Picturing Kant: Constructing a Racialised, White, Masculinity in the Aftermath of Napoleon

Picturing Kant:

Constructing a Racialised, White, Masculinity in the Aftermath of Napoleon

Sofía Sanabria de Felipe

In March 2022, an exhibition entitled Fashioning Masculinities opened at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.  Its manifesto was to show a ‘history of changing ideas of masculinity’ as a response to contemporary anxieties about gender, and especially masculinity’s increasingly fluid construction. The exhibition, which ‘places current conversations around gender in historic context’ (Judah, 2022), greets visitors with a gallery of plaster-casts of statues in a Greco-Roman idiom. Amongst them stands Pietro Francavilla’s statue of Apollo, a Renaissance sculpture depicting the apparent timelessness of the nude masculine ideal of Western classical epistemology.[1] In his adaptation of Immanuel Kant’s Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen (1764), Auguste-Hilarion comte de Kératry, an early-nineteenth-century French art critic and politician, employed the same famous statue in a passage concerning the physical attributes associated with the ideal man, and how no contemporary figure matched up to that masculine aesthetic ideal (Kératry, 1823, p.115). Writing in the ideological aftermath of the French Revolution and Napoleonic military projects, the purpose of Kératry’s adaptation of Kant’s early work was to negotiate the relationship between Kant’s abstract aesthetics and the reality of the French critic’s context to make Kant’s aesthetic epistemology speak to contemporary French readers.

Fashionings of gender in art have been tenacious, and have tended to distort and flatten out resonances and particular histories of classical idealism. In the case of Kant, influential twentieth-century critical readings have carried this further, decontextualizing both Kant and themselves in their formalist emphasis on the disinterested observer. This article responds to both challenges by offering a close contextual reading of Kératry’s Examen philosophique des ‘Considérations sur le sentiment du sublime et du beau, dans le rapport des caractères, des tempéraments, des sexes, des climats et des religions’, d'Emmanuel Kant (1823; hereafter Examen), addressing its mediation of Kant’s construction of masculinity through aesthetics in the face of early-nineteenth-century political and social upheaval.

Published in 1764, Kant’s essay on aesthetics particularly considers differences in engagement with beauty and the sublime. Art criticism and history of his thought – particularly in the twentieth century – have focused on the content of the Critique period of Kant’s writing to construct a view of Kant as an advocate of detachment and abstraction; his thought deliberately devoid of contextualisation. Because the subject of the Beobachtungen in fact engages with circumstance so much, art historiography often struggles to reconcile this text with the abstracted Kant it has so carefully crafted. Kératry’s recognition of the Beobachtungen as a text of value in and of itself, and his adaptation of it for the French post-Napoleonic context are thus of considerable significance.

The Examen is composed of eight main chapters, followed by two appendices (following Chapters Two and Three), and a preface by Kératry. The four chapter titles and order are directly translated from Kant’s essay and repeat twice. Theoretically, according to the preface, the text is divided into two parts – one a direct translation of Kant’s Beobachtungen, the other a commentary.  In practice, commentary and translation operate in tandem and inconsistently, as lengthy discussions follow seemingly verbatim translation of passages from the text. In a sense, this simultaneous process of translation and commentary reinforces Kératry’s purpose to make this an authentic text for French readers who (in his view) had been robbed of a ‘truthful’ version of the text by previous editors. Kératry’s commentary is full of references to Western visual and literary culture, explaining and exploring the ramifications of Kant’s text through both historic and contemporary works. They help Kératry visualise Kant’s abstractions, as well as adding a degree of relatability as his audience are expected to be familiar with them. There is no single way these works are introduced. Sometimes a list of famous paintings or statues is provided, at other points a significant commentary is offered of a single piece – such as Rubens’ Three Graces in Kératry’s discussion of the difference a man’s profession or class brings about in the judgement of feminine beauty.[2] The visual works are completely intertwined with the translation-commentary of Kant’s work, and often the author of the art is not even referenced – sometimes because the point Kératry wishes to make goes beyond authorship; sometimes because he simply assumes familiarity.

