18세기 중반 프랑스 미술계는 ‘대중’의 탄생, 고전고대 예술에 관한 새로운 시각의 태동, 왕립회화조각아카데미의 이론적·교육적 재편성에 따라 전환기를 맞이한다. 여기서 풍부한 교양, 학식, 그리고 ‘안목’과 더불어 때로는 기예까지도 갖춘 애호가(amateur)라는 특수한 직업군은 동시대 예술 창작뿐만 아니라 서술의 영역에서도 점차 고유의 영향력을 확대해간다. 켈뤼스 백작 (Comte de Caylus)는 본래 고고학자, 판화가, 작가로 더 잘 알려진 인물로서 답사 여행과 유물 수집, 그리고 유럽의 여러 고문헌학자·수집가·감식가들과의 교류를 통해 획득한 고전고대에 대한 지식, 열정적 강연과 집필 활동을 바탕으로 아카데미라는 제도적 틀 안에 애호가로서 안착한다. 본 논문은 애호가이자 미술이론가로서 켈뤼스의 초상을 그려보고, 그의 주요 강연과 출판물 을 미술비평이라는 새로운 글쓰기의 관점에서 분석한다. 이어서 과연 애호가가 미술비평의 정당한 주체가 될 수 있는지, 또 미술비평의 관점에서 과거를 대하는 방식을 논의하는 데 켈뤼스라는 ‘보편적 지식인’이 이바지한 바를 그의 아카데미 강연과 저작을 통해 탐구할 것이다. 궁극적으로 본 논문은 과거를 파악하고 활용하는 일련의 지적 작업의 변천을 추적하는 데 미술비평이 어떠한 단서를 제공할 수 있을지를 가늠해보고자 한다.

This paper examines four genre paintings on the subject of child education by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin(1699-1779). The Governess, The Diligent Mother, Saying Grace, and The Morning Toilette garnered critical attention after they were exhibited in the Salon from 1739 to 1741. After the exhibition, the paintings were made into prints and frequently sold to members of the bourgeois class in Paris. The iconographical details of Chardin’s genre paintings have, thus far, been compared to Dutch genre pictures of the seventeenth century. Further, most studies conducted on Chardin’s paintings focus on formal analysis rather than the historical and social contexts. Through attempting social-contextual readings of Chardin’s educational series, this paper argues that the significance of Chardin’s painting series of child education lies in his representation of the ideal French bourgeois family and the standard of early childhood education in the eighteenth-century French Enlightenment period. In each of the four child education paintings, Chardin depicted a mother with children in a domestic space. Even though this theme derives from traditional Dutch genre paintings in the seventeenth century, the visual motifs, the pictorial atmosphere and the painting techniques of Chardin all project the social culture of eighteenth century France. Each painting in the child education series exemplifies respectively the attire of a French gentlemen, the social view on womanhood and the education of girls, newly established table manners, and the dressing up culture in a ‘toilette’ in eighteenth century France. Distinct from other educational scenes in previous genre paintings, Chardin accentuated the naive and innocent characteristics of a child and exemplified the mother’s warmth toward that child in her tender facial expressions and gesturing. These kinds of expressions illustrate the newly structured standard of education in the French Enlightenment period. Whereas medieval people viewed children as immature and useless, people in the eighteenth century began to recognize children for their more positive features. They compared children to a blank piece of paper (tabula rasa), which signified children’s innocence, and suggested that children possess neither good nor bad virtues. This positive perspective on children slowly transformed the pedagogical methods. Teaching manuals instructed governesses and mothers to respect each child’s personality rather than be strict and harsh to them. Children were also allotted more playtimes, which explains the display of various toys in the backgrounds of Chardin’s series of four paintings. Concurrently, the interior, where this exemplary education was executed, alludes to the virtue of the bourgeois’s moderate and thrifty daily life in eighteenth century France. While other contemporary painters preferred to depict the extravagant living space of a French bourgeoisie, Chardin portrayed a rather modest and cozy home interior. In contrast to the highly decorated living space of aristocrats, he presented the realistic, humble domestic space of a bourgeois, filled with modern household objects. In addition, the mother is exceptionally clad in working clothes instead of fashionable dresses of the moment. Fit to take care of household affairs and children, the mother represents the ideal virtues of a bourgeois family. It can be concluded that the four genre paintings of child education by Chardin articulate the new standards of juvenile education in eighteenth century France as well as the highly recognized social virtues between French bourgeois families. Thus, Chardin's series of child education would have functioned as a demonstration of the ideal living standards of the bourgeois class and their emphasis on early childhood education in the French Enlightenment period.