Nadège Langbour

The labyrinth motif appears regularly in Christian Grenier's novels. In diegesis, it is always linked to myth and the fates of Daedalus, Theseus and Ariadne. It is also a diegetic motif that structures the setting, organizes the characters' quest and generates suspense. But this motif is above all a metadiscursive metaphor that theorizes the author's writing. In particular, he evokes the meandering construction of police intrigues. It also represents the referential games developed by Christian Grenier: By mixing the words of other writers with his own, offers his readers the opportunity to enter a kind of intertextual labyrinth.

Fascinated by the paintings of Chardin, Diderot demonstrates the superiority of this painter on numerous painters of history. So, the critic knocks down the hierarchy of the genres defined by Félibien in the XVIIth century. He pupil Chardin to the rank of demiurge because the artist manages paradoxically to breathe life into his still lives. Indeed, Chardin is a scholar colorer and he imitates perfectly the flesh, what makes it a rial of the nature.

To respond to an order from his friend Grimm who publishes the Correspondance littéraire, Diderot writes, between 1759 and 1781, nine accounts of the painting and sculpture exhibitions taking place at the Louvre. In his art critic, Diderot often uses the vocabulary of music and noise. Sometimes he evokes the hubbub of colors, sometimes he evokes their harmony. Then, he questions the definition of painting as “silent poetry”. The use of this vocabulary is not only metaphorical. Diderot’s sensualist aesthetics and philosophy encourage him to use the vocabulary of the auditory to establish correspondences between the visual and auditory sensations. So, he developes synaesthesias that announce those of Baudelaire.