Kératry’s writing was undoubtedly shaped by the Restoration of the Bourbon dynasty in 1814. As a result of this period of political unrest, framed by emerging discourses on ‘rights’ and epistemological re-evaluation of social structures, intellectual debates emerged over the different qualities and temporalities of modernity, about the relationship between the seemingly timeless (or at least recurring) and the particular (or contingent). These large intellectual questions were refracted through intense political controversy, which had long been mapped onto aesthetic categories in French debate. Although there is some scholarship on his art criticism, notably his reflections on the 1819 Salon and commentary on the Academy, there is no substantial literature on this fascinating translation of Kant’s early work on aesthetics and morality. Yet Kératry’s writing commanded attention amongst his contemporaries and brought a distinctive interpretation of Kant to critical circles in France. 

This paper addresses Kératry’s contextualisation of Kant’s treatise within the French context of post-Napoleonic imperial expansion, and his use of Eugène Delacroix and Jean-León Gérôme’s visual representations of it. The choice of these two artists suggests an interlacing of two epistemological perspectives on the question of identity-making as a consequence of imperialist expansionism. In practice, the artists’ own complex engagement with Orientalism – sometimes embodying it, sometimes resisting its epistemology – reflects the complexity of racial discourse in this period and its interaction with aesthetic judgement, which has tended to be over-simplified by modern scholarship.

Colonialism’s Shaping of a Racialised, Post-Napoleonic Masculinity

In keeping with an established Western intellectual tradition, Kant’s configuration of ‘race’ and its impact in shaping aesthetic taste had been understood within discourse surrounding the impact of external circumstances, specifically the climate, on human temperament. Kant’s conceptualisation of race used Turkey as its location to explore the ‘unruliness’ that a hotter climate would bring to a man’s temperament, thereby affecting his ability to judge beauty in the same terms as the European counterpart. Kératry moves away from Turkey specifically, and focuses instead on the abstracted ‘man of Islam’, a figure which spoke more tangibly to his contemporary context following Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign and France’s imperial expansionism in North Africa:

Maintenant que nos idées sont rectifiées, sur le beau, dans les deux sexes, nous partagerons l'opinion de Kant relative à l'uniformité du goût, dont les Circassiennes et les Georgiennes sont les objets. Elles plaisent aux Européens comme aux Asiatiques, et principalement aux sectateurs de l'islamisme qui en font un commerce barbare. La race de ceux-ci s'en est sensiblement améliorée, ainsi que le remarque le professeur de Koenigsberg… La polygamie est peu féconde de sa nature, ce qui annoncerait qu'elle n'était pas destinée à être la loi du genre humain. (Kératry, 1823, p.169-70)

[Now that our ideas are rectified, on the beautiful, in the two sexes, we will share the opinion of Kant relative to the uniformity of taste, of which the Circassians and the Georgians are the objects. They appeal to Europeans as well as Asians, and mainly to followers of Islamism who make a barbaric trade of them. The race of these has noticeably improved, as the professor of Koenigsberg remarks… Polygamy is not very fruitful by its nature, which would announce that it was not intended to be the law of the human race.]

            The reference here to polygamy is not accidental but in keeping with the previous theorisation about the role of love in aesthetic judgement. Here, Kératry’s adaptation of Kant configures the aesthetic masculinity of Muslim men according to their treatment of women, particularly their sexual treatment within polygamous marital arrangements. Whilst suggesting that the behaviour of Muslim men towards women has ‘improved’, it is suggested that they remain unable to form adequate judgements of beauty and access the sublime as they are unable to mediate their desire into a judgement of aesthetic femininity as beauty. The studies produced by Delacroix that would come to inform his Women of Algiers capture Kératry’s ideas.[3] In them, the women are looked upon by the male French artist, informing his aesthetic sense by virtue of his capacity to judge them as beautiful, even using them to access the sublime by placing himself at a distance, never actually touching or interacting with them as would the men to whom they are married. Because men are depicted in these paintings their masculinity is explicitly contrasted with that of the European painter.

