to an active spectator, and the importance of movement to the way they were to be read and interpreted, by structuring the sequence of his descriptions to follow the order in which the visitor to the Cour des Comptes encountered them: "we are going to analyze this large composition according to the way it presents itself to the eyes while one mounts the stairs." (116) It is clear from the itinerary inscribed in Gautier's text, Gerard Doyon's reconstruction of the program (Fig. 2), and Fichot's rendering of it (Fig. 3) that once the viewer began climbing the last part of the staircase, War was the first composition to come completely into view. Peace, immediately to the left on the wall flush against the steps, did not appear in its entirety until the viewer reached the top level and turned to contemplate it after having taken in War. (117) Gautier confirms this visual order: "Let's begin with War in order to finish as everything should finish, with Peace." (118) The critic's wording recalls comments in L'Artiste (for which Gautier was a frequent contributor) in 1844 occasioned by the publication of Leon Galibert's L'Algerie ancienne et moderne. The review insisted that "Algeria is no longer a battlefield, it is a conquest, it will soon be a flourishing colony, and then, like our mother country, she will enjoy the enlightened and peaceful reign that we have spread all over Europe." (119) In this way, the viewer's physical experience of the murals mirrored the contemporary political context. The transition from active conquest to peaceful colonization, anticipated in 1844, became an urgent issue three years later as the Algerian debate reached a climactic stage. The dialogue between the two panels offered a result held in suspense, just as Bugeaud and Tocqueville promised colonial bounty with certain conditions in their 1847 reports.
Light played a crucial role in the orchestration of this viewing experience and the progression of the narrative. In mounting to the highest level of a staircase illuminated by skylights in the ceiling, visitors were required first to pass through the shadowy spaces of the ground floor, decorated with scenes in grisaille, before reaching the upper landing flooded with natural light. (120) Gautier dedicates a significant portion of his text to the amount and quality of light reaching each panel. The indirect light cast on the lower floor gave way to a burst of light that announced itself once the visitor reached the first landing and turned to confront the decor in its entirety. Gautier exclaimed that, from that standpoint, "And day has come, the light coming from above the stairs flows over the paintings on the upper level like a waterfall." (121) His description of this radiant epiphany reinforces the ritual air in which Chasseriau's program unfolded. On a symbolic level, the revelation of cascading light evokes the notion that colonization brought enlightenment to backward peoples, a cornerstone of the Saint-Simonian doctrine put into practice by many military officers in Algeria and the standard mantra of procolonial rhetoric. (122)
