Exhibition | Pierre-Antoine Demachy (1723–1807)
Adapted from the Office of Tourism of Versailles:
Le Témoin Méconnu: Pierre-Antoine Demachy (1723–1807)
Musée Lambinet, Versailles, 15 February — 18 May 2014
The Musée Lambinet in Versailles dedicates a unique exhibition to Pierre Antoine Demachy. This little-known artist of the eighteenth century, whose work has never before been showcased in a single exhibition, is a fabulous witness of his time. Strongly influenced by Italian art, Demachy applied to Paris cityscape types practiced by Canaletto and Guardi. He was among the artists whom the Empress Catherine II of Russia in 1768 placed an order through its ambassador to France, and the Count of Angivillers purchased for Louis XVI a view of the Seine at the Salon of 1783.
The work of Demachy will be presented through the following seven themes:
• Architectural whims and fantasy views
• Views related to the Louvre
• Demolition of churches and fire the Foire Saint-Germain
• Church interiors
• Other views in and around Paris
• Historic Events
• Views of the Seine and cityscapes
The press release, which includes a checklist of the major works exhibited, is available here»
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The catalogue is available from Artbooks.com:
Françoise Roussel-Leriche and Marie Petkowska Le Roux, Le Témoin Méconnu: Pierre-Antoine Demachy, 1723–1807 (Paris: Magellan, 2014), 216 pages, ISBN: 978-2350742809, $55.
New Book | The Architectural Capriccio
From Ashgate:
Lucien Steil, ed., The Architectural Capriccio: Memory, Fantasy and Invention (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014), 548 pages, ISBN: 978-1409431916, £90 / $125.
Bringing together leading writers and practicing architects including Jean Dethier, David Mayernik, Massimo Scolari, Robert Adam, David Watkin and Leon Krier, this volume provides a kaleidoscopic, multilayered exploration of the architectural capriccio. It not only explains the phenomena within a historical context, but moreover, demonstrates its contemporary validity and appropriateness as a holistic design methodology, an inspiring pictorial strategy, an efficient rendering technique and an optimal didactic tool. The book shows and comments on a wide range of historic masterworks and highlights contemporary artists and architects excelling in a modern updated, refreshed and original tradition of the capriccio. The capacity of the capriccio to create an imaginary, imagined or ‘analogue’ reality by combining and relocating existing or invented buildings and places in uniquely suggestive drawings and paintings offers unprecedented insights in the ‘Architectural Mind’.
Unlike what the word capriccio might suggest, it is not ‘capricious’ but indeed follows complex rules of realism and figuration, as well as coherent narratives and semantics. It is a playful reflection of the dialectics of the real and the ideal. The capriccio does not challenge the mechanism of reality, but questions the mechanic and linear reading of the real, of life and of art and offers a large palette of threads, figures, tones and nuances to illustrate and contribute creatively to the complexity of a sustainable built and living architectural environment.
Lucien Steil is an Associate Professor in Architecture at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana and Rome.
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C O N T E N T S
• Foreword: Capriccio: The efficacy of spatial narrative, Michael Graves
• Preface: The Architectual Capriccio: Memory, fantasy, invention, Lucien Steil
• Introduction, Alireza Sagharchi
• ‘Il Capriccio’, Definition of the capriccio (caprice) in the French Larousse Dictionary, trans. Julie Kleinman
• Meaning and purpose of the Capriccio, David Mayernik
• The poietic image, Samir Younés
• The Capricci of Giovanni Paolo Panini, David Mayernik
• Patronage in the golden age of the Capriccio, Selena Anders
• The grand tour, Lucien Steil
• Capriccio: The leap of the goat or the unexpected, Jose Cornelio da Silva
• Metaphors for a political urban landscape: Schinkel’s Capricci of a ‘new Athens-on-the-Spree’, Jean-François Lejeune
• J.M. Gandy’s composite views for John Soane, William Palin
• American Capriccio: Imaginary architecture in nineteenth-century painting, Gail Leggio
• The Capricci of Carl Laubin, David Watkin
• Symmetria and ethics: The didactic Capriccio, David Ligare
• Settings: Emily Allchurch and the old masters, Xavier Bray and Minna Moore Ede
• Massimo Scolari, Leon Krier
• Drawing, Leon Krier
• Capriccio, Leon Krier
• ‘Imago Luxemburgi’, Leon Krier
• The Capriccio and poetical realism, Lucien Steil
• Urban chiaroscuro (after Piranesi): Behind the scenes, Emily Allchurch
• Sublime architecture: Capricci in sketchbook and paintings, Lucien Steil
• Le Corbusier’s eye and the vanishing point of modernity, David Brain
• The architectural project: An homage to Rob Krier, Lucien Steil
• ‘La citta analoga’: Thoughts on the urban Capriccio for the design of real cities, Pier Carlo Bontempi
• Magical realism in Miami, Javier Cenicaceleya
• A very British Capriccio, Alireza Sagharchi
• Building the Capriccio, Robert Adam
• Capricci capricciosi, Ettore Maria Mazzola
• The double nature of the architectural Capriccio: From pictorial fiction to urban reality, Jean Dethier
• Postface: ‘techne’ and technology, Lucien Steil
• The aura of the computer generated image: Or virtuosity and the cult of the artifact, Dialog between Alireza Sagharchi and Gil Gorski
• Index
Enfilade 
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