Kératry makes this difference in aesthetic judgement clearer in the following direct comparison between the French and ‘Muslim men’:

Certainement les Français n'auront pas recours aux moyens dont usent les Musulmans, pour introduire dans leur couche de belles odalisques; nos moeurs s'y opposent, et encore plus notre bon sens européen, car ce que l'on gagnerait au profit de l'amour physique tournerait en perte des émotions qui lui donnent sa vraie valeur: mais il est évident que, notre climat par sa douce température étant très-favorable au développement de la beauté, on peut témoigner quelque surprise de ce que le sexe, qui d'ailleurs n'y manque pas de graces, est assez généralement dépourvu de cette belle et noble régularité de contours, dont se glorifient les pays orientaux. (Kératry, 1823, p.172)

[Certainly the French will not have recourse to the means used by Muslim men to introduce beautiful odalisques into their bed; our mores oppose it, and even more our European common sense, because what we would gain for the benefit of physical love would turn into a loss of the emotions which give it its true value: but it is obvious that, our climate by its mild temperature being very favourable to the development of beauty, one can testify to some surprise that the sex, which moreover does not lack grace therein, is quite generally devoid of that beautiful and noble regularity of contours, of which the Eastern countries boast.]

            Kératry goes so far as to denounce these practices as ‘not in keeping with the law of the human being’ – that is, with expectations of human behaviour framed within a universalised Western framework. Whilst this embodies an undoubted construction of racial superiority, it is a sentiment structured around an understanding of how ‘climate’ affects emotional responses, and by extension aesthetic judgements. Removed from this climate, or at least exposed to rational frameworks developed in other climates of a more ‘cool’ and ‘stable’ nature, there is no reason for these practices not to be supplemented by the monogamy of Christian Europeanism and its associated aesthetic masculinity. This racial understanding of superiority within the context of colonial expansion is perfectly in keeping with post-colonial research into the impact of imperial expansion on consciousness-shaping.^[4] Through the study of aesthetic judgement, we are able to understand that French masculinity receives the accolade of universality in Western thought due to a perceived inferior understanding and treatment of women by men of other ‘races’. 

Orientalism and the Configuration of a Feminine Sublime

Kératry’s discussion of the difference between Muslim and French men ended on a comment on the characteristics of femininity glorified by the masculinities of ‘Oriental countries’: ‘le voluptueux sensuel pourra même les rechercher, pendant quelques heures, comme le fait l’Asiatique’ (Kératry, 1823, p.170) [the sensual voluptuous will even be able to seek them, for a few hours, as the Asian does]. The focus of this passage is on the physical interactions of ‘l’Asiatique’ with feminine beauty and body. The sensual voluptuousness referenced here is part of Kératry’s wider discussion of representations of Venus. He references Raphael’s designs of Venus in her Chariot, as well as the Venus de Medici to make tangible his commentary on universal aesthetic femininity.[5] The canonisation of these works within Western art history allows Kératry to make a point about the transcendent – almost sublime – nature of these figures’ beauty. This is perfectly in keeping with his adaptation of Kant’s thought, as the assertion as an ideal-type of an intersubjective, universal beauty is essential to Kant’s aesthetics and perception of normativity: when we state something to be beautiful, we implicitly expect people to agree with us. The universalisation of certain ideals following rigorous intellectualisation allows for that agreement between individuals to take place, leading to an ideal level of intersubjectivity in aesthetic judgement (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2019). Indeed, carrying out this discussion of transcendent beauty in conjunction with a discussion of the sexual habits of ‘l’Asiatique’, allows Kératry to justify the universal categorisation of feminine beauty as embodied by aesthetic depictions of Venus. As the person conducting this artistic criticism in the form of a ‘removed’ onlooker, Kératry presents a necessary universality to the aesthetic construction of masculinity: the appreciation of Venus’ voluptuous sensuality.

This universality seems to be at odds with the subtlety accorded to the French labourer in Kératry’s commentary on Rubens’ Three Graces. It seems that the need for aesthetic universality is more pressing in a comparison with a non-Western context than within the domestic one. In the latter case, European mores are not questioned but can bear differentiation according to purpose and culture, whilst in the present case they are being universalised to strengthen Western superiority in the face of interactions with a colonised other. To do this Kératry seems to be building on the form of Orientalism predicated on seeking the qualities of the ancient world in the non-Western present:

Le Caraïbe, alors même qu'il entonne sa chanson de mort, veut être estimé des ennemis qui le déchirent; c'est pour cela qu'il les défie dans un reste d'existence. Voulait-il autre chose le prince qui, guerroyant loin de la Grèce, s'écriait, au milieu de ses fatigues : ‘O Athéniens, que de maux j'endure pour vous plaire!’  (Kératry, 1823, p.67-68)

[The Caribbean, even as it sings its song of death [independence], wants to be esteemed by the enemies who tear it apart; that is why it challenges them in a remnant of existence. Did he want anything else, the prince who, fighting far from Greece, exclaimed, in the midst of his fatigues: “O Athenians, what evils I endure to please you!]

            Here, the contemporary context of revolutionary challenge to the metropole is intertwined with Kératry’s recollection of the heroic masculinity of the ancient world. This Romantic narrativization of contemporary political events using established characterisations of classical masculinity suggests that Kératry’s aesthetic masculinity was heavily influenced by this Orientalist tendency. But the tendency itself could lead back to the metropole, as was to be apparent in the later dissemination of works such as Chasseriau’s Tepidarium (1853).[6] Here, Western feminine figures are depicted in an Orientalist idiom (derived from the artist’s visit to North Africa with Delacroix in the 1830s), but in a historically-specific room in Pompeii – a site of current archaeological revelation as well as a place of the imagination. This further complicates the role played by race, as the depiction of non-Western as well as Western feminine bodies as sublime seems to suggest a degree of universalisation when it comes to accessing this aesthetic judgement.

However, the fact remains that feminine figures that embody such universalisation are ultimately placed within a Western classical context. The universalisation thus remains contradictory. It is not so much that it exists in an abstract way, but rather that the Western ideal-beauty of a Greco-Roman classical period has been accessed by aesthetic escapades in non-Western, colonised locations.  We can therefore begin to appreciate the location of a French post-Napoleonic masculinity at the intersection between racial universalisation and contingent specificity.

Impact of Orientalism and Colonialism on the Shaping of French post-Napoleonic Masculinity

This section has established that the abstracted universalism that characterises Kératry’s ‘homme’ is in fact actively constructed through a configuration of alternative, ‘Oriental’, ‘Islamic’ masculinities – a configuration only made possible by the context of imperial expansion and colonial discourse emerging from it.

This is reinforced by Kératry’s deployment of Jean-Léon Gérôme’s depiction of Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt within a passage concerned with the impact of climate on human temperament:

Qui fut, plus bilieux que Napoléon? Pour ceux qui l'ont vu après son voyage d'Egypte, son seul aspect déposait de cette qualité de son tempérament. N'ayant jamais eu de part directe ou indirecte à ses faveurs, nous ne pensons pas que notre témoignage devienne suspect, lorsque nous dirons qu'à moins d'un effronté mensonge de la part de tous ses biographes, il y a dans sa vie bien des actes dont s'honorerait celle princes les plus-humains et les plus débonnaires. (Kératry, 1823, pp.79-80)

[Who was more bilious than Napoleon? For those who saw him after his trip to Egypt, his appearance alone betrayed this quality of his temperament. Having never had any direct or indirect part in his favours, we do not think that our testimony becomes suspect when we say that, barring a brazen lie on the part of all his biographers, there are in his life many acts which would honour those most humane and good-natured princes.]

            Aware of contemporary tensions surrounding the narrativization of Bonaparte’s character, Kératry’s choice of example here is politically conscious. It serves as an excellent representation of how European essentialism is enacted following interactions with non-Western, colonised countries. Using a figure made controversial precisely because of his temperament following his ‘voyages’ to ‘Oriental’ lands allows him to make Kant’s abstract theorisations on the impact of climate completely contingent to the politicised environment of his readers. Kératry stresses that Napoleon’s virtuous acts are to be considered as in keeping with the ‘most humane’. However, the ‘most-human’ is arguably no longer, as was seemingly portrayed in previous contrasts with ‘Muslim men’ and ‘l’Asiatique’, an abstract quality – but rather one identifiable, indeed almost expected, of a particular man: a Western military leader expanding into colonised land. Though not mentioned by name, the popularity of Gérôme’s military paintings in Orientalist style of Napoleon’s campaigns is referenced to support this claim of Napoleon’s ‘most humane’ temperament. The painter’s choice to portray the military leader in very defined form, at the forefront of his Napoleon in Egypt, with a building of Islamic style in a blurred background, perfectly matches Kératry’s construction of this figure’s masculinity.[7] It is evident that the universalisation to which ‘most-humane’ is attached can only truly be constructed as such, so stridently, through a comparison with that which is not quite the ‘same level’ of human: the Egyptian background. Indeed, this is true of the men following Napoleon, who are also depicted in blurred form – their garments overshadowed by the distinctively French military outfit Bonaparte is sporting. Kératry is positioning the figure of the artist – in this case the painter Gérôme – as the chief author of masculinity’s aesthetic construction, for the text alone is not enough to visualise the process of rhetorical universalisation of what is, in fact, a French-specific and chronologically-specific manifestation of masculinity.

Kératry’s configuration of the French painter as key arbiter in the mediating process between ‘Orient’ and ‘Occident’ necessary for the construction of a post-Napoleonic masculinity is further emphasised in a significant but seemingly anecdotal passage:

Il y a peu de temps que, dans une visite à M. Prud'hon, celui de tous nos artistes dont le pinceau rappelle le mieux la touche voluptueuse du Corrège, nous lui demandâmes, à la vue d'une Vénus au bain, vent servi du modèle pour cette composition? Il nous répondit négativement, et nous confessant qu'il s'était borné à d'anciennes études déposées dans son portefeuille, il déplora, devant nous, l'indigence des ressources que Paris pouvait offrir en ce genre. Suivant lui, nos femmes ne manquent ni de morbidesse, ni de correction dans la portion du corps inférieure à la taille; les pieds, les jambes, les hanches et les cuisses, quoiqu'un peu fortes, sont d'une proportion agréable. (Kératry, 1823, pp.172-174)

[Not long ago, during a visit to M. Prud'hon, the one of all our artists whose brush best recalls the voluptuous touch of Corrège, we asked him, at the sight of a Venus bathing, already very happily sketched out, if he had known for a long time which wind served as the model for this composition? He answered us in the negative, and confessing to us that he had confined himself to old studies deposited in his portfolio, he deplored, before us, the indigence of the resources that Paris could offer of this kind. According to him, our women lack neither morbidity nor correction in the portion of the body below the waist; the feet, legs, hips and thighs, though somewhat strong, are of agreeable proportion.]

            Prud’hon was a highly influential figure in French Romanticism, who had painted the portraits of both of Napoleon’s wives. His painting of Josephine alongside his sketches of the Female Nude are particularly striking choices on Kératry’s part.[8] The critic describes how his friend understood, as a painter, the workings of feminine beauty, how visual art constructed a particular aesthetic femininity, and what – crucially – this meant for the aesthetic construction of the individual behind its material depiction: the French male painter. Indeed, the reference to ‘proportion’, to measurements that do not need ‘altering’ suggests that the aesthetic figure embodied by French women – but crucially recognised, configured and depicted by the French male painter – actively adds to the apparent universalisation of the latter, whilst still paradoxically retaining a sense of French specificity.   

Kératry’s construction of White aesthetic masculinity in the post-Napoleonic period is thus necessarily racialised, but in complex terms, for it resides somewhere between linguistic universalisation and contingent racial specificity.

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